The Shropshire schools with no male teachers

Friday 13th August 2010, 12:15PM BST.

Many primary schools across Shropshire do not have one male teacher – depriving growing boys of a positive role model.

Official government statistics reveal the staffrooms of 68 primary schools and nurseries in the region are populated solely by women.

They show the classrooms of some 17 primaries and one nursery school in the Telford and Wrekin area have no male teachers.

In the rest of the county, the children at a total of 51 primary schools are only taught by female staff.

Nationally, 4,226 schools in England – 3,340 primaries and 386 nurseries – have no male staff, according to the latest data for 2009.

This is despite a long-running government campaign to encourage men back into what is now seen as a female profession.

Men also tend to shun working with younger children over fears they will be accused of paedophilia.

It means many children have no regular contact with an adult man until they go to secondary school aged 11.

But experts say it is vital for boys – particularly those who may not have a father at home – to have positive role models as they grow up.

According to the Government’s Trading and Development Agency, the number of applications from men to train to become primary school teachers has risen by 20 per cent over the last five years, while initial enquiries from men about entering the profession have risen by 45 per cent in the last year.

However, it remains the case that men still only account for 15 per cent of registered teaching staff in primary schools, according to figures from the General Teaching Council.

The TDA is awaiting its new remit from the coalition Government.

By London Reporter Sunita Patel

1
eva land

August 13, 2010 at 14:35

I have always thought this was a bad thing and very strange in so far as primary school teaching is well paid career, fitting in with family life so much more than other public sectors jobs.

Ironically when my youngest son was going up in to year 6 he was told by the head that he was going to be moved to the other top year class meaning he would not get the teacher I preferred and would be separated from his friends for his final year. The reason? Apparently the reason was that there was a gender inbalance in his class!!!!!

I made it clear I was not happy about this and I had to go to a governer in the end to argue my case. We still did not know whether or not he would be moved until the week before he was going back to school at the end of the summer holidays.

I pointed out that a gender inbalance in the class, which BTW was quite minor, was nothing compared to the fact that there was only one male teacher always off sick, a male caretaker and one male voluntary assistant in the whole school of over 400 children.

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2
Alison Edwards

August 13, 2010 at 15:33

My husband took the decision to change career and has worked extremely hard ( thoroughly enjoying the process)to qualify this year as an NQT. He worked on placement in a Primary school in Shropshire, so gained lots of teaching experience and his colleague all thought extremely highly of him. He obtained an “Outstanding” report,however, unfortunately there was no vacancies at his training school and despite looking for a teaching job all over Shropshire with KS1 or KS2, he has been overlooked time and again in favour of young female NQT’S.He has loved his time in school with the children and is very frustrated at not being given a chance to put all his skills to use. I don’t know how this culture change will filter through to the Heads/ Board members who are responsible for employment in their schools.

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3
The LORD

August 13, 2010 at 22:25

This is the because Men can only put up with moaning for some part of the day, and due to the fact these women are also teachers they would get it ALLLLLLLL DAYYYYYYYYY

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4
John

August 17, 2010 at 04:54

Reasons? Same as everywhere in the modern world: People ask “Why does that -man- want to work with kids?” “Men do to many bad things to little kids (because only females are allowed to have people who do that, a single male who does what a dozen females do means that all men will do it).”

So you have teachers staring at the kids, ready to jump in at a moments notice to protect them from the teacher. At lunches the male teachers are basically ignored because they don’t participate in the girl talk and are out of place.. and overall it is just a miserable environment for most guys. Why would any male want to teach in a place that is always ready to call them criminals? Then again, the same goes in most other places males work. ^_^ Just worse when kids are involved.

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5
Matt

August 19, 2010 at 13:19

Quite simply, the child abuse paranoia of the 80′s scared the majority of potential male teachers into other fields. I recall a friend discussing career choices at the time, and saying “For a guy, joining the army is safer than early childhood education.”

The men that did teach through the 80′s and 90′s faced constant scrutiny and suspicion creating a hostile work environment. Many left teaching permanently.

Once the men were removed from teaching, women teachers started doing things their way. “Teaching” culture has become “female” culture. The right way to teach, to act around children, and even what to teach and how to assess students, has been defined by women. Many men simply don’t feel comfortable working in such an environment.

This feminisation of teaching methods and curriculum is directly responsible for the educational problems of the current generation of boys. The school system now favours girls and alienates boys, and watching their male teachers struggling to do their job under these conditions, does not make teaching a job that any boy would aspire to.

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6
Jason Millington

August 19, 2010 at 20:10

Quite simply all the incentives to teach have all been aimed at Secondary School teaching. The Labour Governorment pushed cash incentives and golden helos at PGCE and BA students to convince them to teach secondary subjects that were in shortage. What would you do? Train for 4 years and come out at the end of it heavily in debt but a primary teacher or have your student loans paid off to go a teach Science in a secondary school.

This is the reason why many men don’t teach at Primary level!

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