An Auckland primary school has introduced a single-sex class for some of its male students. That doesn't sound unusual, except the rest of the school is co-educational.
Belmont Primary decided to try the idea after finding it had too many boys, and it's had some interesting results.
Three-hundred and seventy-five pupils attend Belmont, including seven-year-old Ryan Goldsworthy. But he's off to learn alongside 20 other boys, with not a girl in sight.
"For my particular son, focusing is not something that comes easy," says mother Kim Goldsworthy. "He has very high energy levels, so we saw it as a very good opportunity to test perhaps a different style of education."
Belmont says it had noticed boys struggling in classes with girls.
"We saw a lot of boys maybe that would sit back and be passengers in the class," says teacher Peter Thorne. "They'd kind of be happy just to let others step up and answer questions and get involved in the learning."
This year the school found it had more boys than girls in years three and four – the perfect opportunity to try its idea of a single-sex class.
"We're roughly about 93 percent at or above National Standards," says principal Bruce Cunningham, "so our data doesn't suggest we need a boy-only [class]. It was centred around engagement and motivation, and different learning styles."
The class's subjects are the same as the rest of the school, but the structure of lessons is different. Most days start with fitness, before 20-minute stints of focused work broken up by bursts of movement.
There are no set desks, and there's no proper way to sit on a chair.
"They're all really, really active in the room," says Mr Thorne. "Not necessarily active all the time as in moving, but active in terms of sharing ideas, asking questions, feeding off each other."
Entire schools focused on a single gender are common. There are 96 single-sex high schools in New Zealand. A recent study found that students at single-sex schools, like Auckland Grammar, do better than those in co-educational schools, regardless of their socio-economic background – which could explain in part why Grammar is one of the top schools in the country.
There are no single-sex primary schools in New Zealand, but Mr Cunningham says it's something worth considering.
"I was talking to a colleague yesterday and he is thinking of turning half his school into boys-only classes and the other half into girls-only classes," says Mr Cunningham.
So will Ryan head to an all-boys high school?
"I do think as they get older and puberty hits, things change a little bit," says Ms Goldsworthy. "We'll probably take that day by day."
But with the lessons learnt here, it's hoped from now on when a teacher asks a question, it won't just be the girls putting up their hands.
3 News
source: newshub archive
