Photo by MTJ Media

What you can do:

Many of the strategies outlined elsewhere will help you embed learning across the curriculum, enabling boys to see the purpose of what they are learning, to enjoy their learning, and to apply this learning more widely. These include:

• Regular and purposeful talk – as a means of teaching and as a way of reflecting on learning
• The use of active and interactive learning strategies such as play, drama, ICT
• The use of learning targets and celebrating achievement
• Involving parents so that learning can be reinforced at home, and made relevant to children’s lives outside school
• Ensure plenty of practice, repetition and reinforcement of skills in different contexts. A cross-curricular or thematic approach to teaching and learning can support this. It reflects the holistic way that most of us naturally learn outside school and helps boys in particular to develop a wider understanding. It can also be great fun!
• A broad and high interest topic will engage the learner, make the learning feel relevant and can offer different ways in to the learning for different learners
• Links between different subjects should be meaningful, not forced – you shouldn’t be trying to squeeze every subject out of a given theme
• Careful planning is required to ensure curriculum coverage, but you also need to allow children opportunities to explore a theme for themselves
• A sustained ‘block’ of learning is essential to support repetition and reinforcement of concepts
• Make use of the learning environment, displays etc to reinforce your theme

If you would like more information about the reasons for some boys’ underachievement in literacy and how we can overcome this we suggest you read the Project X Handbook: Get the Boys Reading and Writing: The Essential Guide to Raising Boys’ Achievement.