How can we Inspire Boys to Aim High?

People were complaining that boys wrote badly and didn't try back in the 1920s. Big speeches about aspiration rarely change it. Boys tend to aim higher when they expect to do well, can see what a good piece of work looks like, and can struggle without losing face in front of their mates.

You'll get classroom ideas that build that expectation. Knowledge organisers give them something clear to test themselves on. A game of Articulate makes the key vocabulary feel like theirs. A simple five-point scale rewards how they work as well as how well they do. An experienced teacher who has worked in boys', girls' and mixed schools shares what's worked, including the reluctant reader who turned out to be reading fishing magazines in the cloakroom.

Most of it helps every pupil, which suits the main message: see each boy as an individual, and check your own assumptions.