Despite being the head of the association responsible for promoting boys’ schools around the world, Tom Batty has no problem with co-education. He just wants parents to have a choice.
And, if they ultimately decide a co-ed school is better for their son, he wants those schools to provide a better “boys education” than is often on offer.
Tom Batty, head of the International Boys’ School Coalition, which represents over 300 boys’ schools in 15 countries.Credit: Rhett Wyman
“It’s important that the head of the school, and the school, is doing something about the fact that boys and girls, on average, develop at different times, at different rates,” he says.
Batty is speaking to the Herald at the sprawling campus of private boys school Trinity Grammar, in Sydney’s inner west, days after the NSW government signalled it would merge more single-sex public boys’ and girls’ schools into co-educational campuses.
“If the government is offering parents greater choice for their decision on where they want their children to go to be educated, I think it’s a good thing,” he says.
But Batty, executive director of the International Boys’ School Coalition, with a CV including all-boys’ UK private school Eton, Waverley College in Sydney and head of Melbourne’s Scotch College, thinks boys’ schools must be part of the mix.
Why? He points to clear signs that a significant portion of boys are being failed by the education system: worsening problems with online porn, gaming addictions and violent content. More men are dying by suicide and fewer are going to university.
Students at Trinity Grammar last year: Tom Batty says boys’ schools are better placed to help them find things they are passionate about and master them.Credit: Kate Geraghty
“So the question goes back to education,” Batty says. “Are we doing the best thing? Are we providing the best education for our children?”
Shifts to co-education are planned at some Sydney private boys’ schools, including Newington in Stanmore, to the upset of some alumni, and Cranbrook in Bellevue Hill. Others – including Hornsby’s Barker College and Marist North Shore in North Sydney – have already taken the plunge.
Despite common perceptions that boys’ schools allow toxic male behaviour to fester unchecked, Batty said boys’ schools might be better placed to address behavioural and wellbeing issues.
“We shine the light on those things that are, on average, more likely to be areas where girls send us signals,” he says.
“We shine the light on anxiety, we shine the light on weight loss, we shine a light on self harm.”
He references the work of US teen developmental psychologist Dr Lisa Damour to contend that troubling issues faced by boys are not getting the same attention as those affecting teenage girls.
A good boys’ education, Batty says, is heavily relational, helping students find purpose and be part of something bigger than themselves.
“Boys’ schools have the capacity that they can target everything to the development of boys ... you can use the strong relational base of boys’ education as a lever to be able to address those bad behaviours that we don’t like happening.
“We don’t want a situation where [boys] are not actually given guidance on care, they just watch around and try and work it out for themselves.”
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