We need to encourage more men into teaching so that young boys have role models to look up to - Sarah Todd

Over 30 years ago, as a trainee reporter, the newsroom was dominated by larger-than-life male characters. There was always a tendency to shove us girls sideways towards feature writing; coming up with something light for the female readers to read flick through during their coffee break. The truth was, we were pretty good at getting the hard news stories and interviewees would often open up more to the girl on the doorstep than the burly bloke in a mac.

That young reporter went on to edit a magazine and there were times when - through circumstance rather than design - everyone on the staff was female. It never sat right. We always performed better if there was a good mix of men and women on the team. Even today, it’s a bit of a party trick to be able to pick up any publication and put a figure on the girl-to-boy ratio.

It’s long been this correspondent’s belief that schools are a sector which is too female dominated. A lot of young lads don’t have a positive male role model in their lives. They are looked after by mothers and grandmothers, so it does them no favours to go to school and see nothing but more women. It leaves them isolated and uninspired.

Our village primary school once had a male trainee teacher and The Son suddenly bucked up his ideas and started to look forward to lessons. It’s not rocket science. Women make up as many as 97 per cent of teachers in pre-primary education and 82 per cent in primary education. So those early years are very much dominated by women. While it’s a lower percentage, 63 per cent, at secondary school age it is still too high.

Now, this is a controversial thought, but how about giving male teachers a cash incentive to join the profession? That’s a pay deal this taxpayer would support. The knock-on benefits of having more males teaching would be felt for generations to come.

Not only fresh-faced young men straight out of university, but those who have life experiences from the outside world and want to retrain as teachers.

At our children’s secondary school it was the male teachers who got the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme going and seemed to be able to get through to lads who might otherwise have gone off the rails. Society’s lack of positive male role models for boys is ignored at our peril.

Somewhere along the line academic achievement seems to have overtaken aptitude as the pathway to a successful career. Getting top grades at school doesn’t make it a cert that a student is going to go on and become, for example, a good vet.

Back in 1960 only five per cent of veterinary surgeons were female, however figures from 2021 show over 60 per cent of practising vets are women. Time and again boys are pushed to the bottom of the pile by girls who swot more for exams.

Back to where we started, with Kim Thornden-Edwards. She seems to completely get this and is opening a non-graduate route for trainee probation officers - with GCSEs the only qualification needed.

Finding the key to unlocking better behaviour among the 240,000 former prisoners and offenders serving sentences in our communities could well have as much to do with common sense and life experiences as any amount of A levels.

Talking of behaviour, at a dinner at the weekend youngsters (teens and 20s) were talking through the speeches; showing absolutely no respect whatsoever. A few funny looks from yours truly had absolutely zero impact and for the first time ever it seemed potentially more bother than it was worth to go over and say something.

Yes, as a middle-aged woman it was obvious that - in this situation - any efforts would be in vain. They wouldn’t even have stopped talking long enough to look up at the little red-headed woman complaining.

Interestingly, the one person they did listen to was the evening’s DJ. Keen to get on with his set, he took to his microphone and called for a bit of quiet. You’ve guessed it. He was a really cool looking bloke in his early 30s. He spoke their language and so they respected and listened to him.