Children as young as three learn to combat toxic masculinity at London schools

Evening Standard

Children as young as three are being taught to reject toxic masculinity at schools across London in a bid to reduce youth violence and misogyny.With fears over the impact of controversial online influencers like Andrew Tate, an initiative helping pupils with their social and emotional learning has seen positive results.Their research suggests some are 82 per cent less likely to commit crime if they don’t conform to dangerous gender stereotypes seen online.The Standard visited St Saviour’s nursery and primary school in Poplar, east London.

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00:00neuroscience is very clear that foundationally if you want to make a difference if you want to

00:06influence mindset positively pro-socially you have to go in before the age of six

00:14it's children between three and six where you can actually build a foundation for the rest

00:22of their lives but if you go in after six the habits of mind have already formed

00:28the neuro pathways are laid you can't make much of a difference and why bring this program because

00:35nobody is teaching our children self-esteem and empathy and peaceful conflict resolution and how

00:42to behave respectfully and with love and kindness and if we don't teach it to them how do we expect

00:49them when they grow up to have these qualities they don't the opposite is true so i recall from

00:57a couple of decades ago having um you know been knowing children who have gone through the youth

01:03justice system for crimes committed by the age by the time they leave primary that we don't have

01:09anymore not just because the system doesn't necessarily have the level of support but we

01:14our children don't do that and i believe that thinking court is a critical part in that um i

01:21also think that the we don't have any permanent exclusions and we have a lower rate of suspensions

01:26because of the emotional development of the child we've got the take up in london but this is not

01:32just an urban problem is it i mean you know this is something that is repeated across the country

01:38absolutely our children need social emotional education they're not getting it uh particularly

01:44at that very early age think equal provides the tools for our early years practitioners to deliver that

01:52in their classrooms in their settings um in a evidence-informed quality way so they know that

01:59what they're picking up is you know has an assurance to it um and the stories are beautiful and the

02:07practitioners like to deliver them so it means that all our children are are getting that education which

02:13is a missing element of our our education and how dangerous are the social media influencers who some

02:20of the kids might see online how dangerous is it if they get into their heads i think social media is

02:27incredibly dangerous and i mean one only has to look at you know what it has led to in terms of

02:35encouraging suicides and misogyny and murders and knife crimes and hate crimes but all the more reason

02:48why we need to fortify our children while we can so when we can actually go in and say to a child

02:56an act that is unkind is not welcome it's not something that you want to identify with or or allow

03:05think it is the the preventative aspect of you put the work in now and you reap the benefits

03:12lifelong for any human development rather than um picking up after things have happened

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