Lost Boys: Is demonising teenage boys part of the problem?

0:02Jason Farrell:Sky News, the full story first.

0:08Jason Farrell:On the Sky News Daily with me, Gareth Barlow, as an increasing number of children are growing up without fathers at home, we explore why their sons seem to struggle the most and how one head teacher is changing their lives and bringing them hope.

0:25Jason Farrell:Knowing that your own father is not there growing up or, you know, you start to question yourself. but am I enough? Am I the problem? It's simple things, like when I was learning to do a tie, I was using YouTube, when that's one of the moments you want to be able to go to a dad. That's Raphael, who was just two when his dad left home. He's part of a generation that's been called the Lost Boys as they fought behind girls in school and in work. Raphael, though, now goes to school where the head teacher decided to do something about that.

0:52Chris Edwards:The young boys aren't monsters. They're actually just a smaller version of us as adults, as long as they've got the right people around them. and that is what this is about in a nutshell.

1:01Jason Farrell:Sky News has spent months with Chris Edwards as he tried to get his project off the ground and Jason Frow's film documenting it has already gone on social media and has got plenty of engagement. A greater initiative, says Jack Meddings. Get them off social, says Daisy, and from Alexis, this. The reason they seek out figures like Andrew Tate is because he offers men and boys a type of masculine identity. I think there's such a thing as toxic feminism and that is what has done this to boys. Well, let's talk about it with Chris Edwards, head of Brighton Hill Community School and Sky's Home Affairs editor Jason Farrell, who are both with us now.

1:36Jason Farrell:And Chris, let's start with you. You teach at a mixed school. You've got boys and girls with you. Talk to us about the differences between the sexes and the differences you've experienced for those that maybe don't have a father at home.

1:49Chris Edwards:The Lost Boys report from the Centre of Social Justice really stunned me. And I suppose it clarified in my head everything that I'd noticed over the years working with children in that boys are suffering. And there are numerous areas in which they are suffering. And actually, one of the areas that we know very well in education is that on average, they perform half a grade lower in every single GCSE than girls do. And it just seems to have been an accepted thing that that's just how boys perform. And actually, one of the things that has become clear to me over the last few months that maybe we have all been guilty of in education over many years is really re-emphasizing to our young boys just how much dangerous potential they have.

2:47Chris Edwards:And actually, things like adolescence really didn't help.

2:53Jason Farrell:adolescence, of course, the TV show that rock society, touch the prime minister, even made its way to awards season in Hollywood.

3:00Chris Edwards:I think the problem that we face is that boys are, I believe, working with them inherently good. If we keep telling them that they're potential menace to society, they're going to start believing it. And I had a real moment of realisation where I thought, well, how many assemblies have we sat these boys in and actually got behind them and championed them rather than tell them that they're part of an enormous problem and i think that is one of the big differences we play boys are being alienated because they are being associated with so many ills in society and and the in fairness the stats do back that up 96 percent of prisoners are male but we've got to an arm around them and try and be preemptive and prevent these things happening rather than just keep reinforcing what potential danger they might be to our society and none of this is to say that girls aren't struggling because they are life is difficult for young people currently but what we're saying and gareth southgate articulated this brilliantly in his dimblebee lecture is that what more can you do for a generation of girls than ensure that you've got a wonderful generation of young men coming through who aren't angry at the world and aren't resentful and they're just decent young men that's what we want we want them to be safe we want them to be happy and we've got an opportunity to do so and really start a movement here that could change a generation i hope

4:32Jason Farrell:jason how did you come across this story and why of all of the stories that are affecting society at the moment? Was this the one for you?

4:39Gareth Barlow:I've done a lot on violence against women and girls, a lot of reporting around that. And I saw the Southgate lecture, I saw adolescence, and I've known Chris for a long time. I called him up and said, what do you think about this? And he said, boys are getting a bad rap at the moment, come to my school, see what we're doing, acknowledging that there is a problem. So, you know, boys are joining primary school less ready than girls. They are doing worse in the GCSE. They're doing even worse in A-levels. And when it comes to leaving school, I thought one of the most shocking statistics, actually, from the Centre for Social Justice, was when it comes to children in training, education, or employment, the NEETs, the ones who are out of work, training and education, have actually gone up 40 % since the pandemic.

5:23Gareth Barlow:Whereas with girls, it has gone up slightly, but nowhere near as much. And so actually, it looks like a growing problem, and something that needed to be sorted out. So when Chris said, look, we're going to put our heads together and try and come up with a plan? Do you want to kind of see how it goes? I was absolutely up for that. And Chris's idea of creating a group of men to mentor the children who are struggling from the community seemed like a great idea, but also I did sort of wonder, hang on a second, who's going to sign up for that? That sounds like a bit of an ask from the local community.

5:53Gareth Barlow:We're used to going, what's the government going to do about this, rather than what we as a community going to do about this? What are we as parents going to do about this? It sounds ridiculous that that should be a novel thought. And sure enough, if you watch the report, we're standing there waiting to see who's going to turn up and it fills the room.

6:09Jason Farrell:Well, we'll get on to the boys in a second, but Chris, I just want to pick up on that moment. What was that like for you? Was there a bit of a pit of the stomach moment to see whether that community would step up?

6:20Chris Edwards:Yeah, there really was. I've been panicking all day and in the week leading up to it, actually, my deputy head here, Pete Beeching, who's been a great driving force behind this project, never gave up hope. And he was very positive. My fear was that either we'd have far too many mentors pull out on the day, or we'd have lots of the boys pull out during the day because it was six o 'clock to 8.30 in the evening. And we knew that it was a big ask to get the boys to come back, let alone the mentors who'd given up their time so generously.

6:53Jason Farrell:Talk to us about some of the young people that you've met and where they've

6:57Chris Edwards:come from we do have children who have had enormous barriers in their lives and they could have given up years ago and actually the two that jason followed on his piece are really good examples of boys who have just realized that they're facing hurdles but they're not letting them define them and that's one of the big things that we really want to drum into these young boys life is full of failure but it doesn't define you and actually what we are there to do and what our ever-increasing community of mentors is there to do is help pick them back up again and keep them on the right path so that they don't just give up and jason and i have talked numerous times about actually our age group our generation were so much less tolerant and supportive and mature than the boys that are in school these days.

7:54Chris Edwards:I can't emphasise that enough, actually, when you look at how compassionate and caring and courageous young boys are nowadays, it gives you great hope for the future.

8:05Jason Farrell:Chris's school, Jason, is but one school. If we kind of take the big umbrella view, the kind of the top-down view, what is the state of play kind of across the UK?

8:16Gareth Barlow:Societarily, we're talking about absent fatherhood, And it's increased. That absence has increased. One of the stats in the report was you're actually twice as likely to have a smartphone than your dad living at home. And that has become an increasing problem in the last 30, 40 years. And I think picking up on Chris's point about young men and how they've developed and changed over the years, I kind of would agree because of Andrew Tate and the kind of things that young men are exposed to these days online and on the internet and on their mobile phones, there's a lot of misogyny out there. We know that.

8:49Gareth Barlow:But most of the kids I met at Chris's school think Andrew Tate is an idiot. They might get influenced by other people, but most of them do accept that. And I think, you know, I went to an all-boys school and we had girls in the sixth form. Therefore, we were the most unemotionally connected young men you could imagine with these girls turning up. And I remember all sorts of things like girls walking into the dinner room and guys judging them and giving them marks out of 10 and stuff like that. And that sort of thing has existed amongst young men for a long time. And actually, the young men I meet, I've got two daughters, so I've got skin in the game here because I want them to be respected.

9:31Gareth Barlow:And the guys I meet through them are mostly decent young men. But equally, there are some who do get pulled into the incel culture. What we saw on adolescence was an extreme case. I think Chris particularly didn't like the way adolescence portrayed the school, right?

9:46Chris Edwards:I think the way the young people were portrayed in that. And also the way the school staff were portrayed in that didn't do us any favours. You know, there was a scene where the headteacher was questioning whether actually they should be involved in the police report simply because the murder didn't happen on school site. I was involved in a police incident where children were throwing cheese slices at someone's window up the road. You know, we get involved in everything. And the idea that a school wouldn't support in a murder case is just... I nearly turned it off. when I was watching it.

10:19Gareth Barlow:There was one truth in it, though, Chris, I thought. It rung to me when it was the young lad explaining all the emojis and all the differences and how adults don't really have a grasp on the language that is being used amongst young people. There's a detachment. There's a generational detachment there.

10:37Jason Farrell:Was that not always the case, though, between generations?

10:39Gareth Barlow:To an extent, I think that has been the case. But it surely has become emphasised by social media and the language of social media and the fact that that is now an interface that children have that we didn't have back in our day.

10:50Chris Edwards:I would agree with that. I think nowadays it is spread and shared so much quicker online, isn't it? You have this communal language of youth, which may be in our day, sounding like an old man here, but in our day, it was maybe a local thing that, you know, phrases that would pop up within certain schools or certain areas. Whereas nowadays, there is this slightly different language that young people use which is very hard to stay on top of and we're we do our best in schools and we're probably one of the best places to try and stay ahead of the game on on that front because the parents it's much much harder because they're not exposed to the volume of young people that we are and maybe don't pick up on it so much.

11:36Jason Farrell:I have the pleasure of listening to you and also watching Jason's reactions as you're talking and you kind of a close this story but then also removed from the story because this is Chris's project. What do you make of it from the outsider's perspective?

11:50Gareth Barlow:Well, I think we've all kind of been looking at this story from the outside, and that's why I wanted to get in, not just to talk to Chris, actually, but to talk to his young men. And it was a really great privilege to see, as a journalist, just, you know, how young men cope with the absence of a father. The most poignant quotes from the report that we did was first of all, I think when Raph said, you know, am I the problem? Because that was the question I think that was actually really kind of was behind everything that we've seen from the last year, from the Central Social Justice report to what Gareth Southgate was talking about.

12:28Gareth Barlow:It's boys asking themselves, am I a problem? Is it me? Is there something wrong with me? I said to him, what would you say to other young men without a father? And he said, well, you make it your why. You don't make it the reason not to do something. You make it the reason why you did do something.

12:42Chris Edwards:Teaching has changed over the years. The expectations now are so much higher than they used to be. And also we are dealing with a slightly more splintered society, which brings its own problems. But actually what we try and do in schools up and down the country is keep our children in that bubble of the school where they feel that they belong, where they can be safe and happy and successful and just send them off into the real world with that spark that we hope will ignite something further down the line and you can't put a price on that and that's why everyone I meet I try and get them to train to teach the young boys aren't monsters they're actually just smaller version of us as adults as long as they've got the right people around them and that is what this is about in a nutshell is immersing these boys with as many good people as we can possibly find and just keep them on the right tracks and be part of that journey to greatness.

13:47Jason Farrell:Well, on a positive note, it seems an apt place to finish this edition of The Daily. That was Chris Edwards, head of Brighton Hill Community School. In and amongst that conversation as well, our very own Home Affairs editor, Jason Farrell. You've been in the audience. I've been Gareth Barlow. The Daily is back again tomorrow.

14:07Thank you.