Girls and Boys

Our after-school Church Club at the Infants School met for the first time this Wednesday, twelve five-to-seven year-olds kept in loose order by three adults (usually including me) to be told a Bible story, and engage in various puzzles, games and craft activities. There has long been a gender imbalance in the group, but this term we have eleven girls to one boy, which is remarkable. Children of this age don't avoid the opposite sex in the way they do a bit later on, so it's hard to understand why this should be. Another church group for older, junior-school-age children kept going for a while with an entirely female membership before folding this term, hopefully only temporarily. Perhaps the purpose of a church group isn't as clear as some of the other groups available to children; and neither active enough to appeal to little boys themselves, nor aspirational enough to appeal to their parents, and so we tend to mop up a disproportionate number of girls whose parents are less concerned about what they do. 

Our one boy has more behavioural issues than anyone else in the school, which is another demographic Church Club has tended to cater for in the past. Having said that he was near-ecstatic to be there. 'Awesome!' was his almost unreasonably enthusiastic response to being given a folder to put his puzzle sheets in. He disappeared at one point and I wasn't sure whether he'd gone to see his mum who was waiting not far away in case there were any problems. 'Lewis is in the toilet,' one of the girls informed me, 'He's doing a poo so he'll be a while', helpfully if unnecessarily adding.