Exploring Boys' Education

Season eight of the Exploring Boys’ Education Podcast opens with a conversation on boys, focus, and the body. Laura Ambrogi (St. Christopher's School, United States) and Mugsy Quinn (St. Stithians Boys' Preparatory School, South Africa), winners of the 2026 IBSC Action Research Award, discuss the classroom tools they built to help boys regulate their emotions and refocus. Both researchers noticed the same pattern: boys labeled as behavior problems were often struggling to regulate emotion, not misbehaving. Ambrogi’s proprioceptive exercises and Quinn’s breathwork card game both work the body first, calming an activated nervous system so the “thinking brain” can re-engage. In both projects, the real turning point came when boys were given ownership of the techniques, choosing, leading, and teaching them to each other. IBSC members can access Ambrogi's report, Quinn's report, and the entire collection of 2025-26 Action Research reports now. Applications for the 2027-28 IBSC Action Research Program, on the theme “Building Community: Boys as Readers, Thinkers, Innovators, and Contributors,” are open now and close November 1, 2026. New episodes of the IBSC Exploring Boys' Education podcast are available exclusively to IBSC members on the IBSC website for the first two weeks. Afterward anyone may access them from all popular podcast platforms. We encourage you to share this resource across and beyond your school community! Listen on your favorite podcast app. IBSC Exploring Boys’ Education music composed by Tom DiGiovanni.

In this episode of the IBSC Exploring Boys' Education Podcast, educators, researchers, and school leaders from around the world reflect on what boys actually need from the institutions that shape them. Across season 7, three themes emerge from the conversations: the environments schools create, the inner lives boys conceal, and the adults who choose to pay attention. IBSC Exploring Boys' Education music composed and performed by Tom DiGiovanni.

In this episode of the IBSC Exploring Boys' Education Podcast, Bruce Collins revisits a year of IBSC online programming, pulling together the ideas that ran through session after session. Three themes emerge from the year: connection as the foundation of boys' development, the digital world boys now navigate, and the case for boys' schools as the institutions best built to respond to both. Tune in for a tour through the year’s most useful ideas on boys, connection, and the schools built to deliver both. IBSC Exploring Boys' Education music composed and performed by Tom DiGiovanni.

In this episode of the IBSC Exploring Boys' Education Podcast, Anna-Louise Simpson, head of Wadhurst at Melbourne Grammar School (Australia), and Kerry Oldman, middle school executive director and acting deputy principal at Melbourne Girls' Grammar School, discuss what genuine, sustained coed collaboration between neighboring single-gender schools can look like. Just 700 meters apart, the two schools have built a deliberate partnership that goes well beyond the occasional joint performance or school dance. Discover how the Melbourne Experience, a weeklong, student-led documentary project set across the city, creates the conditions for boys and girls to build real trust, take responsibility, and see past stereotype. Simpson and Oldman also walk through their Healthy Relationships Programme, which brings together year 8 students for structured—sometimes challenging—conversations about consent, online behavior, and gender equality. Tune in to learn what it takes for a boys' school to approach a neighboring girls' school with the humility and preparation that make collaboration genuinely worthwhile. IBSC Exploring Boys’ Education music composed and performed by Tom DiGiovanni.

In this episode of the IBSC Exploring Boys' Education Podcast, writer and Towson University lecturer Andrew Reiner discusses the "1.0 script" of masculinity and what genuine resilience looks like for boys today. Drawing on his extensive research and interviews with students globally, Reiner explores the hidden emotional landscape boys navigate and the chasm between their public personas and private struggles. Discover why reframing behaviors—such as excessive gaming, pornography, and online betting—not as moral failures but as self-medication for crisis-level stress is essential for modern educators. Reiner shares insights from a "mask exercise" conducted in schools, revealing the pervasive feelings of loneliness and confusion that often sit beneath a confident exterior. Tune in to learn the "four C's" framework—compassion, curiosity, commiseration, and context—a practical road map for any teacher or school leader looking to build the emotional safety nets boys need to flourish. Explore how schools can move beyond traditional notions of independence to foster genuine connection and belonging. IBSC Exploring Boys’ Education music composed and performed by Tom DiGiovanni.