Exploring Boys' Education

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. IBSC

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. IBSC

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. IBSC

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. Andrew Reiner · IBSC

In this episode of the IBSC Exploring Boys' Education Podcast, Chris Ekron challenges the win-at-all-costs culture that still dominates many boys' school sports programs. The Playbook Ed cofounder and former head of sports performance at Bishops Diocesan College (South Africa) draws on his PhD research and Paul Wylleman's four-pillar model of student-athlete development to make the case for redefining high performance around the whole boy—not just the Saturday scoreboard.

Discover why the real metrics of a successful sports program are process wins during the week, character growth, and whether boys still love the game long after they leave school. Ekron shares practical strategies for relational coaching, from 30-second corridor conversations to breaking down the silos between coaches, teachers, and pastoral staff, and explains how a simple schedule-mapping exercise can reveal just how little time boys have "just to be a boy."

Tune in to learn how schools can build sports environments where well-being forms the foundation for performance, stakeholder expectations are managed with clarity, and every student—not just the A-team athlete—is developed to reach his personal best.

IBSC Exploring Boys’ Education music composed and performed by Tom DiGiovanni. PLAYBOOK ED · IBSC