A quarter of primaries have no male teachers

One in four primary schools in England has no male teacher.
New figures obtained by the Daily Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act show that 4,587 schools have only women on the teaching staff.
Some counties, including Hertfordshire, Derbyshire, Essex, Surrey, Hampshire, Lancashire, Norfolk and Cumbria, have more than 100 primary schools where there is not a single male teacher. On the Isle of Wight there are no male teachers in any primary school.
There are no figures available on the number of male teaching assistants but it is probably even lower than the number of male teachers, because of the pay levels.
The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) is trying to recruit more men to train as primary teachers. Research carried out by the TDA found that male primary school teachers were considered by many men to be an important role model to children with no men living in the family home.
More than a third of men felt that having a male primary teacher challenged them to work harder at school and 22 per cent believed that male primary teachers helped build their confidence while they were young.
The men surveyed reported that they were more likely to approach male teachers with issues of bullying (50 per cent), problems at home (29 per cent) and questions about puberty (24 per cent).
Men currently account for 13 per cent of registered primary school teachers, according to figures from the General Teaching Council. However, the numbers of male primary trainee teachers has steadily been increasing by around one percentage point year on year, says the TDA.