By Will Durham, Director of the William Ellis Trust
It was with great pleasure that I stood at the back of the main school hall on the evening of Thursday 22nd October and listened to twelve remarkably articulate and wise young men hold an audience of more than 100 people enthralled. In a panel discussion and in answering questions from a captivated audience, the boys showed vulnerability, honesty, compassion and resilience against a backdrop of social change and pressure. I spent much of the hour and ten minutes they were on stage with a large grin on my face, and I could see I was far from alone.
The topics and questions ranged widely. The boys reassured parents that they were doing a great job raising young men, firmly scoffed at the idea that Andrew Tate remains remotely relevant, played down concerns around the spread of looksmaxxing, and offered advice on talking with younger children about some of the themes they were discussing. Audience members asked them to visit their own schools (the boys said yes) and even to go on a national tour to share their messages.
William Ellis Headteacher Izzy Jones said: “We gave the boys creative freedom and it was an opportunity to create a scalable resource to be used in other contexts. Listening to boys provides a strengths-based counterpoint to the assumptions about them being a problem in society.”
Parent Richard Paul Robinson said: “I am so impressed with what the pupils achieved. I work in video and the media industry, and this podcast and the team around it is phenomenal – it needs to be heard more widely.”
These twelve Year 11 pupils made up three-quarters of the production team behind the podcast series From the Boys, which the event officially launched. You can read about the project in more depth here, and watch the making-of video, which shows the love and care that went into the production behind the scenes. Developed in partnership by Middlesex University, William Ellis School (WES) and the William Ellis Trust, the project was designed to platform the voices of young men speaking about their own lives.
It builds on a strong body of work the University has delivered with WES and other North London schools, and on a shared desire to include young men in the conversations that so often take place about them but without their input. The series shows them to be the considered, loving and articulate future men we know the vast majority of young men to be. That is far removed from the deficit narratives about adolescent boys that dominate so much media coverage. Our role at the Trust allowed us to enrich and enhance this collaboration, both providing and securing the funding required to deliver this larger-scale project.
The boys’ voices are already reaching well beyond the school hall. On the morning of the launch, those involved spoke to Aaron Paul on BBC Radio London Breakfast. The project has also featured on BBC London News and in the Ham & High and the Barnet Post. Educational publishers have asked for articles about it, and workshops on its approach are being booked for this term.
How you can help
As Richard said, this series needs to be heard more widely, and that is where you come in.
Listen and follow. From the Boys is available now on Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Bestpodcasts ·. Ratings and reviews help new listeners find it.
Share it. Pass an episode on to friends, family, colleagues, and anyone who works with or is raising young people. If you work in a school or youth organisation and would like to use the series or hear from the boys, please get in touch.
Support work like this. From the Boys was made possible by our modest core budget and generous support from the Hadley Trust, the Hampstead Wells and Campden Trust, Olly Olsen and members of our Rather Use Than Fame Club. Joining the Club, or making a one-off donation, helps us create more opportunities like this for William Ellis pupils.
My thanks go to Middlesex University, to the WES staff who supported the project, to everyone who came along on Thursday, and above all to the boys themselves. They made us proud, and they gave us a great deal to think about.
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