KHS Year 9 Boys to Men Program

“Boys to Men” (Year 9) group is an interactive program set up to give young male students the space to discuss some of the issues and situations they encounter during formative teenage years. This program aims to target all our Year 9 boys, and runs one session per week during each term. Over 90% of our senior male students had participated in this program. Feedback from students has been overwhelmingly positive, which justifies the importance of running such programs in our school.

Issues discussed in the program include gender stereotyping; values and beliefs; bullying; respect; peer pressure; taking responsibility; expressing feelings; healthy relationships; violence/anger; pornography; the influence of the media; male mental health and suicide.

Young men in generally find it difficult to express emotions, to show emotional vulnerability, or to admit weakness. We are aiming for the program to empower our male students to have the confidence to ask for help, to recognise positive and negative behaviours, to take ownership of their behaviours, to show respect to others and of course themselves and enable our students to genuinely open up and consider lots of things about being a Man in society today.