As head teacher of Scotland’s last remaining all-boys school, Huw Jones believes instilling emotional resilience is key to tackling toxic masculinity

A misogyny crisis among young men will only be solved by 'teaching boys to be both vulnerable and resilient', the head of Scotland's last all-boys school has said.

Huw Jones took over as head of Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh last year and is determined to foster a climate that protects against the so-called 'manosphere'.

His comments come as increasing numbers of women teachers in Scotland report feeling intimidated and threatened by the sexist and misogynist behaviour of male pupils.

The pattern comes amid the rise of the manosphere, a loose network of online communities and influencers, such as Andrew Tate, which are focused on men's issues but intertwined with misogynistic views and hostility towards women.

Mr Jones said: "There is a crisis. But my personal take is we're viewing that crisis the wrong way.

"I don't think boys are broken, or men are broken. I think there's a real lack of identity, belonging and connection, particularly in men and boys and that manifests itself in a lack of self-esteem. The manosphere, Andrew Tate, what are they selling? They're selling belonging. They're selling certainty. It is quite clever and manipulative because it ties into human traits."

Mr Jones said the culture of a school is vital.

His focus at Merchiston is on ensuring boys feel cared for, high expectations are set for them, and that they are treated as capable young people who can contribute to the community.

"And that's the air the pupils breathe in," he said. "We've been been building that since I joined the school. If you look at self-esteem and young people, those keep coming up in research as three really important factors and if they're all together in one environment, they seem to have this amplification effect."

Mr Jones says pupils need to be able to "metabolise" those factors into emotional resilience, literacy and regulation.

Although he appreciates his staff has the luxury of teaching in an "intentionally small" community, he said the principles should apply to all young people.

"Men and boys are searching for identity. The ground shifted. The traditional roles of masculinity have changed - rightly so," he said. "We want men to be emotionally open and connected, but I would then argue, well, what are we doing to facilitate that?"

Mr Jones joined Merchiston in July last year and has completed his first two terms.

He took over headship at the prestigious boarding school shortly after Lady Smith, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry chairwoman, produced a coruscating report into historic abuse at Merchiston.

Lady Smith found voyeurism, indecent exposure and indecent assaults had become normalised at the fee-paying school over 60 years.

The school issued an "unreserved apology" to former pupils and has emphasised a focus on nurture.

Mr Jones is an advocate for single-sex schooling, saying there is a misconception that by putting boys and girls together there are better outcomes.

"The advantage you have by being single-sex is you can be intentional," he said.

"If you just have boys or just have girls, you can design a school system and curriculum and culture focusing on on being intentional around educating and nurturing either girls or boys."

Mr Jones says parents tell the school that their sons' ability to concentrate is diminished due to social media use.

"We live in a quite negative, cynical, immediate and intense environment," Mr Jones said.

"So how do we build a positive mindset? How do we create a culture of optimism? What the manosphere and technology touches on is attention control in a stimulus-rich environment."

Teaching critical thinking is vital to approach algorithm-driven content with a dose of healthy scepticism.

"We teach them that their view is just a hypothesis and it's important to try to find evidence to support that, rather than getting pulled down an echo chamber."

Specifically, for boys, it is vital to focus on the idea of vulnerability, he says.

"Traditionally we've taught boys to become men through becoming invulnerable," he said. "And I think that's a real problem.

"We're all imperfect, we're all vulnerable, and so opening that conversation and being really clear about that is important. But then you have to teach them what to do with that because otherwise they become this person with lots of feelings and they want someone else to deal with them. Then we're just swapping one form of patriarchy for another form of patriarchy. They have to be responsible for those emotions."

On the use of tech in Merchiston, Mr Jones says "you have to have humility" because no one knows the answers.

He said: "In the online world the more negative, the more outrageous, the more extreme then the more it proliferates, the more views it gets. At the moment young people are seeing 100 metres of social media feed a day and they're pulling from the fringes but they think they're seeing the world."

There is, he adds, a place for restriction and the school has robust rules around devices during the school day.

Boarders, however, have their phones returned in the evening but hand them back again at night.

He role models responsible phone use by locking his own mobile away while working and setting a timer for use to avoid the "vortex of stimulation".

Being non-judgemental and actively listening is also important, Mr Jones, says as he wants pupils with concerns about online content to be able to approach staff.

"You're never going to catch everything," he said. "So you have to have an ability for those young people to come and tell you and want to have that conversation."

Mr Jones believes that the social media landscape will change rapidly so that young people under 16 will not have access.

"We know that the world's rapidly changing," the head teacher added. "The one thing a young person is going to need to be in the modern world is adaptable because it is super fast paced. As an educator, it's a challenging time but it's a really exciting time. I think we can make a real difference."