Well, he's found something else that boys don't do for this latest series, and that's read. He's turning his attention and his enthusiastic and highly motivational approach to tackling the widening gender gap, where boys lag behind girls in reading by 6 percentage points and in writing by 15 percentage points.
It's a tough challenge with no quick way to instil the magic of reading. "Mr Malone ain't got a chance of making any boy like literacy because it's boring and it always will be," said one of his class. "None of the boys will ever like it."
It all shares huge similarities with our own Out of the Box programme, which supported developmental opportunities for young people disaffected or disengaged from formal education. It did this by encouraging young people in youth work settings to read more widely and more frequently and by supporting stronger library-youth work partnerships. Feedback showed more young people reading more often and more widely (see the reports on our website).
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