to be shocked...

[financialliability]

that no-one seems to care that girls in state funded schools are being discriminated against BECAUSE THEY ARE GIRLS and being under funded in their education by the state and their local LEAS.

The evidence is there that girls' state schools are being given a significantly smaller amount of money per pupil than the equivalent boys' school in similar areas.

Nothing to do with SEN, or economic background, purely to do with the pupils' gender.

I think we need to do something about this.

Help.

link

[PrincessScrumpy]

I went to a girls' school in Kent and my brother went to the boys' school. The link you put in assumes that because they are selective schools they don't have SEN - not true and in face the boys' school had teaching assistants etc for special needs before the girls' school did - my mum was the first sen TA there. This will be why the money is different. It will not be due to gender.

I work in a mixed school now and girls and boys get the same funding!

[financialliability]

Please read the full set of posts, and actually read the initial post, before you assume this is a SEN issue - the schools have very similar SEN profiles.

Also as a general rule of thumb, girls tend to perform better in a single sex environment, especially in subjects that are considered 'male' dominated, like sciences, so the argument that they shouldn't have the opportunity to perform to the best of their ability in a single sex environment, so as to receive equal funding, is a very strange one.

Princess - are you implying that girls only deserve equal funding if they forgo the opportunity to perfom to the best of their ability in a single sex environment?

[PigTail]

I care that single sex grammar schools are receiving more money than mixed sex comprehensives.

Obviously not a SEN issue.

[financialliability]

PIGTAIL Mixed sex comps receive a LOT more money per head than the grammar schools - try looking at the figures.

I have not seen a single case where a grammar school receives more funding than a comp, quite the contrary as the additional funding IS based on SEN needs and additional support needs - generally required more in comps than grammar schools.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ THE POSTS.

I care that children of the same ability are being descriminated against based on their gender.

[financialliability]

Pardon me Pigtail - I have had a closer look and in some cases you are correct.

It seems the figures do need a closer look.

[hairyfairylights]

I'm shocked that there are stil segretated schools in the state system in the first place.

[mutznutz]

It may be nothing to do with SEN but at the same time, boys are statistically doing worse at literacy for example than girls...so perhaps that's where the extra funding is going.

[2blessed2bstressed]

Maybe because I live in Scotland - didn't think there were still such things as single sex state schools anyway, and obviously the whole grammar/comp thing is different too.

[financialliability]

Why? Girls perform BETTER in 'segregated' schools.

I want daughters to have the opportunity to do as well as they can.

Or is it the selective nature of the schools you find difficult?

Why should children who aren't academically gifted be forced to endure a purely academic system when there are lots of schools with a variety of different facilities (a friends' daughter goes to a great co-ed school with a farm, it really suites her - she HATES academic stuff and wants to be a farmer...).

Or, why should children who have a great academic potential NOT have the opportunity to channel that?

Horses for courses in education IMVHO - one size definitely DOES NOT fit all. All children have different talents and abilities and EVERY child matters - even the academically bright ones. We seem so intent on making every playing field level that we just can't accept that people and children are different, and there's nothing wrong with people being different and individual from one another.

Thjis is NOT about the comprehensive vrs the selective system - that debate is over. It's about where there is a greater degree of choice for pupils, why are the girls being underfunded, where there is 'segregation'.

[penguin73]

It is a proven fact that generally boys under-achieve in many areas of the curriculum, ergo extra-funding is available to address this issue. You are referring to a pot of money made available to address some of the issues identified such as resources, teaching techniques etc in the same way that other 'groups of learners' can attract extra funding.

[mutznutz]

Just because the boys are recieving more funding, does not mean the girls are being under funded...it may simply mean the boys need it more to raise academic achievement.

[TheCrackFox]

We don't have single sex schools in Scotland.

If girls perform better in single sex schools how does this help them to prepare for university and the workplace? Does it not put them at disadvantage for grown up life?

[financialliability]

TheCrackFox - I'm sure that most girls in single sex schools have SOME experience of the male population - friends, relatives, men and boys on the street, the news, the media etc.

It's not as if they live in a femenine bubble, is it?

It is the case that they perform better, academically, when they are in a single sex environment, but I don't know many girls at the local single sex school who DON'T have contact with the male population, or vica versa. Perhaps by the time they are of Uni age, they may be more mature (ROFL at memories of own maturity levels at uni ) and able to cope in a mixed gender academic environment, or perhaps the boys and girls who may not have been interested are no longer there to distract them? Who knows? Could be interesting to find out though.

It's a bit like the statistical anomoly where married women have a shorter life expectancy than single women, but married MEN have a longer life expectancy than single men...

[financialliability]

Oh - and MALE teachers and 6th formers. And often male headteachers IME.