To ask if Co-Ed is better than single sex..

I went co-ed, boys didn't add anything at all to my social or educational experience. As I'm sending ds to a single sex grammar I look back and realise that my school years would have been better without the boys. DH went to an all boys grammar and he's not maladjusted.

I think its personal preference, neither option is all bad or all good.

My goodness, it makes me so sad to read this. I'd guess most schools in the world are co-ed. In my country, single sex schools do not exist. Admittedly, I'm a 70s child but I don't think I once heard guys being disrespectful to girls at secondary school. It seems so common here. I wonder why?

I’m a little on the fence but my friends dd who goes to a top girls private school tells me of horrors around lots of the girls mental health, from carving names of others girls on their legs, smearing faeces on walls, lots of other forms of self harm too. The only thing the school seemed concerned with is vaping on school grounds. It could just be that particular school & maybe this goes on in all schools?

I went to single sex and am glad I did, my friends who went to Co-eds have told me of really damaging stuff that went on, as well as the more common fuckwittery of teenage boys.

I'm grateful not to have had to put up with that.

I went to a mixed sex high school and I feel so so lucky to have not experienced the level of harassment I see and read about regularly. The boys just left us alone/did not make jokes about rape or sex. There was no talk about porn etc.

I don't know how I'd cope with how it is now. In the present day, I'd go single sex 100%.

I have experience of a single sex girls school. There's a smattering of trans kids but from my observation (I don't know the children in question very well), at least one has autism and I suspect that nonbinary might be where they end up, they just don't know about it yet, and the others, well... they're referring to themselves as "he/they" and have adopted male names, but in every other respect everything has stayed the same - notably - they are still attending a school for girls. I think single sex environments provide a very safe space for young people finding out about themselves and exploring their options, without any pressure or scary conversations about which changing rooms to use etc.

When there’s no difference between the number of girls doing further maths at single sex and co-ed schools, and no difference between the number of boys doing drama at single sex and co-ed schools, and similar rates of sexual harassment and assault in co-ed schools as single sex schools… then I would consider them for my dds. Until
then, given the choice and knowing my dds, I would choose single sex.

@bridgetreilly
Please provide the data for the extreme claim you have posted.

All girls aren’t going to go single sex….?

(Better for rapists and abusers.)

On average one girl is raped in a school every school day.
One third of schoolgirls report sexual assault of some kind during their school life.

So yes, co-ed is better.

That’s not my concern though, is it @CampervanQueen - in fact, I find it an odd question.

Obviously they, and their parents, felt a co-ed school was the best fit for them.

My school was single-sex. I am busty and at 13 was in a DD cup bra. Getting the bus in each morning was a horrendous experience due to harassment from the boys school pupils. I was always so relieved to get to school and not have to think about those idiots again (until the bus home).

I loved school, got all A*s and As at GCSE and 4 As at A level and went to Cambridge for Uni, where I worked with/socialised with/dated a lot of guys, without feeling intimidated by them or that I was in any way "backwards".

For me personally I think my life would have gone a different way if my 7 years of secondary school had been 5 days a week of that bus bullshit. But obviously others may thrive there, I can only speak for me.

This is great for your two. But what about the girls at your son's co-ed? Are they at a disadvantage because they are there?

There is no easy answer. Each situation has pros and cons, and it is context-specific to a degree.

But if all girls go single sex, where will the girls for your DS's school come from?

I square it quite easily.

DS goes to a couple-ed (it used to be single sex but went co-ed in 2020), and DD goes to single sex.

I think boys benefit from not being in a single sex environment, and I think girls benefit from being in one - at least for the few hours of the day when they’re learning.

I went to a single sex high school (years 9-13) and loved not having to think about, be pressured by and over-talked by boys. I remember getting felt up by boys at the age of 11 in the co-ed school I was at before I moved. 11.

And at that school, all the talk was about boys and who liked who, and being aware of them all the bloody time.

It was a relief not to have that.

School is only a few hours a day, and most girls have brothers, fathers, cousins, family members and friends of the opposite sex that they regularly see and spend time with outside of school.

I agree that's not ideal but it's hard to work out what is worse... boys being seen as unfamiliar, alien creatures or girls being conditioned to accept poor treatment from boys. As you say, it clearly depends on the school... the single sex schools round here (urban area) tend to be state schools (mostly grammars) or independent day schools. A child attending one of these schools will clearly have a very different experience to a child in a single sex, rural boarding school.

Single sex all the way for Y7-Y11.

@ChocolateHippo - I totally get where you’re coming from and I’m pretty sure that’s what most of the single sex schools claim to be doing but….. for example a friend’s dd is at an all girls boarding school - they bus boys in miles from ‘suitable schools’ for an evening dance/disco like it’s 1965, I don’t understand why they don’t do something like rock climbing/hiking/(even bowling would be better) together and then just have a meal after?!

I went to a single sex girls school. It was a school not a nunnery, I never cease to be amazed at the idea that just because I went to a girls school I never encountered boys

having gone to a single sex school & then carried out research at a co Ed after uni I’d say single sex all the way. I was gobsmacked at the constant low level sexual harassment the girls put up with every day & worse that they expected that to be the case. They were totally resigned to it, in fact they barely questioned it

Single sex until she 16. Then co-ed. I went to single sex grammar. At the 'looking around' stage was told they do lots of joint a activities with boys grammar just over the road, but it was a load of yoshi. I really found it v hard to communicate with boys at all until I was well into my 20's.

It completely depends on the child. Two of mine went co-ed and two single sex. The two girls in single sex never had a problem mixing with boys. Comparing the standard of education my four received the single sex was far superior. I think it was down to the fact that classes weren't disrupted by lads trying to impress their friends. Where we are there are three secondary schools, two single sex and one co-ed. The overall results are always much higher in the single sex schools. However my two girls would not have been happy in the single sex, they got on better with boys. Whichever school you think your child will thrive in is the right one

Life is not single sex.

No, but the working world and society are horrifically gendered and misogynistic in many ways so it is unsurprising that coed schools mirror these problems.

Should we be preparing girls to fit into this flawed world or teaching them that they don't have to accept it? Many schools are shit at challenging sexist attitudes and behaviour from boys so they learn that they can get away with it and the girls learn that there's no point making a fuss and standing up for themselves. Giving girls a space away from that during their formative years might help to 'de-normalise' sexism for them so they are better able to challenge it.

I DON'T feel.

Missed out a pretty key word there 😂