Girls school vs. mixed? Which would you choose?

It would depend on the schools and how I thought they'd suit my dd, but all other things being equal, I'd choose single sex.

TBH I think I got the best of both worlds - I went to a girls' school which had a boys' school next door, so plenty of social mixing (and a fair no. of mixed classes for less popular subjects as you went up the school) but mainly single sex education.

My feeling is that a lot of the negatives often cited about girls' schools relate to high pressure academic environments in grammar / selective independent schools. I certainly don't recognise them from my non-selective comprehensive school experience. Having said that I'm not sure how many single sex state comprehensives actually exist these days!

I have spent the last five years with young men and women streaming through my house, most of whom are now at university.

I have absoloutely no experience of their having difficulty with friendship with the opposite sex.

I wonder if people don't quite realise the extent to which single sex schools mix activities now.
Ds1 attended classes at a local girls school. They met for drama. They met up at activities and at each others houses. They also mixed extensively with local teenagers at state schools.

Unless you are looking at a girls school in the back arse of nowhere, planning to not let them do and activities outside school and keep them at home as much as possible the 'they can't relate to the opposite sex' thing seems highly unlikely to me.

Dd is only just ten and knows lts of boys well - both from her swimming club and her friends siblings and friends. DS1 has just moved into his second year student accommodation with one bloke and four women

I went to an all-girls school and did Science A levels, including Physics, the actual facilities for Science were not that great. At university where read Chemistry I discovered that many of my peers from mixed schools had far better Science labs than at my old school. It was also a bit of a shock to go from an all-girls environment to a university degree course where girls were outnumbered.
We chose a co-ed school form our dd and there have been no comments at all that certain subjects are for girls or anything like that. In fact she has had female Science and Maths teachers which have boosted her confidence in these subjects.
We did look at 2 all-girls schools and one Headteacher made a comment about "girls don't play football". My dd does like playing football and this is part of PE at the mixed school. So one of the other reasons for choosing the mixed school is that dd is a tomboy! However most secondary schools do separate out boys and girls for PE from Y7 onwards so the OPs comments about her dd running with the boys would probably not be applicable.

It sounds like there's not an obvious answer!

Other things to consider are VI Form. My DDs were physically small at 11, and I'm glad they didn't have to contend with 18 year old boys in the corridors and playground. If we'd had the middle school option, up to 13, or 14+, we'd have gone for mixed.

Depends on your dd and on the schools of course.

My general view though would be mixed all the way. I went to a good mixed comp (plenty of Oxbridge, Russell group and medical school entrants. A good number of girls taking A level physics 20 years ago). The daily experience of people of both sexes and mixed social backgrounds as normal, so seeing everyone as an individual, not a type, provided a very strong basis for understanding, mixing and working with people and a healthy basis for personal relationships in later life.

My experience of women who went to single sex schools, the many I've met at university and at work (disclaimer, I am not saying all SSS pupils are like this but my experience is many are to some degree), is that many, even most, share an unhealthy distance from, mystification and idolisation of the opposite sex. They find it harder to have men as friends, always thinking of them as actual or potential boyfriends and behaving possessively about them. They often have an exaggerated idea of sexual differences and can't recognise male bluster and bullshit for what it is, sometimes being rather credulous.

When I hear exaggerated and entrenched attitudes about sexual difference, it almost always comes from people who attended single sex schools.

I think the idea that boys are 'a distraction' gives them mystical status and actually makes them seem much more intriguing than most teenage boys really are, perhaps setting girls up to be disappointed!

if you have the option, a mixed school that teaches in single sex classes is the best otion IMO

We have one local but it's a private school and we are waiting to find out if we have been awarded a big enough bursary to allow DD to go

DD will go to a single sexed prep school in a probably futile attempt to let her be a little girl for as long as she needs to beand then onto a public school where the majority of her lessons will be single sex but for lessons like drama and her pastoral care will be mixed.

Best of both worlds.

I couldn't pick one or the other - it depends on the child and, possibly even more, the school. I'm not sure which I would pick if faced with two schools that were equally appealing in other ways.

I have a dd in a single sex school - she wanted to go to the grammar school, and loves it. They don't have brilliant sports facilities due to being squished into a town centre site, but use the boys' school's field and the council athletic track. They do textiles, food tech and product design.

I have another dd at a mixed school - she wanted to go to a mixed school and was very anti the grammar ethos. Again, she is thriving, and is not intimidated by the boys. They do PE separately, and again do all sorts of techs.

And I have a ds at a single sex school. 4 hours of PE a week. No textiles, no food tech. He would have gone to my dd's mixed school if he hadn't got in here, but I felt like he needed the academic push more at the moment than girls around. If he is ever not happy there, I would move him.

I'm glad both options exist, I think they provide quite different environments and suit different kids.

I have chosen single sex for my dd (year 7) and am very happy with that.

I don't quite feel the same way about a school for ds, though. He is cerebral and slightly eccentric and certainly in touch with his feminine side and we live in scary south London! The boys schools round here are possibly quite tough. Oh I don't know.

I sen DC to a mixed prep but single sex secondary.

It has been a great success so far. School is for knuckling down and the bus/clubs/weekend etc for flirting and worrying about your hair .

Single sex, if I had the choice. But I don't .

I went single sex for secondary and the subtle stereotyping that went on that wasn't countered, but I didn't really notice at the time, was significant.

Lots of double maths is only for boring Chinese students, anyone playing with the computer lab in their spare time was considered a total wierdo, and lots of careers advice that told you only to do what you enjoyed, never a mention of having to support yourself let alone a family. Though apart from maths, most of the teachers were excellent.

Being single sex took a bit of the pressure to be interested in boys off, but only a bit. On the plus side, bullying was rare and well-handled.

I think the variation within single sex and mixed schools is much greater than that one obvious difference - sorry not much help OP!

Have you asked your DD?

I think we've had the best of both here. Boys and girls schools on the same site so taught separately (except minority 6th form subjects like music) but plenty of social mixing on the bus, in choirs/orchestra/drama etc

Evidence is girls do better in single sex schools, and my DS hasn't done too shabbily either!

I have had two DDs go through a single sex school and I feel as if I have experienced the best and the worst. DD1 absolutely thrived up to GCSE. I think all the advantages of a girls' school contributed, they can angle the teaching methods to the ways girls learn, the girls don't have to be self conscious or distracted, as with hormones raging around Year 9/10 they will be, in the presence of boys. Her love of Science was nurtured and her school is extremely strong for womens' sports (and allround), girls get into national squads. However she felt that studying Science in a girls' only sixth form was a bit stifling, she felt boys would have brought another dimension to the quality of the debates and questioning. However how she would have felt as the only girl and whether she would have been allowed to shine at an earlier age is another matter.

I did feel quite strongly at 11 that DD2 would have been better in a mixed environment but sibling rivalry and disquiet with the texts being studied in English Literature (her best subject) that appeared to be angled at illiciting the interests of reluctant boys (it seemed to boil down to a Frankenstein v Jane Eyre sort of contrast, but I don't know why the choice of texts has to be so polarised) influenced her choice. She suffered from the presence of a lot of troubled girls in her year (it can happen at any school in any year), there was a lot of attention seeking manipulative alpha girl behaviour. She is now in a mixed sixth form and really feels that a girls only environment amplified the cliqueyness and manipulative behaviour. The alpha girl behaviour also embraced being extreme predators of the gentler sex, as in collecting scalps. As a friend's daughter in a mixed school commented, "Those girls (from DDs school) are chasing X now. Why? He smells"

As always in school choice though it is about what works for your DD.

Single sex, without doubt.

My son went to a boys school, then a mixed school.
He begged us to send him back to a boys school and he finished his education there.
It was a no brainier for me tbh and was the main reason they went to private schools

As with all such questions, it depends on the individual child and it depends on the actual schools available.

I was a 'sciency' girl, I went to a mixed GS where I was the only girl or just one other in one O-level and all A-levels. It didn't bother me one bit.

My main socialising with boys wasn't in school, it was brother's friends and out of school.

DD goes to a girls' GS and it suits her down to the ground. In yr6 she was totally fed up with boys not buckling down to work and decided she'd prefer single sex. I think she'd have been like me and not been at all influenced by peer pressure in her choice of subjects, so would have been ok at a coed - but she loves her school, and they do seem not to be under pressure to 'grow up' too soon.

I worry about girl-only school promoting & supporting especially "girl" interests too strongly, just because that's where the girls interests tend to lie (wider societal pressures if nought else). Like textiles, gym, lacrosse, field hockey, art, drama, dance

Well, as I said, depends on the school. DDs school has a science specialism. They do all those 'girl' things (except textiles) but they also do electronics for 2 years and many do it for GCSE, all do triple science, can do computer science instead of ICT for GCSE, and there are various science/tech clubs and they have a Science Week (last year had Dame Jocelyn Bell-Burnett speaking).

Single-sex.

We visited a (private) mixed school where they had signs up in classrooms saying things like "Girls - you can speak out in class too," and "Boys shouldn't interrupt." I forget the wording, but you get the picture! Although it was a Saturday they had a pretend class going on - the girls had far too much make up on and sat eyeing up the boys.

lljkk

My DD's school has the best textiles room & woodworking workshop I've seen in a school! Some seriously non girlie bits of kit in there & the sciences/maths are well represented alongside the arts and sports. A good girls school promotes equality and excellence in all fields not just gender stereotypical ones. We have a great male HT who has DD's of his own and is REALLY clued up on getting the best out of them all.

I think your choice has more to do with the quality of the school, it's ethos and probably most importantly whether it will be the best fit for your child as if she/is happy,valued & stimulated in a supportive environment they will thrive and reach their full potential whatever it is.

Mixed. There are children who fit the stereotype of the learner of the other gender. I also think that segregation of any kind is bad in education.

If there is a very good mixed school near you go there.

There was an excellent one near us but it was Catholic intake only so i have sent my son to a single sex one. It's an excellent school and he is enjoying it but if i had the choice i would have sent him to a good mixed.

I went to a single sex school - came out aged 16 incredibly shy and unable to talk to the opposite sex! But i suppose if i had gone to a youth club or done some kind of activity that put me in contact with boys i would have been fine. I looked at them like an Alien Life form tbh!

That's what I suspected. :(

I bumped into friend the other day (she has only-child DD who just started y7 at elite girls school we also looked at for DD). She is a teacher herself (MFL in mixed comp) & she enthused about how great single sex ed was, but really I thought she just meant great for girls because all she could say was how behind boys are compared to girls. A sniff of elitism at a personal level in anything tends to put me off & so it was with her words.

Friend said that girls are easily discouraged in mixed schools by comments like "Girls can't do math" "Girls can't do science": I almost laughed. For DD those comments would be a challenge to prove the speaker wrong. Do I really have such an unusually feisty girl?

The elite girl school we had had poor facilities for long distance running (DD's best sport). I wonder if a mixed or boy schools tend to have much bigger fields?

I worry about girl-only school promoting & supporting especially "girl" interests too strongly, just because that's where the girls interests tend to lie (wider societal pressures if nought else). Like textiles, gym, lacrosse, field hockey, art, drama, dance. My girl can outrun perhaps every boy in her school, she needs boys around to give her any competition.

If she's interested in sciences or other traditional boys' subjects, I would say single sex. It is less likely to occur that she shouldn't be doing science if all the other people around her are also girls, but harder to persevere in an A-level group where she is the only girl. I think that's what I got out of single sex schooling. Went on to study engineering.

Single sex - OP, read the thread on Physics education on the Feminism board.