What's wrong with hothousing?

@Intergalacticcatharsis, really interesting about music. One of my best friends didn’t pick up any instruments at all until she was 12/13. She came from a non-pushy and non-musical family but found her own passion for music. By the time we left Year 11, she was playing three instruments very competently, and was very rapidly moving up through the Grades in all three instruments. She went on to do music A Level and then got a place at the Royal College of Music. While she hasn’t achieved worldwide fame (which I don’t think she wanted anyway), she has always worked in music, both teaching and performing and absolutely loves it. She’s a very talented professional musician and it’s mostly her own hard work that got her there. Her parents absolutely never pushed or even suggested music (but were of course enormously proud of her achievements).

@Dyslexicwonder

There are dozens of single sex schools in UK: private, grammar, catholic and more.
Are you new to this country?

Any decent single sex school will have regular socials and meet ups with other local schools of a different sex. My son went to an all boys school (which he complains about now because he likes girls 🤷🏻‍♀️😀)

The important thing is to encourage attendance at the social events and encourage out of school relationships and friendship groups to get a good balance.

I suspect some of the pro hothousing parents on here would discourage socialising as it would take away from study time and that is where they will mess up their children’s lives.

(Hook = school, obviously 🙄)

The school my DSs attended isn't on that list, neither is the other boys's hook in the foundation so it's clearly incomplete.

A single sex primary school ? In the UK ? OK good luck with that, I am not aware of any such institution.

My kids went to a boys single sex primary school (admittedly private). Most of the prep schools near us are single sex.

All girls pre-prep / prep / primary is not that rare ime - traditionally 11+ girls’ schools have opened provision for younger years if it did not exist already.

All boys is rare ime - traditional boys’ schools have gone co-ed.

Well 7+ is the as good as is available it seems.

Not according to this
https://wgsf.org.uk/

Really from reception ? Why ?

Indeed. But they used to be quite common. There are a miniscule number left including Wakefield Grammar.

A single sex primary school ? In the UK ? OK good luck with that, I am not aware of any such institution.

Honestly though I'm actually thinking more about primary school. Possibly it's even more vital to have single-sex education at the start than at the end. I know this isn't a politically correct opinion but a lot of what I've seen and what I intuit makes me feel this way. It just sort of makes sense.

I know right? You get this attitude from people a lot. It's weird. It's somehow a symptom of the politics of the time. Goes against egalitarianism to be giving your child a boost or something like that. Can't say I understand people who think that way.

Anyway good your DD turned out great. You were right to ignore the haters.

Hot housing - the way it is described- requires kids to subscribe to a certain way of seeing the world and performing to a set criteria. The danger is that individuality and creativity is suppressed. I sent my kids to a hot-house prep school. Was amazing, wanting to develop all kids in every which way until year 5 and then it turned into an exam machine. So I took them out before year 5 finished. No regrets

Exactly @LolaSmiles the person who said this to me is someone I no longer choose to associate with.

Reading to a child most nights is a fairly common family thing to do. Obviously lots of people don't do it, but it isn't an unusual activity and isn't anything like hot housing.

Anyone arguing parents shouldn't anything remotely developmentally beneficial just because some parents are unwilling or unable to provide appropriate stimulation for their child isn't worth engaging with seriously.

I think a lot of it is about perception. I was once accused of hothousing DD as DH or I read to her every night when she was little. Apparently I wasn’t helping with equality either as I wasn’t thinking of children in care homes who had little of that and if I didn’t read to DD I was somehow helping the disadvantaged by levelling the playing field. It was quite vitriolic at the time.

DD, now 18 has a natural love of learning and we often have to encourage her to take time out of studying. Which she does and she has a lovely group of friends, is well balanced and has wobbles like many teenagers have but in the most part has good MH.

@ThunderDad, why are you so concerned about secondary school when your son is not yet three? Enjoy him as he is now, encourage him in his interests as he grows older and let him enjoy being a child. He may/may not be grammar school calibre when he is older but it actually doesn’t matter very much. Your job at the moment is to lovingly guide him to reach his potential but not force him. He will probably turn out very differently from what you imagine now but it will be a very exciting journey.

Interesting how you say they are unscientific when they don't support your view...🤔I remember studying Sociology years ago and they were saying way back then the results were mixed but actually boys did better in mixed schools and girls did better in single sexed schools.. It seems it is changing all the time and will depending on the variables that the studies look at etc. Simply not as straight forward as you suggest.

@Phineyj I've had a look at Wakefield Grammar which isn't so far off. They have single-sex from around Year 1 I think. Would mean locating probably though, it's a bit of a commute from York.

The school I'd really like to send my kid to is this one, but it would mean moving to Japan:

https://www.smis.ac.jp/

It looks fantastic. Unashamedly 'boys are great' attitude which I think would be very healthy for my son to grow up in.

I don't know your area well, but the Leeds Grammar School seems to offer boys' single sex classes from 11-16 - is that maybe where students go whose parents want that type of education?

As a teacher, I can see the attraction of the "diamond" model.

Having worked in an independent during the pandemic, I should think it's mostly budgets. Being open to both sexes gives you twice the potential customers and means you can educate all the children in a family.

There are very few independent boys schools remaining in the UK, but quite a few independent girls schools. Where I live in York, there are two independent girls schools and no boys schools. The last of them were made mixed in recent decades.

When we consider the effects of mixed versus single sex education, it is helpful to put politics aside and look at students' achieved grades. The grades are the most objective measure of educational outcome. It would also be interesting to look at measures such as earnings at ages 30 and 40 depending on school type attended.

I've also noticed that a very considerable number of the successful men I know personally and who are known by the general public went to boys' schools. Can't help noticing that they seem to produce great results.

Let's put our politics aside and consider the merits of boys schools. It is sad that parents generally no longer have the choice to send their son to one since they have mostly been turned mixed.

Check out the wiki lists below which illustrate how few boys' schools are left compared to girls' schools. Why is this? Politics?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_girls%27_schools_in_the_United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boys%27_schools_in_the_United_Kingdom

Really? There's still a significant gender pay gap and every profession that women have entered in large numbers has seen a decline in real wages.

The state sector's different of course but certainly in the independent sector it's the boys' schools that have the large endowments, not the girls'. Compound interest is a powerful thing.

I think boys are doing OK for educational opportunities on the whole.

My Economics classes in a mixed comprehensive are 80% male (school is 50/50).