Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

What's your experience of same-sex education please?

35 replies

GrimmaTheNome · 16/08/2009 13:20

I went to a mixed grammar-turning-comp which happened to be on my street, and so that's all the experience I have. We're pondering DDs secondary choices and these include both mixed and single-sex, near and somewhat distant.

I hear mixed reports about single-sex - on the one hand, that girls do better without boys but on the other, that the young women thus produced are essentially either unable to handle men at all or that all they want to do is handle men!

My own gut feeling is that mixed is preferable, but unfortunately the schools available which have the best academic record aren't. Choices boil down to:

  1. mixed local state comp (quite good, not stunning)

  2. mixed local private (ostensibly better results than the comp but I'm not convinced of the 'added value')

  3. all-girls grammar - academically excellent (if DD gets residual place, and its a long journey)

  4. excellent selective private school, we're right at the end of its bus route. This is a bit more interesting: it has a girls and a boys division, they are taught separately but can (to some extent) socialise and do activities together. This sounds like it might be a very good arrangement - any of you with experience of it?

Forget (if you can!) the state/private part - I know the pros and cons well enough and don't want to get bogged down in them. Its the single sex thing I'm interested in here. The other major factor you'll note is the distance (the academically best schools are furthest) so if you have experience of longish bus rides I'd be grateful to hear about that too. IRL I'm suprised not to have heard real negatives on that score.

Thanks!

OP posts:
Original poster
GrimmaTheNome · 16/08/2009 17:25

Thanks for all your input so far! Glad that so far I've not detected any real negatives either way.

I suppose I know what you mean by 'girls and boys' subjects' because I was the only girl in my O-level physics and at A level the only one in physics, chemistry and one other in the double maths (there was another chemistry class with girls in, but they were doing biology). I have to say it didn't worry me in the least, as I and the other girl nearly always thrashed them! It seems likely that DD will follow DH and myself into sciences, fortunately all the schools offer triple science GCSE (though the girls grammar didn't till quite recently which rather shocked us)

OP posts:
LadyMuck · 16/08/2009 16:28

Locally lots of Asian parents go for single sex schools (both grammar and indie). In one local school this means that the majority (just) of children are facing an arranged marriage, and are fully aware of that (which has an impact on the social scene). Talking to the Head of Sixth Form it is also reasonably clear that the boys at least also seem to being heavily managed by parents in terms of career choice from a very early age. Now this certainly isn't unique to any one group of parents, but there is a high correlation.

We now seem to have a trend of pushy parents going for the single sex schools (which do all perform very well), and the more laidback parents opting for mixed (comp and indie). But that is just in the bubble in which I live.

teamcullen · 16/08/2009 16:08

My DD is in a single sex (state) school. She is going into year 9 so has been there long enough to see how things are.

Her opinion is, in the classroom there is much less messing about than if there were boys present.

PE- sports include all the normal things that are availible in mixed schools, including football and basketball. But it also covers dance and cheerleading, which she really enjoys and I think keeps them interested in PE for longer. (I hated doing sports in secondary school with boys present)

As for how girls react around boys. There aare girls who will be boy mad and girls who aar'nt, the same as in mixed schools. My DD says she has met them all. The ones who are boy mad are usually the loud ones after attention.

As for my DD she is very happy in school. I think the worst thing I could see when she first went, was there was lots of bitching and josseling for top dog. DD didnt really get involved with this, as she had no intention of being top dog. But some of the girls from her primary school took a while to settle as they realised that they were not queen bee anymore.

Also she gets 2 buses to school and the jouney takes about 40 minutes. After they have done it for a few weeks they get used to it and it only really bothers her if the weather is very bad.

duchesse · 16/08/2009 15:45

I have two children (a boy and a girl) in mixed sec school (their choice), and one daughter in single sex sec school (her choice). They are all very happy with their choices, despite my long held reservations about single sex education. Contrary to what I thought, I do not now believe that girls' schools necessarily turn out wimpy girls unable to deal equally with boys and men. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth in my daughter's school's case. I do think you have to choose the school carefully though.

bloss · 16/08/2009 15:38

Message withdrawn

Quattrocento · 16/08/2009 15:20

We are in option (4) - which is composed of a nursery school to 7, two single-sex junior schools and two secondary schools. It's worked out really really well.

I, like you, was very nervous about the DCs thinking that the other gender were an alien species. But it doesn't work like that. So many parents have children of both genders, there is a lot of mixing. They all know everyone at the schools.

We're a bit annoyed that we are not on the school bus route tbh. If you are this is a good option. If not, then many of the children do travel a long way to the schools, some from up to 25 miles away, and it is the norm.

I'm guessing that you are looking just for a DD, but there are benefits especially at primary level, for single sex education for boys as well.

ABetaDad · 16/08/2009 15:09

My view is that the selectve private school with some mixing for activities and social might be your best option. Best of all worlds solution.

seeker · 16/08/2009 15:07

My dd is, at her own insistence, at a single sex secondary school and loves it. I make very sure that she mixes with boys a lot outside school - she is a Scout so there are a lot of them there - and there are plenty of school discos and parties and things.

I am very determined that ds will go to a mixed secondary school though - I think boys need girls as teenagers far more than girls need boys!

ABetaDad · 16/08/2009 15:07

Just asked DW what she thought. She went to a single sex girls grammar school with a good academic standard. She had lots of boys who were friends as the school had a single sex boys grammar school down the road where her brother went.

She says if we had DD se would want single sex girls school unless it was truely outstanding mixed school with excellent pastoral care. She is less worried about the whole 'boys subjects' and 'girls subjects' issue. What she would be worried about is what goes on outside the classroom.

I went to a single sex boys independent school that went partly mixed in my fnal year. Me and DW have agreed that our DSs will go to mixed sex school as we think that is better for boys.

mimsum · 16/08/2009 14:57

I went to a girls' school in the 70s/early 80s - it was a bit strange at first as we moved house when I was in my first year there so I no longer saw all the kids from my primary school, but wasn't going to school where I lived (there wasn't one to go to!) so for a while I had no contact with boys whatsoever (I'm one of a family of girls and I used to envy my friends with brothers!)

However, I loved the fact that there were no "girls'" subjects and "boys'" subjects - and that there was very little distraction in the classroom (which could have been because it was extremely academically selective as well ...)

As we went further up the school, we had more to do with the boys' private school down the road, so did joint orchestra/joint plays etc - for some less popular A-level subjects they held mixed classes so it didn't feel so isolated by that point

Ds1 goes to an all boys school and loves it - but then he's very boyish and only ust 12 - he may well change his tune once he's gone through puberty