girl's schools

My perception of DDs school is that they behave like typical girls in lessons from the concentration aspect but that they don't need to conform to any stereotypes re subject preferences or style.

"But assuming it's true, why?
Girls and boys aren't that different."

We know that - but lots of people on MN and elsewhere wouldn't agree - all those people who happily post about their 'typical boys' who climb trees and are bad at writing, sitting still etc and 'typical girls' who are good at concentrating and working quietly, just for example

That's the real advantage of a girls' school IME - at its best it can give you space to explore who you really are, with all the baggage of the patriarchy and what 'proper girls' are like held a little at arms length.

It is the same here wrt private - 2 co-ed and 1 all girls. I think girls are sometimes seen as a civislising influence by parents of boys who are paying, whilst boys might be seen as a distracting influence by the parents of girls!

girls often do better in an all girls school but boys tend to do better coed I've heard that several times, too.

But assuming it's true, why?

Girls and boys aren't that different. I suppose girls tend to hit puberty earlier than boys; does that have something to do with it? Maybe their brains get addled by adolescence earlier than boys so they go through the angsty stuff at just the wrong time. In a girls school therefore it's easier to pitch lessons in the most appropriate way (in a similar way to it being easier I imagine to lesson plan if all your pupils have passed an entrance exam).

Actually scrap that, I think I'm talking bollocks. Whilst some 10yos go through puberty, there are 15yos yet to experience that joy; surely there are more differences between individuals within each sex than there are between the sexes.

Last time I read any studies, girls often do better in an all girls school but boys tend to do better coed - which is a bit hard to arrange!

Although I'm very happy so far with DDs school, there is one private girls school in our area we wouldn't have touched with a bargepole - decent results but we'd heard (from impeccable sources) that there was a bad bullying problem. DH was also put off by having worked with women who'd been there.

It may be that a good girls' school can be the best choice for some girls, but a bad one will be worse than mixed?

Sorry, slooooowwwww posting on my part!

If someone wants to do 12+ GCSEs then that's super, but they're extras. 8 (and I'm rather plucking that figure from the air, but it seems a reasonable one to me: maybe three sciences, Maths, English Lit and Lang, an MFL and a humanity) should be enough. I appreciate though that "enough" isn't always the right thing.

Although thinking on a bit, maybe 10 would be a better figure

Interestingly, there aren't any private boys schools in our town (although there is a girls school, and four co-ed private schools - not that we're in a position to go private). I did however consider a boys state secondary for ds, thinking they might have a better handle on the specific needs of boys.

In the event, it seemed too stereotypically boyish (in that it is very geared towards competitive sport, and you could smell the urinals from the corridor) and tbh I'm not sure that boys do have specific needs that can't be met in a co-ed environment. Fortunately boys don't seem to be have been demonised at his primary (or at least ds hasn't).

I don't have any daughters; perhaps I'd feel differently if I did. But I do think that if I had to choose between my child gaining 12 GCSEs at a single sex school, and 10 at a co-ed, then all else being equal I'd rather the latter. It just seems strange to segregate the sexes. I don't mix exclusively (or even predominantly) with women now, and didn't when I was a teenager.

ps wrt competitive sport, I don't have a problem with it at all, it's just not ds's thing (unless you're talking about motorsports, which aren't generally offered at schools!).

some of my friends went to an all girls school, and had horrid experiences bitchiness/ eating disorders etc.
and also they had no idea how to act around boys.. the words boy crazy came to mind on more than one occasion..

I did 11, but three of them were stupid.... there was no way round the option blocks that didn't involve a minumum of three 'soft' options at my rubbish school.

Dd is doing Eng lit and lang, Physics, Biology and Chemistry, Maths, French, German, History and Geography. She also does Latin as an out of school thing, and since they have to do RE and ICT anyway she is doing the 'might as well get a whole GCSE option out of it' path, which you don't have to. I wouldn't really want her to drop any of them on the basis that they aren't worthwhile, and I think she still does plenty of other stuff too. To do 8, she'd have to do only one humanity and only one language, and give up the full courses of ICT and RE, which I think would be silly and narrow her options.

8 GCSEs/O levels was plenty when we were young
There I don't agree - I was quite pissed off when my school, which had been a GS and was transitioning to comp, reduced the number allowed to 8 in my year. Had to drop History, which I didn't want to. And back then there were only 'trad' subjects to choose from - if Electronics/DT/Computer Science (not ICT!) had been available then I'd have really wanted to do some of those in addition to the basic 8.

And then I was pissed off again when we weren't allowed to do all 3 sciences at A level - they'd only allow 4 if it was Chem/phys/Pure maths/Applied maths, not the Chem/phys/bio/maths my big bro had done a few years before.

I didn't want to demonstrate I was 'sufficiently literate, numerate and able to think critically and analyse evidence' - I wanted to learn history and biology at that level. Not being allowed to do so for timetabling reasons sucked badly! Hence, no doubt, my bias in favour of a few more than the basics.

Definitely agree with all those who think 14/15/16 year old should not be devoting all their time and energy to GCSEs. How sad it would be not to have interests beyond the curriculum.

And, it must be said, the demands of some GCSEs are just pathetic (all MFLs, for example). There are much better ways of acquiring skills, and of demonstrating them, than via GCSE.

My sons all went to or are at boys' schools. At the prep school I like that everyohne is a boy, A boy is a not a naught strange thing different from female teachers. It is a normal thing and its interests which of course can be varied are fine. You also aer more likely to get 12 year old boys singing church music in choirs if there are no girls around because music doesn't become a "girl" thing.

I couldn't agree more. 8 GCSEs/O levels was plenty when we were young and all this was fields

Surely if you manage to attain 8 GCSEs with good grades over a year or two, you've already demonstrated that you're sufficiently literate, numerate and able to think critically and analyse evidence to be able to make the step up to post-16 study. If a child wants to study more subjects because they're interested then that's great, but each additional bit of paper is of diminishing worth.

Far, far better imo to have time to study and do all the other stuff teens should be doing (from saving the world to snogging at bus stops).

On the subject of girls schools though, what about the boyz?

I certainly wouldn't push extra GCSEs at the expense of music, drama, public speaking, hobbies and time to live.

The Government has cottoned on and toiilet paper GCSEs wil be consigned where they belong. My point about not doing too many GCSEs is more about education being a huge range of things. the good schools state and private will teach well beyhond the exams and will put as much effort into other talents like your orchestras, public speaking the like and giving you time to play and relax and be a real person with skills to offer employers. Obviously you get teh odd genius with 10 A levels ro something but most children do not need more than 8 or 9 core subject GCSEs to have a rounded education and if they tend up towards 15 it usually means they have not developed other aspects of life, their personality and their hobbies.

That sounds like a case of leaguetableitis gorn mad. Totally inappropriate - poor girl.

I know a not very academic girl at a comprehensive who is the same age as my academic DD1. This girl is dyslexic and very artistic. My children's schools put them in for 9 or 10 (although DD2 chose to do Greek as well as Latin and is therefore doing 11 but lessons for Latin are twilight). This girl was doing 15 GCSEs (!!!!) of which at least 4 were in "non-subjects" such as catering and pet care. She was also not doing the full 5 Ebacc subjects amongst that multitude. I couldn't help thinking what a total waste of her time those extras were when she could be spending loads of extra time doing art and improving her language skills. I do think excessive GCSEs are doing the pupils a massive disservice.

Conversely, my children, doing Eng, Eng lit, maths, physics, chemistry, biology, French, history, geography (except DD2 doing Latin + Greek rather than Geo), + one practical subject (DT in DS's case, Art in DD1's case, Music in DD3's case), seem to have a pretty full timetable. I cannot imagine them fitting any more subjects in to be honest. They also have a pretty full extra-curricular life.

None of the private schools we looked at did more than 10 GCSEs - limiting the number does seem to be a bit of a private-schoolish trait nowadays. Whereas some of the state schools do 11 or more 'proper' subjects and get good results in them . Looking at the options of what my DD wants to take - some for the pleasure of the subject - its hard to know what to ditch to get it down to the 11 that her school does.

Some state schools are very guilty of league table points scoring, but some indies are playing their own game of A/A* maximisation.

'a bit state schoolish' good old Xenia!

What if you're doing 13 and they're all actually 'e.bacc'/academic subjects?

For someone who loves it Art doesn't have that effect. The family member I am thinking of wasn't pulled down by it. I am not in general in favour of doing masses of exams for the sake of it - that's a bit state schoolish and the 15 GCSEs look unimpressive rather than impressive on the CV. I think a good basic 9 or 10 and lots of interesting hobbies looks better and then good mainstream A levels.

The thing is, whether a subject is a good one or bad one, I don't want dd not to do it because she's a girl!

I'd rather she had a genuinely free choice and isn't in a school where children are 'steered' towards particular subjects (whether consciously or not) because of their gender.

I wouldn't recommend Art as a 'spare' A Level; it's extremely time-consuming, and might well end up pulling your marks down in other subjects as a consequence.

Of course girls' schools can be bastions of academic excellence - any issues one might have with them wouldn't be based around arguing that they couldn't.

I would personally not opt for one though!

Fake was a strong word, I admit. However it is very rare children at the best fee paying schools do list B ones. No one for example does A level Law if they want to be a lawyer as it is a dead easy doss type of subject done by people who will never be lawyers and would put any law firm off hiring you. I don't know many schools of the kind our children go to that would do english lang either rather than lit.

I wouldn't like people to see the list and think oh that's on list B so that's fine. They need to be aware that there will be schools where most chidlren era doing 3 A levels from list A although they might well have a 4th one from the other list - general studies and art might well be done for interest as an extra one.

The C list is the real 'fakes'. B is what it says 'of limited suitability' - they are mostly too narrow in scope for A level study but can be the 3rd option on some courses. 'Fake' is too harsh a term.

I totally agree A1 is the best list (mandatory for scientists, appropriate for arts degrees too); A2 good if you're going down the arts route (but mostly only apt as a 4th subject for scientists); A3 usually there should be better choices from A1/A2 but not always a total dead loss.