girl's schools

I would send any daughters I may have in future to a girls school, no question.

I went to an all girls faith school and it was a nurturing environment in which we all flourished. Some of us were very academic (myself for eg) and we were steered right by excellent teachers, some of us not so academic (inc. a couple of my good mates) but they were also well served by some excellent staff - we still all had a sense that we were worth something in and of ourselves.

I know that not all girls school will have been like that - I'm thinking selective intake grammars and independents perhaps, as they may be more competitive and hot housed - but I would definitely use a school I felt had a similar ethos to the one I went to.

I went to a (very academic) girls' school, and found it very cosy, if a little cut off from the real world - fantastically close friendships and very little bullying, and no focus whatsoever on clothes, make up, looks etc..slightly weird in retrospect but very cocooned from those sorts of pressures. And lots of emphasis on academic/career achievement - produced masses of doctors, lawyers etc.

But I was quite lucky in that I had long-term male friends out of school, (and had been co-ed for primary) so didn't have so much of the 'help, a man, how do I talk to him' panic that the totally separate world generated for some people.

A different all girls school I worked at did the same FWIW, funnelled any of them with a mild interest in medically or creative interest into health and social care or textiles and away from the "harder" subjects that could have the same end goal but are less limiting! It annoyed me, although I think I feel that in general school subjects get too applied and specific too soon in this country so I don't automatically think of it as a single sex issue

But Grimma, surely we need to challenge what you describe within mixed schools, rather than seeing segregation as the answer?

I think we should be changing the next generation's expectations of girls' achievement; and I don't think we will do this effectively through segregation.

well Grimma you could say that about a lot of the posts on both sides because most replies have been anecdotal, including the very good stories, so don't know why you only directed that at my experience. I never claimed my post was anything but anecdotal personal experience

Sounds like there's something wrong with the careers/uni advice at this particular school TBH.

and they're still churning out a lot of nurses and teachers now even though the A level grades are very good. I don't know of any recent grads who went into medicine, girls with an interest in that field were (and still are seemingly) nudged towards nursing or physio at a push!

nothing wrong with nursing and teaching, but what was/is off is funnelling any girls with interest in medical stuff into medicine, and any academic ones into teaching, instead of the full market of options available to them

Grimma I'm no spring chicken but young enough to have classmates who were titled "wags" so not that old either!

Surely a mix sex enviroment is better for combatting prejudice that women can't be engineers or men can't be nursery nurses.

Oddly enough, it seems that girls tend to be more confident in science and tech in a single sex environment. I went to a mixed school - I think there must have been some perception that physics was a boys subject because only two girls did it for O-level (me, and my best friend who I think just did it to keep me company, bless her); just me for A level. At DDs school they all do triple science GCSE and a tech - most opt for Electronics or DT rather than Food

I think girls' schools can inadvertently send out a message that girls/women can only achieve when boys/men aren't around. This needs challenging, along with many, many other issues in mixed schools.

they churned out a lot of nurses and teachers and secretaries despite good grades (good wife material "womens" jobs), no doctors, no engineers, some scientists, some business women, some wags..)

Just wondering how old you are whether this is to some extent a generational issue. DDs school used to turn out a lot of nurses and teachers. Now they turn out a good proportion of doctors and scientists (not sure about engineers), business women, lawyers.

We don't have single sex work places so why should we have single sex schools.
In my experience single sex schools produce very academic girls who are very immature socially. Boys who I know who went to single sex schools were extremely childish for their age.

I feel the arguements for single sex schools are poor. It is up to the teacher to stop boys from calling out and taking more than their fair share of time. Surely a mix sex enviroment is better for combatting prejudice that women can't be engineers or men can't be nursery nurses.

My old school was hell and I would never send my children to single sex schools.

oh and there was a LOT of teenage pregnancy at my school, there was always someone in any given year group at any given time, sometimes two girls - same boy. WAY more than any of the local mixed schools where it was more of a rarity.

A friend borded at an all girls school and said the abortion rate there was through the roof!

I went to an all girls school, it wasn't a haven of sisterhood, was far bitchier than the mixed schools but not too many incidents of SERIOUS bullying, just lots of best friends falling out and making up again and everyone else getting involved

they churned out a lot of nurses and teachers and secretaries despite good grades (good wife material "womens" jobs), no doctors, no engineers, some scientists, some business women, some wags..)

It was fine, I wouldn't NOT send a daughter there, but I don't think the single sex environment took our minds off sex at all, we spent all our classes whispering or note passing about boys, if we weren't skipping school to meet them that is

Quote from DD2's school website, which is certainly my experience of it:
The qualities we find most abundant amongst [our pupils], and this is true of our old girls as much as our current ones, are confidence without arrogance, inquisitiveness, compassion for others and a cheerful, "can-do" attitude.

Obviously there are some girls with problems- there's the inevitable drinking from yr 9 onwards, some psychological problems, and some anorexia, but way less than you'd think.

Grimma, my school was the same, single sex, paired with a boys school, so we could socialise with boys (if you wished to) but we were taught seperately.

best of both worlds IMO.

Meant to add that academically DD2's school is one of the leading girls' schools in the country, and one of the best in the SW.

DD2's school is single sex and produces very strong forthright young women. At least that's how DD and her best friends are turning out. She comes home with some very pleasing feminist ideas which I never noticed in DD1 when she was at a mixed (formerly boys') school with a very boyish ethos still in evidence. Having said that DD1 has come out of her mixed school at 16 absolutely able to take on the world so only time will tell. We elected to send DD2 to her school because of the music provision which was way better than at DS and DD1's school.

Perhaps the ideal is paired single sex schools. DDs school does interact somewhat with the corresponding boys' school, not much in the lower years, more in the later years I think. There's a 'paired' independent school which was our other option (DD preferred the GS) which seemed to have a very good balance - separate learning, more interaction.

She enjoyed her mixed primary and in yr5 said she wanted to go to a mixed secondary... but in yr6 she got totally hacked off with boys (all but one quiet studious chap) messing about when they should have been concentrating. It was a school with nice kids and no real discipline problems, just that the girls had mostly reached the stage when they knew when they should be knucking down to work and the lads hadn't.

One of the things she likes about her current school is that - without being excessively 'goody-goody' - all the girls seem to want to work properly when they're meant to.

I went to a private girls boarding school as a day-pupil & hated every minute of it.I was bullied,forced to try & 'fit in' & made no good friendships whatsoever.I had no friends of the opposite sex that were the same age as me which resulted in me 'associating' with older men(my parents owned a pub),so this meant I had an unhealthy view of what was a correct relationship.

Having said all that,my dd1 goes a girls school,but one that is toatally different from mine.She is making lots of friends,there doesn't seem to be an issue with bullying & the school is excellent.
I think girls study/learn better without the presence of boys,but they do need to interact socially with boys.

But certainly being single-sex is not the only characteristic of the school, as SlinkingOutsideInFrocks and iloveberries' examples demonstrate. My dd goes to an all girls school and it is an excellent school. It is excellent not because it is all girls, but because it has committed teachers and a fantastic head.

I went to an 'outstanding' all girls school and I dont think I would send any DD of mine there. It was incredibly bitchy and very fraught with teen sexual angst (with several of the girls in my year pregnant when they were taking GCSE's).There was a hell of a lot of bullying and bitching going on, although I dont know how this compares to a co-ed school. I did come out with some good grades though and I guess over the years it has turned out some very confident young women (me not really being one of them!).

Also however, I am still ever so slightly uneasy around men sometimes and dont have many male friends apart from friends of my DH. In the real world, men take up 50% of the population and I feel that I spent most of my teens without any males of my own age in my life (did a very female orientated hobby as well) and this did not really prepare me for a world of working with men. As it happens I am now a teacher so in the end, I have ended up in a mainly female environment anyway!

On the other hand I loved my Catholic co-ed primary school, although I suppose the dynamics at a younger age are different.

Am a bit at 'powerful female only spaces'.

I'm in favour and wish there were more all girls nurseries. colleges and universities too.

There have been studies which show that in mixed classes, girls get less than 1/3rd of the teacher's attention. I would guess that in general the reason for this is that they are quiet and less demanding of attention and teachers are often forced to deal with the louder (predominantly) boys.

I had never really thought of sending dd to a girls' school until I realised that her place in the class is in the silent centre and she siezes no attention at all for herself. I think she might be more confident in an environment where there was more space for such children to talk.

This is not a straight boy/girl issue I realise, but focusing only on averages and what is typical, it does seem that girls can benefit from a single sex education.

i guess they are all different aren't they! I think my experience was pretty extreme!