Come and tell me what you think of girls schools...

Have skipped through a bit.

it is interesting that many regs went to all girls schools!

As I did too. Boys were allowed at my primary to age 7 (what they were going to do at 8 is anyone's guess then I was at a single sex school, then I went to a different mixed sixth form.

My secondary school experience was very mixed. It was a very selective pressurised results driven school. Pastoral care (is that the term?) that some of my friends needed badly was non existent. OTOH there was absolutely no sense that any activity was "for girls" or not. I have a mathsy/sciency bent and was able to follow that, and I suspect the fact that I was able to do that at school no questions asked meant I could pursue it at degree level with little concern.

Also our school drew from a large area, most people got school coaches, which were mixed, and so lots of friendships / familiarity / flirting etc.

I have never had any trouble relating to the male sex TBH

Very good point Flora - that's the flipside of single sex education for girls - you have to put the boys in single sex schools too! Though I have come across the occasional self-aware product of the male public school system (but they're few and far between, in my experience). One of my contemporaries at Oxford (an old Etonian) once remarked "I don't know why everyone says that the women's colleges are like girls' schools... after all the men's colleges - by which I mean the allegedly mixed ones, because let's face it, they're basically still men's colleges with a few women grudgingly given places - are actually like boys' schools. I should know because I went to one and I am at one." [This was the mid 80s - guy in question will have been an exact contemporary of Cameron and Johnson!]

I don't agree with single sex education. I work mainly with men who were educated in boys' schools and I think it contributes to a workplace environment and structure that is very male. For the most part, the men can't even see it, it is invisible to them because they are so used to it. Their counterparts, the women who went to girls' schools, did well academically and started out working in equal numbers to the men, are largely absent from the workplace post-motherhood or are in side-lined jobs.

I don't know whether the girls' school environment contributes to the problem by not teaching girls how to work with or compete with boys.

I was mixed until I went to secondary school and then it was single sex - and I think it was a good thing. We were definitely brought up with the idea that we were the business women of tomorrow, and there was no nonsense about boys' subjects and girls' subjects. We did maths and physics and metalwork and woodwork, as well as needlework and cookery. (At least up till GCSE options.)

We saw boys out of school at swimming club and so on, not to mention on the school bus, for those of us from out of town. There were shared drama thing, and we shared a French exchange, so it wasn't total isolation. Also, half my 6th form classes were over at the boys school. I was quite taken aback when one 6th form trip was being planned, and we were told the girls wouldn't be getting individual tents like the boys would. I don't remember having been aware before of being treated differently just because I was a girl, and it never occurred to me not to challenge it. I suspect if I'd been in mixed education all the way through, I would possibly not have noticed so much, and have been less likely to challenge it.

There was some bitchiness, but I am not sure it was any more than there would be among girls at a mixed school - possibly even less. I think that's just a feature of adolescent girls being together. I'm still friends with some girls I was at school with, a quarter of a century on, so it can't have been all bad.

One way or another, I suspect being educated at an all-girls school has something to do with me now working in a very male-dominated area of IT. My current employer is really pushing for diversity at the moment, and I'm involved in work (on top of my day job) to promote STEM careers, particularly (but not only) to girls.

All that doesn't mean single sex education is always good - like any other school - all boys, all girls, mixed, grammar, comprehensive, academy, private, whatever - some will be better than others, and I don't think it will ever be down to a single factor. But had I daughters (which I don't), and had I choice (we didn't - there was one secondary choice for boys, one for girls, unless you could afford to commute and/or go private), all else being equal, I would prefer to send them to an all-girls school than mixed.

My all girls school was an incredibly difficult place to survive in socially.
But I think that rather than it being because it was all girls, it was more because it was a grammar and I was one of a tiny number of pupils from a non middle class, non private school background, and that isolated me socially.

I was so miserable that my parents moved me to the local comp where I then struggled finding my feet with the boys.
I distinctly remember feeling terrified in the first lesson I had to share with all those pubescent boys!

Sure I read somewhere that girls in single sex school do significantly better at STEM subjects than girls in co-ed.

Right. Well, I feel strongly about coeducation, and would have preferred my daughter to go to a coed...but then I walked into our local girls' comp (several schools in our area are single sex) and I loved it. And she has loved it, and her sister will be going there in September - along with a lot of her peers. It's not a 'nasty bitchy place'. I love the emphasis on science and maths. She has fabulous friendships. I do worry that she doesn't know masses of boys, but she's still friendly with her former contemporaries who headed off to the boys' equivalent (and I suspect this will increase as hormones hit them ). She's very pleased at being in an all-female atmosphere and has thrived.

Sillybillybob - that didn't really address your points at all so don't know why I directed it at you! Think you made me think of one thing and then I typed something else!!

Sillybillybob - we got the bus home with boys and had a few teeny romances, but it was never a focus as we saw them for such a little part the day. Never had good male friends until university, but by then was strong and sure enough of myself to make friends on an equal level rather than titter about boys as I would have (and did) at 13. At the time I probably wished I was around boys more. Now I am very very grateful that I wasn't so there wasn't danger of being distracted from my education which is way more important for a teenager to focus on in the long run.

I went to a Girls' Grammar School and thank my lucky stars that I did. I had some fabulous teachers - both male and female - but the focus of the school was bringing up strong, independent, well educated young women. We were EXPECTED to try hard, to go to University, to have careers etc. I did boy stuff at the weekend but was glad not to be distracted at school.

Just wondering if anyone went to my school! I was also at an all--girl secondary school and found it to be a very positive environment. Definitely NOT a nasty bitchy place.

I have no difficulty socialising with men - never have!

I think regarding the socialisation issue, that a single sex day school plus mixed extra curricular activities certainly worked fine for me.

DD's schooling has been similar to the Diamond method mentioned upthread, though I've never heard it called that. Her lessons are mostly single sex but she has plenty of very nice non-sexist boys from the boys school that it's joined with who she socialises with.
I don't agree that the girls learn to socialise with boys better at co-ed, more that they're socialised to defer and give way to the boys.
In DD's school the girls take up space, make noise and seem to feel entitled to do so, whereas a lot of the girls who stayed in co-ed seem to spend their time on the sidelines watching the boys (to make a broad generalisation).
The less sexism they encounter on a day to day basis, the less they will put up with it when they do meet it imo.

Interesting thread as I'm considering girl's secondary school too.

I know that there are arguments that single-sex education does girls good, academically at any rate, and issues have been raised by other posters suggesting them to be good in other ways too, but personally I would HATE for my kids to go to single-sex schools - my DS and DD! I went to a mixed school and have always had equal numbers of male and female friends (possibly a slight bias to male friends if anything given I went a university college that was 75% male). I much prefer mixed company and feel perfectly comfortable in a group where I am the only woman. I really think this comes from growing up in an environment where friends are friends, male or female, and ultimately people are people! I don't think of my friends as being a group of women and their partners - I am usually friends with both halves of any couple I know. When people I know talk about having a birthday party with 'the girls' coming round, it seems really odd to me, as if I did that then half my mates would be missing!

I really think it is good for human beings to learn to form relationships in all their various friendship hues with both genders, and I think that only really comes with growing up with both genders in your daily environment.

I attended an all girls school but one that shared a social curriculum with the local all boys school.

Looking back I'm very grateful that it didn't even cross my mind that certain subjects or careers were deemed to be more suitable for boys. It was ingrained in us that nothing was beyond our means if we put in the work and dedication and whilst that was stretching things a little, the positive message was one that all girls ( and boys ) should receive.

If anything, attending a single sex school probably delayed my feminist thinking as I had little awareness that society outwith school judged women so rigidly or that simply being a woman would come with constraints.

Every single girl in my year attended further education, whether vocational or academic, with the majority going on to study STEM subjects. How is it that of those women with such ambitions and capabilities less than 10% are in senior positions today ? A quick flick through the former pupils newsletter for my contemporaries who attended the all boys school shows a much higher proportion in senior management.

Just goes to show that even if you give a girl the advantage at school of operating on a level playing field, it doesn't take long for this to disappear after school/university.

The pressure to 'have a girlfriend' is affecting DS1 quiet badly in a Co-Ed environment and it is affecting his work. It becomes the most important thing about the school day for him.

He says the girls are under a lot of pressure to 'have a boyfriend too'.

I suspect in single sex that doesn't happen so much.

My 13 year old dd is thoroughly enjoying her all girls school and absolutely does not feel she is missing out on anything from having no boys around. I am secretly rather pleased about it all, although I can also see the arguments in favour of co-ed.

Personally, I think all children probably benefit from single sex education in the formative teenage years (albeit with some opportunity for socialisation).

However, I do agree boys will generally do better in co-ed environment than girls.

I loved my all girls' school but it did leave me a little bit unprepared for socialising with boys. However, seeing as I was the only one in my university tutorial group that didn't allow boys to talk over me, I think that the socialisation going on in co-eds isn't all positive!

Dale Spender did a lot of research about this in the 80's. "Invisible Women, The Schooling Scandal" is the one that looks at the way girls and boys are treated differently in the classroom.

I went to a girls' secondary school. I have a brother so was able to socialise with him and his friends.

My dd is an only child, so she is at a co-ed school. I want her to spend time with boys and learn how to deal with them early on. Just like she'll have to do as an adult.

BeerTricks - "....given the opportunity to mix for social, drama and sporting events etc"

Yes that's how it works. Leeds Grammar do it and Shrewsbury High School (its a Girls Day School Trust school) has a mixed Prep school but boys have to leave after year 6 so it is single sex after that. Magdalene College School has just become mixed in Sixth form but is single sex boys from Year 6 - 11. I also know the Abingdon School (boys only) and St Helen and St kathrine (girls only) are next to each other and there is interaction at sixth form.

To be honest if the local boys private school goes mixed in the Sixth form is usually the death knell for the local girls private school. Once it has lost its sixth form to the local boys school a girls school goes into a death spiral.

There is a 'girls school in our town where that is happening. Soon the most academic girls migrate to the 'boys' school as it usually has better facilities and their brothers are there and frankly some girls do just hate the 'bitchiness' of a girls school. DW hated her girls Grammar for that reason and always got on much better with men albeit benefiting from being able to maths and science without pressure form boys.