DD's school going co-ed - I'm really annoyed

OP - just back on the financial point and my earlier post on the accounts. When I said it was irresponsible to say that the school was struggling from those numbers I wasn't meaning your post. I was meaning Lass' post that starts "I think they are struggling". There is nothing in those numbers that tell you either way. You don't know what the liabilities are and when they are due. If they are unpaid staff wages then clearly they are struggling (but presumably that's not the case). If the liabilities are secured loans that are due to be repaid over the next 15 years then the fact that the current cash in the bank is less the liabilities is not important. Indeed it could be a sign of bad financial management to accumulate a lot of cash with no purpose.

Those figures tell you nothing about cash flow and income vs expenditure and you need to look at the detailed accounts to assess that.

Querty - I'm enjoying the boards much more since I started filtering you.

You don't seem to have read my post. We are talking about practical realities, you seem to be back in your utopian fairyland of ideals. Changing the subject to the evils of Eton doesn't change the fact that OP no longer has a single sex girls school to send her child to.

And now I'm turning my filter back on.

however the point here is that boys do still have the option of single sex education, but girls don't.

Should it no arguably be the case that neither have that opportunity? Single sex boys schools are no better than single sex girls schools. in fact, they're arguably worse. Look at places like Eton which are basically bastions of male privilege.

Yeah that's right Somewhere, everyone who is male is automatically displaying their male privilege when criticising anything a feminist says. All of them. How convenient. Just like everyone who criticises porn, prostitution or the sexual abuse of women is a 'feminazi' having a go at the poor menz.

This is a real trend on online debate. And it's not just an issue with stuff like this. If you're Jewish and critcise Hamas war crimes you're an 'Islamaphobe' and if you're a Palestinian and criticise Israeli war crimes you're an 'anti-semite'. Identity politics eh? Always great to fall back on when you haven't got an argument. If you're at a loss, just tell your opponent they're 'mansplaining'.

And I don't know what male privilege you think I have. I barely have enough money to eat let alone fund a private education for my children. And I never will do so long as I live. I'll probably die in relative poverty - and that's fine, I'm not complaining. But please don't tell me I'm privileged.

What feminists cannot get to grips with is the fact that working class men are socioeconomically the most discriminated against group of people in society at the moment. In fact, economics does not really come into feminist discussions of gender relations at all.

I respect your decision, and your reasoning to some extent. It is indeed your choice. But I object to your argument that single sex is good for society, and I've explained why.

We can't justify everything in terms of individual choice. If was saying it was my choice to use the sexual services of Eastern European call girls and that's the end of it, then you'd think, rightly, that I was fuckhead.

There are two things at play here. What I want for women - ie my utopia, which is that we're all treated fairly, and what I do to deal with the reality of now.

Eg. In my utopia, we can all wander around at all hours of the day and night and be completely safe. In reality, I won't wander around the rougher parts of the city waving my phone around.

In my utopia, all the kids will be raised equally, all the teachers will be prejudice free. In reality, many teachers have pre-conceptions, enough boys will be raised to disrespect girls.

Dealing with the reality - yes I might make un-feminist decisions - because I'm not going to sacrifice my kids on the altar of my principles.

however the point here is that boys do still have the option of single sex education, but girls don't.

What happened to you has nothing to do with structural oppression though. Whereas girls dealing with the much bigger problem of sexual harassment by boys and men does. So it's a valid feminist position.

That's your opinion, and I can see why you hold it. She has a different one.

She's right that it allows girls to focus on their education free from an atmosphere of sexual harassment.

I don't believe she is correct in that view, sorry. Her view implies sexual assault is an inevitability of male/female coexistence - which why it was held by hidebound chauvinists in the era when single sex schools were prevalent.

I as a male was sexually assaulted by a girl at my school. And bullied by girls. Does that imply I should have been in an all male environment, protected from them? No.

If you separate boys from girls then misogyny will get worse - particularly as boys will derive their understanding of females from pornography and a sexist media rather than equitable friendships with girls of their own age. They'll eventually have to be together anyway: in colleges, universities and workplaces and the military. And because they haven't grown up learning to relate as equals there will be big problems. Or even bigger problems than there already are.

I'm against single sex schools because in my view they are harmful to children, and are hotbeds of bullying where negative gendered perceptions calcify rather than get challenged.

Qwerty, as a man please stop telling women how to do feminism. You disagree with the OP, but I can see both sides (though like you I am not a fan of private schools) and I don't believe hers is an inherently non feminist position. She's right that it allows girls to focus on their education free from an atmosphere of sexual harassment.

Many feminists support all-girl schools until mixed schools work out how to combat societal bias towards girls being expected to perform femininity, querty.

I'm not sure what that means. But fair enough.

I just think that if someone was advocating ethno-culturally segregated schools they'd be regarded, rightfully, as a total nutter. I don't see what's so different about gender.

Nothing is more inimical to harmonious gender relations than a load of boys together getting all their ideas about girls from porn rather from relationships with real girls; and girls all together getting all their ideas about boys from Mizz and Seventeen and..er...porn. And developing crushes on their teachers.

That's rubbish that.

Make a case for single sex schools all means, but please don't do so under the banner of feminism. Because however far you stretch feminism as a definition, they remain the counter-feminist anachronisms that they are.

I went to both an all girls school, and a mixed school at secondary level.

There were cliques at both (the skirts were shorter on the cool girls at the mixed school though!).

The mixed school was, in general, a friendlier place to be day to day.

BUT at the girls school, I never had anyone grab my breasts or ping my bra strap, or try to spy on me in the changing rooms (ha, I could choose to wear trousers or a skirt (except for PE where it was gym knickers and hockey skirt), I was able to do Physics and CDT, computing and Maths with no comment. At the mixed school, I had to wear a skirt, I was the only girl in both CDT and Computing, and one of 2 in Physics (which I was hounded out of by the teacher, who steadily picked on me as he was well known to not like girls in his class)

It's obviously just one small sample, but there is a difference, and if I had girls, I wouldn't feel bad about giving them the freedom I perceive in going to an all girls school. As it is, I've found a friendly international school for my boys.

I feel incredibly strongly about co-ed schools, I genuinely believe that the presence of boys is strongly positive, it breaks up some of the cliqueyness of girls and helps to dilute some of the intensity of girls relationships. A decent co-ed school will not have subjects which are cool for boys and not for girls, it's just not like that in reality. I've only positive experiences of co-ed. Obviously, if you signed up to a girls school then it's a shock but I think that there are so many positives in a mixed environment especially in a good school not least that it offers girls the chance to be them, to be a bit different and to build really strong and positive platonic relationships with boys.

I'm really sorry but I think it is irresponsible to say that the school is struggling from those numbers, particularly when there are parents on the site who might be worried by that. Cash/liabilities is a completely different question from income/expenditure.
The truth is that you can't tell anything from those numbers and need to look at the accounts in detail. The cash:liabilities ratio is only helpful if you know when the liabilities are due and it only gives you a small snapshot of one part of the financial health anyway. The purpose of the school is not to accumulate cash.

Net assets will just be buildings and stuff.

Pupil number trends and forecasts will be key.

You need to see if you can see from the accounts what income they are getting in and what they pay out. From what you have said they don't seem to be getting enough money in to meet what they have to pay out.

The OSCR site was very easy to follow- the schools I looked at clearly had more money coming in as fees than they paid out as running costs. I didn't look at assets-I know the asset value will be enormous.