Girls or co-ed at secondary?

It’s not the mentality that girls are precious dolls but I think of children as being like seedlings. Do you plant them outside in a frost straight away or keep them in a warm greenhouse until they are hardy and ready to withstand the cold winters?

I went to a convent girls' school, but also lived in a very small town so knew boys socially, and had boyfriends from about fourteen. Don't know what it would have been like to be in a larger town and not known any boys. I don't think I'd have liked being in school with boys, life without them was very calm, in retrospect.

It depends on the individual school and pupil - no school will suit every child.

Absolutely.

FWIW, my DD went to a girls' GS, it suited her admirably. It was good for STEM, the most taken A levels were maths, chemistry and biology. (It was good for humanities too, of course ). She's now in her second year doing engineering at Cambridge, and as far as I can tell having no problem at all dealing with males.

We chose co-ed for dd which was her choice too. I went to a co-ed and did STEM A levels. Dd has autism and often finds boys less complicated than the girls.
There were many other reasons the girls' school was a bad fit for her so it was an easy decision really.

Both my children go to single sex schools. DD transferred from co-ed at age 8. The change in her was dramatic; she absolutely blossomed. I don’t recognise any of the bitchiness at girls schools people are describing either from her experience or my own (I went to a single-sex secondary). From my and DD friends’ experiences, I agree that the girl-girl bullying seems to be rife in co-ed because there’s pressure to impress the boys - whether or not such behaviour actually does impress them!

I was less certain about sending DS to an all boys school - DH was at all-boys and he suffered from having no interaction with girls/women until university. However, I’m more convinced having experienced DS at an all-boys pre-prep and prep; it probably depends very much on the individual school but where DS is really does allow the boys to explore all their interests, even those that would be deemed ‘girly’ elsewhere. For example, DS is starting to learn the flute next term because that’s an instrument that excites him. There are several boys in his school that do. According to the flute teacher, there are no boys in the co-ed schools she teaches at at all that learn the flute.

I’m now a big fan of single sex education for both boys and girls - good single sec schools allow children to expand and explore traditionally feminine/masculine interests and subjects without peer pressure that they’re encroaching on the other sex’s territory.

Agree with @wonderstuff

My daughter is at coed secondary, in year 8. I do worry about the sexual harassment/male domination side of things. But I worried more about how bitchy girls can be, magnified in a single sex context. Other girls are much more likely to be unpleasant about a girl's appearance or behaviour in my experience. Also I don't think single sex is good preparation for living in the real coed world. I went to coed school, had a girl join from a girls school for sixth form who went completely boy crazy as she was interacting with boys for the first time at the peak of puberty. The rest of us were much less excited about these 16 year old boys we'd known for years. So far my daughter seems to have perfectly normal platonic friendships with boys and no social issues.

Personally I hate the mentality that girls are these precious dolls that must be locked away in a glass cabinet in order to protect their innocence. Why are we insisting on segregating our daughters rather than teaching our sons (and daughters) about respect and consent? I would much prefer my daughter to learn how to navigate the coed world at school than have to learn at uni or in the workplace.

I switched from a mixed to all girls school for A levels and to be honest I would never have continued on to do maths at university if I hadn't switched. My old school I was the only girl in my chemistry, physics and additional maths classes - the pressure was clearly on for girls to drop maths and sciences and do humanities and I think the boys felt as pressured as the girls to do "manly" subjects like maths as the girls to do art and music. There was also a lot of showing off in class to boys, or not wanting to speak up because your crush might not like you anymore, garbage like that that was completely pervasive. I was an early developer and felt the need to hide my breasts and figure under huge tent-like jumpers two sizes up at all times and tried to make myself blend into the background or I got comments about my chest. The girls were hideously bitchy to each other and cliquey, mostly to do with competing for attention from popular or sporty boys. It was literally like the Mean Girls film.

Starting at a girls school was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders that I didn't even know was there - every subject was for girls, every activity was for girls, because we were all girls. No boys to make comments, stare at me or for the girls to compete for their attention. My sons are in an all boys school now and they are doing so much drama, art, music, stuff that the boys at my old school were really discouraged from doing because "it's so gay"

She’ll get into the private in this economic climate, (unless it’s a GDST hot-house) trust me.

Carowiththegoodhair. Your dd and her school sounds so similar to my dd and her school

My dd is in an all girls school. I knew quite early on that she would do better in that environment. Just a sense I had about her and the kind of person she is. I sometimes went in to help out at her primary and was always pissed off whenever I observed a PE lesson as without fail the boys dominated constantly apart from one girl who was almost an honorary boy because she was good at football so they “let” her be passed to etc.

Single sex education is probably not for every child but it was right for my child and so far I think it was the right choice.

I've taught in all 3 types of school. The all-girls school was fabulous and the girls flourished and thrived in a supportive atmosphere (but I'm aware that not all of them are like that).

I attended a massive mixed comprehensive (back in the 70s!) and was crap at talking to boys until I got to university, where I found a boyfriend in my first week and stayed with him for three years (so didn't make much progress with the talking to men plural issue).

My view: let your daughter have a strong voice in this, but explore all the possibilities with her and visit the schools on your shortlist, talking to as many girls there as possible about strengths and weaknesses of their schools.

Keep forgetting points sorry. When my DD was in coed it was all about ‘boyfriends’ from Year 5 and she felt very alienated as she wasn’t in to all that.

Also because she was studious and well-behaved she also got put in a class to balance out the boisterous boys. Her verdict is that she much prefers single sex & wants to stay for 6th form. If I can do it for my other children I would prefer to, but we might not have the choice.

It depends on the individual school and pupil - no school will suit every child. If the choice was an exceptional mixed school vs poorly performing single sex, I'd go for mixed.

However, all things being equal, I'd I had daughters, I would prefer them to go to a single sex school. I went to a single sex school, and I think we missed out on quite a lot of sexism, and were encouraged in maths and sciences. I saw boys out of school at swimming club and other activities. Half my 6th form classes were at the boys school (that depended partly on subjects.) There were joint activities like language exchanges and school plays. And by 6th form, we all went to the pub together - it's not like when my father was at school in the '50s; if he saw his sister in the street, wasn't allowed to say hello, as they were forbidden to speak to girls while in uniform.

I think a lot of it is about the ethos of the school & finding the right fit for your child. Where I live there are a lot of single-sex independent schools that I wouldn’t touch with a barge-pole. Not because they are terrible schools but they just wouldn’t be right for my DD’s personality though I may revisit for one of my other children.

I feel really strongly about DD being in a co-Ed school. I went to a girls school and although I was perfectly happy I don’t feel that it gave me any special advantage. Funnily enough I’m much more comfortable with boys only schools than I am with girls schools. Would happily have sent DS boys only but actively avoided girls only for DD

I don’t recognise any descriptions of bullying from boys or a feeling of not being as good as the boys or feelings of being inferior. On the contrary what I see from my kids being in a co-Ed secondary is a sense of equality, a sense that they’re on an absolute equal standing to the boys. More girls than boys take triple science for example. The children are treated entirely on their own merits and every door is open to them.

Socially, they have strong friendships with both boys and girls, I’m not aware of sexualisation and I think it’s much more reflective of real life.

On a personal level, I feel very strongly that having the presence of boys, and having very natural relationships with them has meant that my daughter in particularly has been able to escape from some of the less lovely behaviour and nastiness of some of the girls. Although to be fair, her female friends are a pretty good bunch. She simply hasn’t got involved with it as her friendships aren’t reliant on it.

I went to a girls' school until O-levels (showing my age). I didn't find it bitchy or cliquey, and we were all strongly encouraged to explore our abilities in all subjects especially STEM.

With all the scary shit about sexual assault and porn in secondary schools these days, I'm definitely inclined towards a girls' school for my DDs. Problem is that there isn't one anywhere nearby.

DD is at an all girls school, as I went to an all girls school before her. She is thriving, wide group of friends, has boys in other groups outside of school.

For me the two most important things are the encouragement of girls to excel in the sciences and the lack of sexual harrassment.

My local comprehensive is not a nice place to be a girl, there is unwanted touching in the busy corridors, sexual language used to and about women and girls, the inappropriate use of phone cameras, early pressures to be sexual, distribution and consumption of pornographic material openly.

A lot of it started in primary school, my daughter was exposed to pornography and sexual language in year 6 via her classmates in the playground. Too many parents gave their children (boys predominantly in this instance) smart phones with no restriction on content/website or times. Those smartphones went into school with the children who delighted in showing ‘prudish’ or ‘childish’ girls inappropriate material on them.

I wanted to give my daughter at least five years without that.

I am very much leaning towards single sex, the sexual assault and rape stats for girls at school genuinely terrify me. I was also sexually harrassed and assaulted at secondary school. It would kill me if DD were to go through some of the shit I did.

DD does have some lovely male friends at school, but I worry about secondary, when other schools all essentially merge, DD is no confrontational at all and I really worry she would become a target.
and then i'd be arrested for beating the shit out of a teenage boy

Ok, but if you don‘t feel strongly about it one way or another and these types of schools have good results and these types of schools circumvent the sexual harassment problem that you apparently find regularly in mixed schools and she finds the idea marvelous.... ?

I did not mind going mixed, and went to study in a STEM field afterwards, but then again, I had regular shouting matches with the boys and kind of enjoyed that (could handle it much better than these underhanded behind my back things of my nemesis). Other girls aquiesced and accepted ‚their role’. If she feels strongly in favor of a boy free learning environment, I‘d take it seriously.

I went to an all girls' school at secondary (late 80's for time context). I found it awful... , cliqueness, bitchiness, suffered horrendous bullying such that I've failed to live up to a fraction of my potential due to rock bottom self esteem, never had a "career" type job. I've had counselling the last couple of years, but it hasn't really touched the sides.

I moved to 6th form college when I was 16. Was sexually harassed by a boy in my physics class. I found it really irritating in the sense of having a bluebottle buzzing angrily around the room, but it didn't affect me psychologically like all those years at school. That's just my perception of the time though, and it's a different kettle of fish today with online bullying, camera phones and internet hardcore porn in the mix.

I would say that you should look for pastoral care and fostering life skills/confidence as the deciding factor, rather than co-ed status or crude exam results. I went to a "good" school on paper... several of my GCSE cohort year went on to Oxbridge, but for me it was the worst fit.