To ask if Co-Ed is better than single sex..

[CHiSOCG]

For girls? My DH is keen on Co-Ed. Most of my friends are looking at local single sex grammar or independent. Of course most will go co-ed comprehensive if they don’t pass the 11+ for the grammar.

I used to think coed all the way, but I have a close relative who has moved to teaching in a girls school and she has changed my view on this. She says it is amazing for the girls not having to put up with shit from entitled male pupils and constant low level sexual harassment. And her biggest problems in terms of classroom discipline are too much chatting and the occasional fall out amongst the girls, rather than having to break up physical altercations and deal with openly non-compliant students.

If I had a DD (at the moment, only one DS), I would push quite hard to at least give them the option of single sex. Girls are not there to 'socialise' boys and sadly what many girls learn during their school years is not how to stand up to boys, but how to appease them.

Single sex for girls absolutely. Coed is fine for boys but it begs the questions exactly who's girls get the pleasure of making it better for the boys...

I was at single sex and so are my DDs. The freedom to do maths and science without pressure from boys is great.

The world is not single sex

The working world is not single sex

The social world is not single sex

How are you going to do that research? How will you access the data?

There is a BBC podcast about this reviewing the evidence, basically better for girls until 16: Bringing Up Britain
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0010216

I strongly prefer co-ed but that's really based on instinct rather than hard evidence. such evidence as their is on the relative merits tends in my very limited experience to have very commissioned by (usually private) girls' schools, and as such imo to be read with caution.

What’s your point? That girls should spend their formative years getting used to being harassed and sidelined by boys just because that’s what will happen in their adult lives? What garbage. Being exposed to abuse doesn’t make you more resilient to abuse. If girls can be left alone to get a brilliant education without worrying about this stuff then of course they will thrive. And all of the data backs this up.

I adored going co-ed. My friend group was split about 50-50 boy/girl, and many of the boys (now men) were and are important parts of my life.

I went to a girls' prep (private) and secondary (grammar) and I now work in a girls' secondary.

I didn't love my time at school and I did find boys / men a bit of a novelty at uni and went a bit man mad 😳

I won't push my dd towards single sex, but it really works for some girls. The school I work in is very multicultural and mixed in terms of background (it's a state school). I feel as if the girls in the school I work in are too sheltered at all. I wonder if the grammar / private / selective aspect might almost be a bigger factor in that regard? But maybe not.

I DON'T feel.

Missed out a pretty key word there 😂

No, but the working world and society are horrifically gendered and misogynistic in many ways so it is unsurprising that coed schools mirror these problems.

Should we be preparing girls to fit into this flawed world or teaching them that they don't have to accept it? Many schools are shit at challenging sexist attitudes and behaviour from boys so they learn that they can get away with it and the girls learn that there's no point making a fuss and standing up for themselves. Giving girls a space away from that during their formative years might help to 'de-normalise' sexism for them so they are better able to challenge it.

Life is not single sex.

It completely depends on the child. Two of mine went co-ed and two single sex. The two girls in single sex never had a problem mixing with boys. Comparing the standard of education my four received the single sex was far superior. I think it was down to the fact that classes weren't disrupted by lads trying to impress their friends. Where we are there are three secondary schools, two single sex and one co-ed. The overall results are always much higher in the single sex schools. However my two girls would not have been happy in the single sex, they got on better with boys. Whichever school you think your child will thrive in is the right one

Single sex until she 16. Then co-ed. I went to single sex grammar. At the 'looking around' stage was told they do lots of joint a activities with boys grammar just over the road, but it was a load of yoshi. I really found it v hard to communicate with boys at all until I was well into my 20's.

I went to a single sex girls school. It was a school not a nunnery, I never cease to be amazed at the idea that just because I went to a girls school I never encountered boys

having gone to a single sex school & then carried out research at a co Ed after uni I’d say single sex all the way. I was gobsmacked at the constant low level sexual harassment the girls put up with every day & worse that they expected that to be the case. They were totally resigned to it, in fact they barely questioned it

@ChocolateHippo - I totally get where you’re coming from and I’m pretty sure that’s what most of the single sex schools claim to be doing but….. for example a friend’s dd is at an all girls boarding school - they bus boys in miles from ‘suitable schools’ for an evening dance/disco like it’s 1965, I don’t understand why they don’t do something like rock climbing/hiking/(even bowling would be better) together and then just have a meal after?!

Single sex all the way for Y7-Y11.

I agree that's not ideal but it's hard to work out what is worse... boys being seen as unfamiliar, alien creatures or girls being conditioned to accept poor treatment from boys. As you say, it clearly depends on the school... the single sex schools round here (urban area) tend to be state schools (mostly grammars) or independent day schools. A child attending one of these schools will clearly have a very different experience to a child in a single sex, rural boarding school.

I square it quite easily.

DS goes to a couple-ed (it used to be single sex but went co-ed in 2020), and DD goes to single sex.

I think boys benefit from not being in a single sex environment, and I think girls benefit from being in one - at least for the few hours of the day when they’re learning.

I went to a single sex high school (years 9-13) and loved not having to think about, be pressured by and over-talked by boys. I remember getting felt up by boys at the age of 11 in the co-ed school I was at before I moved. 11.

And at that school, all the talk was about boys and who liked who, and being aware of them all the bloody time.

It was a relief not to have that.

School is only a few hours a day, and most girls have brothers, fathers, cousins, family members and friends of the opposite sex that they regularly see and spend time with outside of school.

But if all girls go single sex, where will the girls for your DS's school come from?

This is great for your two. But what about the girls at your son's co-ed? Are they at a disadvantage because they are there?

There is no easy answer. Each situation has pros and cons, and it is context-specific to a degree.

My school was single-sex. I am busty and at 13 was in a DD cup bra. Getting the bus in each morning was a horrendous experience due to harassment from the boys school pupils. I was always so relieved to get to school and not have to think about those idiots again (until the bus home).

I loved school, got all A*s and As at GCSE and 4 As at A level and went to Cambridge for Uni, where I worked with/socialised with/dated a lot of guys, without feeling intimidated by them or that I was in any way "backwards".

For me personally I think my life would have gone a different way if my 7 years of secondary school had been 5 days a week of that bus bullshit. But obviously others may thrive there, I can only speak for me.

That’s not my concern though, is it @CampervanQueen - in fact, I find it an odd question.

Obviously they, and their parents, felt a co-ed school was the best fit for them.

On average one girl is raped in a school every school day.
One third of schoolgirls report sexual assault of some kind during their school life.

So yes, co-ed is better.