To be angry so many girls schools are going Co-Ed?

[FaeryRing]

Yet again it’s been proven girls do better in single sex schools (I have a son as well as a daughter so please don’t think I’m ’hating on boys’).

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/may/12/girls-do-better-in-exams-at-all-girls-schools-than-mixed-research-finds

In my hometown growing up there were 4 girls schools. 1 grammar, 1 private, and 2 regular secondaries, meaning pretty much all parents regardless of background had access to single sex education for their daughters if they wanted it.

2 have announced their plans to go Co-Ed, with 1 already having done so, leaving just 1 (the grammar, so working class girls will be inherently disadvantaged). This seems to be a pattern across the country.

AIBU to be angry this is happening? Can’t girls have anything to themselves?

Where I live there are a huge amount of boys single sex school which are moving to be co-ed.

There is huge backlash from the "old boys" network and everyone else is outraged that the old boys are outraged and how sexist all boys schools are.

So it is hugely entertaining to come in here and see the old troupes rolled out but for girls schools.

Life is co-ed. It all evens out and having an enriched/wide circle of friends is beneficial.

Not my experience at all.
My DD goes to a co-Ed school and certainly does not defer to boys or allows herself to be talked over by boys - and neither do her friends. How ridiculous and such a generalisation.

• the difference is not material so they aren’t doing that MUCH better
• the ‘study’ is by a statistician and while her interest is in women in STEM etc she has no actual experience in education. Her ‘research’ is purely based on a data extract, with some high level assumptions, it is not peer reviewed so calling it research and referring to it is a bit of a stretch. Opinion, maybe.
• the real world isn’t segregated to girls/ women and boys/ men in any area, occupation, environment, etc

single sex schools are outdated and before we say research says this or that and there’re benefits to have them, we should question where’s the research coming from, who is sponsoring it and how biased the person/ people conducing it are- just like you have had a great experience and think that these kind of schools are best (while your experience may have been this great despite of it being girls only, not because of it).

I was talking to friends with kids older than mine (mines only 5) and here in Canada now seems to be a trend, especially at middle and high school level for girls in co-ed schools to be given a lot more leadership opportunities, are really promoted and encouraged a lot more than boys to the point that boys are pretty much feeling inadequate (this comes from moms of boys and girls).

Trouble is, women want equality; only last week, the Garrick Club, one of the last men-only clubs, were forced into voting to allow women to join.
Various male-only colleges at universities have been forced to take women, as have schools
We can't have it both ways; if we demand access to men-only areas of society, we have to expect that previously female-only places are no longer exclusive.
Of course, without male-bashing, the world revolves around, andd will always to continue to revolve around men, so thos change could be seen as unfair.
But, if we want it, they have to have it

That’s great for her, but noting that almost all research suggests that men dominate conversations, meetings, seniority in all professions (even female dominated ones) and the general world, it isn’t actually typical that girls and women speak out and hold their space. It is socialised out of us. There was a recent study around panel hosts, which showed male hosts interrupt female panelists FAR more than they interrupt male panelists. It IS a problem. Going to a girls school probably doesn’t protect against it, it just delays the exposure.

I even note with my children’s own co-ed school, the boys dominate ALL the physical play spaces from the soccer fields to the basketball court. I don’t think girls are inherently more bitchy or prone to conflict, but it hardly surprises me that the boys have less peer issues when they are being active and playing sport. Both my DS and DD have talked about how the boys actively try prevent the girls sharing the soccer field. DS isn’t a soccer player, it’s just something he is aware of himself.

The world is mixed sex. So it is best for people to grow up in a co ed environment. It makes transformation to the world of work easier.

100% agree and honestly think lots of the comments are from boy mums who are blind to the horrible things their children are doing online and in real life.

yes the real world is mixed sex, the real world is also full of other dangers that we keep away from children in their formative years. Glad I went to a single sex school and wasn’t discouraged from STEM until I went to a mixed sex sixth form

Yeah this is a thing in American inner city schools lol I don’t think I’ve seen a video from the UK like that.

Single-sex education really is positive for girls but it will be increasingly unaffordable unfortunately

Co Ed schools don’t discourage girls from STEM, what nonsense. All do the same GCSEs and then it’s down to the individual as to what they pick at Alevel for future careers.

And you seriously need a wake up call if you’re not aware of horrible things girls do online, in schools and the wider world too.

Then that school has a serious behaviour problem. I have 2 boys, neither do that kind of crap and nor would I put up with poor behaviour and discipline in school.

Not all boys are bad. Children thrive in good learning environments. Girls mature more quickly so there's merit in taking different approaches to teaching boys and girls. This fades as they get older.
I don't particularly mind there being all girls schools but interestingly there's not too many all boys these days

This is a very ignorant and judgemental comment.

@Precipice Firstly, girls who go to a girls' school are not means of that raised in a total female-only vacuum. They will know some boys. It won't be "oh what the fuck is that?"

I was! I went to a single sex school and I didn’t know any boys at all apart from my brothers. There were only two male teachers in a school of over 1000 pupils. It was a weirdly unhealthy environment. My DD also went to a single sex school and hated the bullying and bitchiness, and ended up leaving to go to a Co-Ed, where she thrived.

It doesn’t take most boys to be like that to make an unsafe atmosphere, just a few. I think the school years are crucial and if you slip behind it becomes very hard to catch up. I’m more than happy for DD to socialise with boys outside of school, but in school I want her to be concentrating, be in a strong female atmosphere and not have unneccessary distraction.

Yes, me too. Didn’t occur to me I shouldn’t take up space because I was used to sitting back and letting the boys dominate. They dominate the playground, sports, they take up more teacher time than girls. No benefit in my view bar something about socialising, which can be made up for outside of school if you want.

I can absolutely agree with you about the longer childhood aspect.

My ds heard all sorts when he started secondary school...he was obviously only 11 when he started and would come home and ask me what certain words he heard were etc. I was horrified.

Meanwhile my dd is currently in year 8 at a girls school and came home last week very excited because her friend had taught her how to make daisy chains and discussing what books her friends had recently recommended to her.

@FaeryRing I went to a CoEd school. At no point did I even consider that I 'shouldn't take up space'. Also, what makes you say 'boys dominate the playground'? What evidence do you have for this exactly? Regarding sport, in CoEd schools there tends to still be separate boys and girls sporting opportunities, as well as mixed team activities. It's also a myth that 'boys take up more teacher time than girls' - pupils require different levels of teacher time for a variety of reasons! Why are you so prejuduced and anti-boys?

boy mums who are blind to the horrible things their children are doing online and in real life

This has to be one of the most ridiculous comments I’ve read. I have children of both sex. In my experience, a few of the boys can be a bit silly (nothing dangerous or awful though), but it’s normally girls involved when there is drama or upset. Comments on appearance and unpleasant behaviour more often than not come from girls. I think people underestimate how awful some girls can be.

What a sorry state of affairs when we have mothers, supposedly in favour of equality, teaching their daughters that boys are something to be scared of and to be avoided.

Glad I went to a single sex school and wasn’t discouraged from STEM until I went to a mixed sex sixth form

I went co-Ed and wasn’t remotely discouraged from STEM subjects which I did for A Level, and ended up in a traditionally male dominated career. Not once did I feel anything other than equal to boys or men. It never crossed my mind, probably because I’d been brought up without being constantly told that girls were at a disadvantage and that boys were all awful.

Well fwiw I have friends with daughters at all girls school where there has been bitchy behaviour, bullying and other bad behaviour in school and also peer pressure for some fairly awful stuff like excluding girls from friendship groups etc
But not all girls. Just like not all boys.

I am glad you have found a school that doesn't have any of those problems. But I think personally that the best we can do is raise our kids well and resilient enough to withstand the poor behaviours and act well towards others. I think issues can arise from both genders.

The answer to dealing with that is to clamp down on the few boys demonstrating that behaviour, for teachers to deal with it robustly, and for girls to call out that behaviour and stand up for themselves. Boys who behave like that are less likely to behave like that as adults if they are challenged and dealt with as teens.

we have boy / girl twins. My daughter went to two all girls schools - one grammar and the other private. Both her choice. All girls schools do better because of the enormous pressure the girls feel keeping up with the other girls it’s so bad for their mental health. We moved our daughter co-ed for 6th form - again her choice and she is much happier.

Yes I whole heartedly agree. I went to a mixed school then transferred to a girls school. The atmosphere and learning was amazing. I went from bottom of the class to the top. I left with excellent grades. I moved closer to that particular school, so my girls could go there. A couple of years before one should have started, the school became a mixed one! I could have died. My eldest is there now and doesn't rate it at all, says the boys are so aggressive and talk about porn non stop. She wishes it was still an all girls school.

I’d agree if there was no proven benefit and girls and boys were being kept apart just because. But there is a proven benefit and girls will lose it. Why should they?

Just to throw into the mix that my DS who recently started high school was bullied on the bus within a week. By a girl one year older. She has since done it again to someone else and has been suspended. Girls aren't saints. I know I wasn't and I went to an all-girls school. Get on the wrong side of someone popular and things were not going to be great for weeks, and that was before social media. I hate to think what happens now.
I do know of 2 schools where I grew up that had separate classrooms for the first 4 years of high but mixed grounds. Fully mixed for the last 2 years. That idea has some merit I think. Although, my children have all gone co-ed and I'm happy with that decision.

Nobody’s ever managed it and girls shouldn’t be the price of a social experiment.

Google ‘mumsnet chair throwing classroom’.