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?

So familiar, sadly.

I am talking about up skirting, calling girls offensive names, pestering girls for sexual favours, rating the girls out of ten like cattle, pestering for nudes, objectifying them and generally making school, a place to supposedly learn and thrive, a fucking god awful experience for many/most girls - yes. This happened in a single week at our local school. Why the faux outrage that we might hold boys accountable for some of this dreadful behaviour? The wider culture and social media also playing a part and mediocre or outright failure in actually raising boys properly.

What parent would actively want or choose this environment for their young teen daughter(s)? If they had the choice.

Exactly. Nothing magic happens on their 18th birthday that means men suddenly transform into people much more likely than women to be criminals or abusers. There is often years of context behind it, and until that is ironed out I would prefer DD to be able to focus on education without the unneccessary distraction of boys and all the issues that come with them. I think there are quite a few MRAs on here who seem enraged at the thought of girls having any advantage or anything for themselves. Fair enough if you had a bad experience, that’s just as valid as mine - but those who don’t, and don’t even have daughters, you really have to question why they are on here fighting for girls to disadvantage themselves to accommodate boys.

Worked.

Ive heard of teenagers accessing porn. You said girls being shown violent pornography, presumably by boys? My point is, what you are pointing out as if they are everyday occurrences as soon as a male enters the building, are not in fact everyday occurrences.

Surely it is down to the individual child and how suited to the school they are?

I would have done better in a co-ed school.

Girls who prefer an all girl environment will obviously do better.

School should be about more than just passing exams.

I think the way the schools work with each other can also be valuable. One of my cousins went to a single sex school but she had lots of interactions with the boys at the local boys' school. Joint school trips and some joint events.

I think this is more about a privileged education, at my DD’s comp, sadly she is most wary of two girls that are very challenging. It appears naïve to me and somewhat the narrative of someone living in a privileged bubble to not acknowledge the challenging and frankly scarey behaviour that girls are capable of exhibiting. Sure, in your highly selective girls school like the Tiffin school or private schools, girls are from a similar demographic and they are generally conformist and compliant. I wet to an all girls private school until I was 12 and then went to a London state comprehensive akin to that of Grangehill and honestly I was terrified of certain older girls as I had no clue of how brutal they would be and they were terrible , endless jibes about being a snob due to the way I spoke and the fact that I played a classical instrument. This was the 90s but I didn’t have any issues from boys.

Hold the boys who are actially doing this accountable, of course.

Tell me again that you don't hate boys. Your poor don't.

Tell me again you’re a MRA!

Ones I know.

Biological sex entry only.

If a child is already at the school and wants to present as the opposite sex, that’s fine. Or if they want to change schools, that’d be fine too of course.

If a child is questioning their sex before a school entry, mixed school would work best.

It is an obscene number of boys sadly - and quite frankly I would like to raise my girls to reach womanhood without a barrage of this crap, so they are able to handle these men well at university age and not pre teen years.

What do you do to support your dds? You don’t sound very switched on to the issues these days in schools.

I went to a private girls school. The school is still girls only, but did consider going co-ed for prep school years at a point for financial reasons. Realistically, it's bloody expensive (£50,000 a year for full boarding students) and I think they hoped to tap into a local market to clear off some debts for buildings work. In the end, it didn't happen, but I can see why they might have considered it. Instead, they have tapped into the international market a bit harder, which actually I think is great as it's even more diverse than when I was a student, but no doubt the diversity must annoy some of the old traditionalists as well. I think you can't win.

Diversity is a very good thing - to be commended.

I never said it was

I agree which is why I’m not on here to petition for the closure of co Ed schools. However there are many posters who are insistent single sex schools should be banned. The control is going one way, the way that flows to the benefit of males, i wonder why?

It should be an option. My DD’s chose an all girls secondary after a mixed primary to get away from:

• being one of two girls in the top maths set of 25 (they got jeered at and shouted over)
• not ‘allowed’ to play football, and not ‘allowed’ space to play other than around the edges
• topic work focused on areas designed to engage boys
• books all had male main characters, to engage the boys
• being called fat or a swot, by boys who resented them for being compliant, not getting told off and achieving well
• injuries from boys ‘being boisterous’ in PE and sports clubs (notably more for the sporty dd, who might have been seen as a challenge)
• class punishments for things that only the disruptive boys had done eg lots of missing PE as they wouldn’t line up properly

One day, in Utopia, schools will
be able to deal effectively with these problems. Until then, I want the choice of single sex, at least at secondary, and luckily my borough has it.

I suspect that child would go to a boys school and turn into a girl there, as the girl did in a girls school into a boy.

YABU. The world is not single sex. A school local to me has gone co-ed, after having been a girls' school for years. We campaigned and campaigned to change it to co-ed and it is doing amazingly well.

Did you have a daughter at the school?

A very succinct list of the general issues Co-Ed can pose (particularly if not a good one). At DD’s school, the boys dominate the playground, the girls mill around the edges doing not very much because the boys feel entitled to the space. They also think nothing of ordering girls off the play equipment as they feel it’s theirs and the girls aren’t being rough enough to be playing with it properly. It’s awful

Single sex schools are beyond weird. How will they adjust to normal life. School results don't matter anyway, as I tell mine every day.

I don’t know of any girl who went to an all girl school who actually enjoyed it though.

Many say how awful it was and they would never send their kids to a single sexed school.

Our school actually trialled having separate sexed maths lessons and I have to say that even as a child, I could feel the benefits.
(I’m not sure how it would work in this day and age as half of them are non-binary or identity as a different gender etc).

I find the idea that girls won't be able to concentrate in the presence of boys quite sexist and misogynist. People used to make that argument to go back to single sex schools in the 70s and 80s and even at university girls (but never boys) were asked if they had a boyfriend if they did badly in exams. Noone seemed to think that men were so easily distracted. It only happened to the silly women who presumably were thought to be thinking about marriage and children rather than their careers, unlike the clever men.

I'm 'switched on', I just don't over exaggerate, but thanks for your concern.

I enjoyed it and my friends say the same thing. Why would it be better if boys were present? I was happy to just see them outside of school.