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?

For everyone saying "the world is not single sex" - in what workplace environment would it be considered acceptable that 92% of women report sexist name calling happens to them "a lot or sometimes"? 1 in 6 school age boys have a favourable opinion of Andrew Tate, that's an average of 2.5 boys in every class. What is this doing to girls' self esteem?

This is not reflective of being a woman in a mixed sex environment and shouldn't be something young girls are experiencing in their formative years.

Even in primary school, year six, there was an issue with some little shit commenting on the girls chests and trying to touch them . School dealt with it swiftly but I'd rather keep my dd away from that stuff

Well then you raise that with the particular school, instead of writing off all boys as bad or domineering. They learn by example. At my son's primary school they had a rota for popular locations - e.g. in the multi sport pitch - older girls netball one break, younger boys footie one break, younger girls football the next, and so on.

It’s not because they’re applying lipstick and fluttering eyelashes it’s because boys are more likely to be disruptive and more likely to make them feel intimidated, as well as the uneven split of teacher attention and playground space. Stop trying to look ‘progressive’ in your sexism.

As someone who had 20 boys in her primary school class and only 7 girls I would have hated being in an all girls school.
Going through senior school we continued to be friends, we all have different interests etc but being friends with boys were less complicated than being friends with girls. When there was a good mix of us it was less toxic.

The problems I had in school....were mainly due to girls.

Even in my mid 30s (i met my husband when i was 12) im still friends with some of the 'boys' from school.

I danced a lot, a few of the girls went to
single sex schools both private and state and they were very boy obsessed around 15/16.

I have x2 younger cousins who have recently left single sex schools however during GCSE and Alevels the boys and girls school mix for some lessons re options. They have also had problems with toxic girl relationships and welcomed mixed sex education when they went into year 11

Why do you keep asserting that boys get more teacher attention?

Year 10 not year 11

I uphold your frustration OP. The only thing I would disagree with is that the grammar remaining single sex is less inherently disadvantaging to working class girls than if it were the private school.

My dds primary school class was a similar ratio of boys to girls and she absolutely hated it. Didn't gel with a couple of girls...no nastiness, just not friends. Luckily she had a couple of lovely friends but she is now so much happier in the girls school. She prefers female friendships and being in a girls school it means she has a huge pool of girls to be friends with. It's meant she's really found her tribe.

Because it’s bloody true!!!!

FGS stop playing dumb and derailing the thread with your nonsense. It’s getting out of hand now - stop pretending not to see what people are posting and asking the same inane things time and time again. It’s getting really annoying

I agree, there was a non selective girls state but that merged! Such a shame.

Having been to both single sex and mixed schools I don’t recognise the experience of these shy retiring violets in girl’s schools who couldn’t cope with men.

Boys are everywhere. I always knew boys and when I went to a single sex school I made sure to keep in contact with the boys I already knew as well as meeting new ones. You can’t blame a school for that.

I don’t care what they did. You didn’t go to girls school and you don’t have a daughter, you have zero reason to be on this thread and nothing of note to offer bar your thinly veiled outrage that your son is being ‘pushed out wah wah’

I'll concede that there's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach, but I think we also need to look at the bigger picture. With education it's arguably more about the destination than the journey, and short term comfort is not always the path to long term gain.

Like, you could choose to homeschool your kids and they'd not only be free from the distractions of boys but also from the emotional bullying of girls - they could go through their entire school days without being bullied once. But would they be as balanced an individual and as socially adept as kids that had integrated more?

Agreed. Like I said, I’m very in favour of girls socialising with boys, mixed sixth forms and primaries are fine and we are using them, I just feel in the critical period where boys and girls are pubescent but not mature it is better for the girls to be in a single sex classroom.

The argument that girls are intimated by boys was made a lot in the 70s and 80s too and I also think it quite sexist.

@Comedycook funnily enough, I'm not friends with any of my primary school girl friends. I found my girl tribe at senior school and remained friends with a few of the boys.

It's not always about girls being distracted - it is in part about them being shouted down and over and subconscious sexism in teaching.

My dd couldn't wait to get out of her primary with shouting boys obsessed with football, kicking each other and generally not being kind. She was friends with two boys out of her class of 32 and we still meet up with them. She was told she wouldn't pass 11+ and she did. She was largely ignored in her class and always said it was boys shouting over everyone that got distracting. They put the louder pushy boys on the top tables and quieter girls were practically ignored and rarely asked their opinions. Their male y6 teacher would talk to the boys about football in the breaks and start clubs for them, spend time talking to their parents in the playground. They got a lot of extra attention. This is a good school with a high pass rate for 11+.

Whatever one's personal view on the merits/demerits of single sex education, research has shown that girls do better academically in single sex schools.

Boys, however, apparently do better in mixed schools. So single sex schools are disappearing.

Go figure, as they say.

It's not intimidation, it is about boys lack of self control and dominating behaviour that becomes disruptive and often rude and brings down focus.

Well I think it’s fairly clear from MN that it’s true. How many MNers are in relationships with men they can’t stand up to & ride roughshod over them?

However, boys are also intimidated by girls which is one of the reasons why they can be such arseholes to them at school and beyond.

Boys develop strategies to keep the girls down: degrading sexual insults, marks out of 10, relentless criticism, piss taking, outright chauvinism and misogyny.

I posted a few posts back about my DD at a comp witnessing violence from both challenging girls and boys, it is a privileged bubble to suggest this lack of disruption is just down to lack of boys, it just isn’t. It is about the demographics, the school makeup and the parents’ values. As I stated, my DD left an online chat group that her friend from an all girls private school was on with fellow classmates as it was competitive under eating galore and looks where seemingly the most important thing in the world. Odd discussions about boys from the local private school as their interactions with them on the bus home, conversations that my DD was totally clueless about but I didn’t want her to be bogged down with at such a young age.

It's not always about girls being distracted - it is in part about them being shouted down and over and subconscious sexism in teaching.

Yes. And being explicitly and intentionally objectivised by boys in order to dominate and maintain the upper hand.

My DD couldn't wait to get out of her primary school into a (all girls) grammar either but it was certain girls she wanted to avoid rather than any of the boys. Unfortunately, the sexism continues regardless of whether girls schools are separate from boys and in some ways can be worse. e.g. The grounds and facilities were not as good at the all girls' school compared with the boys' school or mixed school and the teachers made less effort as they knew the girls would try hard anyway.

We chose girls schools for ours so that they could concentrate on their studies in subjects that they wanted to study. Both went co-Ed for 6th Form and were far less happy. One of them was really upset by the childish boys’ behaviour (her words not mine) and that was a grammar schools.
I am so of girls having to be the better person; confirming gets you nothing in life.