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?

That’s been adjusted for in the study.

10% is not only slightly it’s a whole grade.

Yes it is - one where you learn not only academic subjects but also about navigating healthy relationships (both platonic and otherwise) with members of the opposite sex as necessary to function in an adult society.

Saying that single-sex schools are better than co-ed schools because the students come out with better grades (assuming that to be true) is like saying a school which drops all maths lessons in favour of extra English lessons is a better school because the students come out with better English results. They might have better average grades but they've missed out on an important part of their education.

That’s going to happen anyway. I think it’s easier to deal with crushes, first love and heartbreak etc if you’re not at school together. My first love was 15. I would have found it really hard to be around him all the time. If you’re at a girls’ school you can select the nice boys to hang out with at weekends and ignore the twats, which you can’t it you’re at school with them.

I should say I was at a girls’ school until 16 then went coed for 6th form. The only real plus about a coed 6th form was that I was not at all competitive with girls but I was very competitive with boys so it made me work harder. I already knew plenty of boys so it didn’t change my social life.

You seem to conceive as single sex schools as some kind of 24/7 single sex experience. That would only apply at boarding school. You see men and boys at home, after school, at the weekend. You do plays and orchestra and trips and debating with the boys. But if you’re not in the same school you don’t have to deal with the smelliness, the immaturity, the fights, the showing off, the tedious pisstaking, the competitiveness, the unwanted attention and derogatory sexual comments etc.

I always wonder if I would have done better at a mixed school
All through my assorted Primary schools I wanted to be better than the boys and worked hard to do so.
I then went to an all girls grammar and it just wasn't the same. Whether it was lack of male competition or just hormones I'll never know.

If you mean we as parents have to use our own brains to decide, yes we all do this. We tried co-ed for primary and dd did not enjoy it at all. Dd had the option of a co-ed grammar or single sexed grammar (there is a girls and boys separate). We are lucky to have the options but I am not the only parent in the area making these decisions.

Boys in primary don't tend perform as well, so beating boys would have been easier than beating girls from a selective pool in senior school.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41076842.html

@FaeryRing recent research in Ireland has come to a different conclusion to the research you have quoted and there is plenty more with similar findings so I don't think it's accurate to suggest ALL research has found girls perform better academically in single sex schools because it is simply not true.

It is a personal choice and there are pros and cons with either option. Some kids (regardless of gender) will perform better in a single sex environment and some in a co-ed. I think some of the derogatory comments you have made about teenage boys is pretty depressing. No idea what young lads you or your daughter are mixing with but I do not think they are very representative of all teenage boys

In selective schools with little SEN. Many girls with SEN will do better in comps as they have far better SeND.

But others are.

https://amp.theguardian.com/news/2023/feb/20/heres-how-to-talk-to-teenage-boys-about-andrew-tate

The link doesn't state that at all . I think you have misinterpreted.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13191427/amp/The-toxic-teenage-cult-Andrew-Tate-Teachers-reveal-teenage-boys-abusing-mums-having-jobs-refusing-taught-female-teachers-spouting-homophobia-brainwashed-misogynistic-influencer.html

Why did the researcher conclude that "we can't expect" kids to do coed/single/coed? It is what they have been doing for decades! It isn't as if pupils grow a third head or something between 11 and 16. I also want more than one study to believe what I have personally experienced was not correct.

Tait on tictoc:

In one clip shared online, in which he acts out how he would attack a woman if she accused him of cheating, Tate said: 'It's bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up b.'

Kids are watching this.

But why would you send an SEN to a selective school with no SEN rather than a good private with SEN? Assuming the selective is private of course.

Or maybe you haven't misinterpreted but the guardian has. The statistician that did the study states that the difference "was equivalent to a tenth of a grade improvement in each subject at GCSE".

While girls’ schools have long been known to outperform other types of school in England, the analysis by FFT Datalab found that even after adjusting for background characteristics there was an unexplained boost for pupils at girls’ schools, equivalent to 10% higher GCSE grades in 2023.

Regarding Tate, I suspect that boys at single sex schools are more likely to be influenced by him than at mixed schools particularly if they have no sisters.

As I said the guardian have misinterpreted or written badly. The statistician who did the study states is quoted later on in the article as saying the difference ""was equivalent to a tenth of a grade improvement in each subject at GCSE". Newspapers get things wrong sometime.

That is quite the leap!
Why do you say this? Have none of the boys at your local grammar got mums/sister/female friends or have a brain to look up other things where boys in co-eds do?
Or maybe boys at co-eds, with girls around them all day and hugely frustrated look up Tate to explain their nasty behaviour and egg each other on to commit all of the sexual abuse rife?

Just thinking of what some of the girls who have gone to all boys schools in the sixth form have said.

Please don't refer to children with SEN as "SENs".

Why did the researcher conclude that "we can't expect" kids to do coed/single/coed?
That was obviously his opinion. Coed primary, single sex secondary and coed uni. In Ireland you are in secondary school until you're 18 not 16 as in the UK

I also want more than one study to believe what I have personally experienced was not correct.
There is more than one study. I posted it to demonstrate to the op that there are other studies that have come to different conclusions because the op has suggested a number of times that all research demonstrates girls perform better in single sex schools and that is not accurate.

Your personal experience is one experience research is based on a sample size big enough to draw average statistics. No one is trying to convince you of anything. I went to an all girl's school and my experience meant it was important my daughter's (I have no sons) went to a co-ed and thankfully it has been the right decision for them. There is a lot more variables at play in a school then single sex or co-ed which will determine how your child performs and the experience they have.