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?

Sigh.

Firstly do you have statistics to support your assertion that only a ‘tiny minority’ want all girls schools?

(*I know you don’t, I’m asking a rhetorical question)

Secondly I’m not trying to ‘merge the two’ wrt women’s spaces. It’s a subject which covers all female areas in different ways. If you can’t see that, or don’t want to see that, I can’t help you.

Of course there is the money - it doesn’t cost the government any more to educate girls in existing single sex schools than it does in coed.

As has been noted the top girls grammars are massively oversubscribed. In fact grammar schools and church schools in general are massively oversubscribed.

And I am saying alongside many others, that I totally disagree. Why do you feel so strongly girls must be educated with boys? Where is this persistency coming from?

Errr of course it costs more. 🙄Double the buildings,bills, budgets and teachers.

SS students are a tiny proportion of the population. I’ll think you’ll find the rest of the population’s parents don’t give a shit. Also the over subscribing element is due to the grammar part not the single sex. In our area the co Ed grammar is far more popular and harder to get into- because parents want co Ed.

That is not my experience at all. Co Ed settings can be extremely negative experiences for girls due to everything I listed in my first post.

Even best case, girls feel rated, objectified and have to tolerate a great deal of misogynistic nonsense. It’s not an exception.

The freedom to focus entirely on academic studies should never be understated.

And that is your choice as a parent. I wouldn’t choose it for my girls. Not a million years.

That’s a school issue and wouldn’t be tolerated
by Ofsted.

Only focusing on academic studies isn’t actually that healthy and my DD’s outstanding all girls grammar worked hard to promote this is an attempt to counteract the woeful MH problems which were rife.

You are the minority.

Oh honestly! Don’t be so insanely naive. Ofsted do a cursory visit once every blue moon. The issues I am talking about are endemic.

Girls that thrive studying can do so without distraction - I didn’t feel it even needed pointing out that this includes sports, music, the arts and culture. They feel powerful as young women because they do not have to listen to the constant negative messaging that they are less than or rated by their peers. That is my view - yours can differ.

We have experience of both and the co Ed girls seem far more timid and less confident in their own skin. Needing validation outside of themselves.

Only because other parents don’t actually have the choice. I am fortunate that we have many outstanding options here.

Jane Lunnon, head of Wimbledon High School, believes there’s a greater need for single-sex education for girls now than when the school was founded in 1880. Far from struggling, her school, which educates over 900 girls aged four to 18, has seen a 30% increase in applications since she joined in 2014.

“Having taught for many years in a co-ed school, starting at Wimbledon High soon opened my eyes to the value of girls-only education,” says Lunnon. “The sexualisation of girls (and boys) in the media, social media and society is relentless. Single-sex schools give time and space for students to get unselfconsciously stuck in to all aspects of school life.”

The results - it has to be said are mediocre from all of our co Ed circle, particularly the girls, disappointing given how bright they are - in comparison to the single sex schools which really seem to flourish here.

That is precisely our experience!

Errr she would. It’s a private all girls school and she knows single sex schools have halved since the 90s and are rapidly declining.

Not the same round here.

Are you a man? Like Ken?

What are you talking about? Because I disagree with you, I’m a man. You’re making yourself look ridiculous .

Oh ok. So you’re not a man, like Ken?

No, she understands why the head of a SS girls school wouldn't do anything other than try to promote the benefits of SS girls schools, like 'ken' and any other person who understands how self promotion works. 😉

You seem to be dismissing all the research that supports the view that girls do better in single sex schools. Why do you feel qualified to dismiss decades of studies? On what basis?

🙄

You think girls’ schools are paying double for their buildings, utilities and teachers’ pay?

In the grammar areas all grammars are popular but in Kent for example the most over-subscribed are the top 2 boys and top 3 girls’ schools.

So if you’re not interested in SS education - why are you on the thread? Why not just send your kids coed and be happy? You will have to accept that as long as there is demand for SS education it will exist.

The standard comeback appears to be 'you're a man', as opposed to any intelligent sort of debate. 😅

People want to go because they are grammar schools rather than because they all girls schools.

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