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?

I have to say, OP, that you seem to have issues around men. One has to wonder if this would be the case if you'd attended a co-ed. 🤔

Obv, I'm not discounting the experience of women who've suffered at the hands of men, because some do and it will of course make them understandably wary of men.

But there's also a sort of almost misanthropic attitude that I observe in many self proclaimed feminists and I'm not convinced it's very healthy.

We learn to socialise with men for our own benefit.

My best friends from school were boys, and they formed a template for how I expected men to treat me, i.e. with respect.

State provision should be equal for every child regardless of postcode. I think there’s an argument for having academic schools and schools which focus more on practical skills, so that children can access whichever suits them. We need to level things up so that the entire country can access the same type of school, but obviously only if the demand is there. With regards to single sex, I’m not convinced there is sufficient demand to warrant increasing that provision across the whole country. Many single sex private schools are turning co-Ed for a reason; the demand is decreasing.

i feel like a lot of people posting here are living in fantasy land! i went to an all girls school and it wasnt 7 years of never talking to a single boy--we often socialised with the boys at the boys school. only classes from year 7-11 were girl only, in sixth form we even attended each others classes depending on the subject. and im laughing at the idea that it didnt prepare us for life in 'the real world'! being in co-ed school environments discourages girls from choosing traditionally 'male' subjects like maths and science. id hope that girls schools will remain available.

Interesting - I have an entirely different perspective

i think that my girls school meant we started university with an expectation of having equal voice in the classroom / lecture hall / meeting because we weren’t used to making space for male ego. I genuinely think my friends from all girls schools have expectations of representation + equality that has meant that they have achieved more.

I think you're much better able to gauge the red flags if you've already spent a decade around boys before you go to uni. If you've never really interacted much with boys until adulthood you're much more likely to get played at uni etc (especially if the boys have been chatting up girls since they were 15-16 y.o.).

Some of my friends ended up dating absolute knobheads who I pretty much clocked from day one. However, they (my friends) seemed to fall for every trick in the book. I could often tell from the way these guys acted with their friends whether they were just turning on the charm - you get accustomed to seeing the subtle clues when you spend enough time around men.

Do you have evidence of girls in mixed schools not choosing traditionally 'male' subjects compared to in SS schools? I went to a CoEd school and have a science background - plenty of females chose Maths, Sciences etc at my school and on my Uni course (in fact we had more females than males on my science course). Lots of girls are doing Maths, Sciences etc at my son's mixed school too.

I have to say that I’m disappointed with the attitude that girls need to be kept away from boys for their own safety; that boys are some kind of strange, feral, species who all throw chairs and assault girls. I don’t think it’s healthy to bring girls up to have that attitude towards boys. There have been plenty of media reports recently where girls have shown extremely violent behaviour in schools. I can’t understand why we can’t try to bring up all children to view all fellow humans as equals.

Females don't have egos then? Just males?

I think it's not mutually exclusive.

Being in a single sex environment may better facilitate the learning of certain skills without disruption - e.g. being less hesitant to speak up in class etc.

However, I've also seen a fair few extremely well qualified women get superceded by men just because the latter were much more forward and prepared to take the credit. I think being exposed to this dynamic really helps develop the confidence to make yourself heard.

Considering most schools are co-ed and we've got rising rates of femicide I don't think the message is getting through on a larger scale...

Sexual abuse is absolutely rife in schools. This report from Ofsted is only a tiny snapshot of the problem:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-sexual-abuse-in-schools-and-colleges/review-of-sexual-abuse-in-schools-and-colleges

90% of girls said being sent explicit material that they didn't want to receive happens to them or their friends a lot or sometimes

92% said said sexist name calling happens to them or their friends a lot or sometimes

"Children and young people told us that sexual harassment occurs so frequently that it has become ‘commonplace."

Personally I'm really glad I went to a girls' school. Maybe we were lucky but we all felt much more freedom from gender stereotypes than our peers in mixed schools. We could be as nerdy, awkward, weird, funny and bossy as we liked without worrying what the boys thought. Our school mixed closely with the local boys school so many of my best friends were boys.

Then again my brother went to a single sex which was quite sexist and toxic and so I'm not sure how I feel about all boys schools.

I went to an all girls grammar school and my experience was fine and I did well, but I am massively against single sex schools. What better way to tell boys and girls that they are different and can achieve different things that by separating them into groups.

This may be a controversial statement but I believe part of this may be due to the changing demographic of our society. Certainly more so than school demographics. Things like honour killings are not rooted in western culture although it's somewhat taboo to state it.

I absolutely loved the girls comprehensive school I went to. It churned out loads of very high achieving confident and unique young women. We all had loads of male friends (from the local boys comp), we just socialised out of school rather than in class.

Unless they are oversubscribed with a waiting list I imagine it is just a survival strategy to increase their intake

That report says “When we asked children and young people where sexual violence occurred, they typically talked about unsupervised spaces outside of school, such as parties or parks without adults present,”.

I think if you look at the local papers the peadophiles, rapists and sex offenders still seem to be largely British, where I live. They all have to go to the same schools though, so if you do think that you're clearly thinking girls in those classes would be at a disadvantage too.

I went to a private to 17 and the difference was noticeable (a decent state in an affluent area). The English teacher's favourite was a boy. He did all reading and answered most of the questions. He also took up a lot of time joking with the teacher who would use his work as examples in lessons. He got the 6th best mark in the year for our Eng Lit A'level, behind a row of girls. Any girl putting her hand up in any class was usually ignored in favour of the boys; they got to talk longer by far on any subject and often didn't even listen to what the girls were saying. It was a very different environment and the girls knew they had to enable a certain amount of it, or maybe didn't even notice it. I did.

@KitKatChunki girls are often favoured for certain roles at my son's school, despite not necessarily being better candidates for the roles in question. Girls were definitely blatantly favoured at primary age, by at least 75% of staff - even the girls themselves pointed this out and some saw it as unfair. If a boy spilled his juice he got yelled at, if a girl spilled her juice she got help clearing it up - boys and girls of similar ability and no SEN. Teachers showing favour to either sex is not a good thing.

Exactly. Boys focus better in single sex too. Taking away the choice isn't a good thing.

Girls' schools produce very self confident girls with clear aims that they strive to achieve.

That report says “When we asked children and young people where sexual violence occurred, they typically talked about unsupervised spaces outside of school, such as parties or parks without adults present,”.

You missed the last bit of the sentence:
"although some girls told us they also experienced unwanted touching in school corridors"

Yes it looks like sexual violence is more likely to happen when adults are not present (no surprises there) but sexual harassment is said to be commonplace inside schools. According to that report schools are frequently minimising the seriousness of it and unaware of the extent of it.

Upskirting is huge these days too - we need the noisy camera shutters they have to sell in Japan IMO.

No, not exactly at all.
SS schools are a luxury, they should not be state funded.