To wish my DD's Girls Grammar School did not admit boys to the Sixth Form

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My DD1 has just collected her GCSE's from her school which is an Essex girls Grammar with high standards. DD1 has done very well and 'likes' single sex teaching (if she wanted to learn with boys she would got to the Boys Grammar for Sixth Form). However, like most Grammar Schools whether Boys or Girls they are Co -Ed or in my DD's School partially with around 30 Boys in both Year 12 and 13. I know this seems to be the fashion that Girls Schools which really should be single sex all through are admitting boys these days into year 12. I guess it is probably due to funding though personally I would prefer single sex availability for girls with the Boys Grammars offering the Co=Ed experience if wanted.

I don’t disagree with most of your post. But ‘statistically’ boys are more frequently identified as perpetrators. They are more likely to be involved in direct, open, or physical actions of bullying; whiles girls’ bullying is more likely to be covert or indirect, including cyberbullying. Boys are also more likely to be perpetrators of CPA (child to parent domestic abuse), and of abuse and sexual abuse within teen relationships.

I think girls bullying is more tolerated. I remember going into school when DD had been physically assaulted, showed them the injuries. Head told DD she had to understand these girls were unhappy. I let him know on no uncertain terms that she didn't need to understand, she had to be safe.

Sure. That might be correct statistically, I'm no expert, but I'm not sure that being underhand and hiding the bullying makes it any more acceptable.

My point really was that girls can also behave badly and we shouldn't be perpetuating the myth that all girls are good and all boys are bad. Or 'twats' in the OPs own language.

If you’d like to pick my brains I have experience of DDs going to WHSB and SHSG 6th forms after being at mixed comps. Drop me a DM if you’d like to ask anything.

I didn’t say it was more acceptable.

If OP wants to call boys “twats” that’s up to her, but I don’t think there is a myth that “all girls are good, all boys are bad”, particularly given the levels of misogyny in the world.

And yet here we are discussing whether OP is right to be upset that boys might be allowed to join her DD's school and somehow lower the tone, but it's ok for girls to be allowed into the local boys school because girls going to a boys school wouldn't spoil anything at all!

And yet there’s a long way between OP’s concern about boys joining her DD’s school and “all boys are bad” no?

Girls going into a local boys school is comparable issue. Male students or their parents have a right to prefer a single sex school. Although scarce in the state sector.

I’ve not said it’s more or less ok for one gender than the other. Simply that research indicates the girls’ results seem to be more affected by coed than boys.

Although the research that you pointed to in the Guardian talked about a 'modest boost' and a 'very slight difference' to the equivalent of approx 1/10th of a grade at GCSE if girls are in a single sex school.... and the research did not even extend to Sixth Form.

There might be a long way between OP having concerns about boys joining her DD's school and 'all boys are bad' but the tone of her various posts is pretty scathing about teenage boys and all I'm trying to say is that it feels quite unfair to tar an entire cohort of people with the same shitty brush.

Anyway, hopefully the OP will be able to find some schooling for her DD that doesn't involve those awful boys she's worried about.

As GCSE is a reasonable indicator of A level performance and U.K. universities are broadly 57% female, there’s no particular reason to think the difference would be limited to GCSE.

At A level, research has found that girls at single-sex schools take up STEM subjects at significantly higher rates than co-eds schools: nearly 3x as likely to take Further Maths, more than 2x as likely to choose Physics and Computer Science, 1.86x as likely to take Maths.

OP has an idiosyncratic approach to teenage boys - I don’t think we can expect to extrapolate generalities from her personal perspective.

For the record I was bullied all the way through school by girls being the daughter of the old fashioned Deputy Head of my single sex grammar school didn't help. Nor being near the bottom of the year the fact that my elder sister being one of the 'chosen' few I.e Oxbridge lot ! On one occasion in the 2nd year my Maths teacher suggested to the Maths Class, that my 11+ must have been altered in order to pass given my lack of knowledge. This of course brought great entertainment to the class, whilst every-time my mother saw me it seemed it was to give me a detention this even up to the Sixth Form.

My sanctuary was the Boys Grammar, where the boys there actually treated me with respect and one of them, hence hanging in out with them at lunch time and after school. That is the viewpoint of a 17/18 year old girl but from the viewpoint of a mother, not desirable for their own DD's.

Or the fact my elder sister was one of the chosen few meant i was bullied on both fronts from the 'rough-heads' (who used to get into Grammar schools) and from those who generally thought I must have had Cheated on my 11 + to gain entry.

Idiosyncratic? I think I’ve wasted enough time on this. I wish you the very best, and OP too, but seriously boys can be nice people too ❤️

Well you’ve wasted both of our times by not reading posts and inventing stuff.

I have 2 sons, they’re lovely, they have lots of lovely friends. I had as many male as female friends as a teenager myself and continue the pattern as an adult. I know teenage boys can be lovely.

No-one is criticising your sons personally. HTH

Similar dismissive response at my DD's school when I took the bullying to them.
I remember almost verbatim - 'I can't believe it's those girls; their families are so nice'. Hmmmmmm. Well their daughters weren't.

It's awful isn't it. Changed schools at 11, some of the bullies went to same grammar. One incident and the school came down heavy and that was the end of it. So the right school can stop it.

So you'd rather she was bullied by girls rather than treated with respect by boys. Can't get my head round that one.

I guess it is probably due to funding though personally I would prefer single sex availability for girls with the Boys Grammars offering the Co=Ed experience if wanted.

So what about those who want single sex for boys?
The world does not revolve around your daughter

She may not need or want them, but they're not going to do her any harm either.

I don't think you are arguing for single sex uni? So being taught with boys is suddenly okay at 18? I think many of us think it's fine at 16, too.

If there are going to be any problems with mixing them, it's actually probably better to get over that in the school environment, where there are teachers who can intervene.

My experience is exclusive to myself and partially was down to being somewhat different to the others, such as being Autistic and Dyslexic and in reality a bit of a miracle I passed my 11+ ! Despite the bullying from a few girls I enjoyed the school even though I think my mother used detention to keep me away from the 'boys'. Mother put the fear of god in me what the Secondary Modern would be like for me, if I did not pass (though in later years she told me i would have gone there over her dead body) . The bullying at the Mixed Secondary Modern would have been off the chart and not 'light hearted' but extreme. So lets be thankfully that my bullying in reality made we work very hard and get to University rather than being punched in the face for being 'Very Posh' in comparison with some very rough Boys and Girls. Don't get me wrong in the 80s some rough girls got into grammar, in way they don't now.

In contrast both my daughters experiences in the 'Single' Sex part of the school has been great DD1 entering mixed Sixth DD2 entering single sex year 10. I have been seen as a bit unusual for suggesting that I wished schools like my DD's had remained single sex, I suspect a lot of parents would agree with my view. It appears on here everything has to be seen to be progressive or it is seen as backwards or from persons of politically right thinking. Thus, conservative ideas such as girls being allowed to develop educationally in the classroom alone but with boys naturally outside school is presented by posters as being from the dark ages. In order to align with their politically preferred positions !

It’s recognised that boys with sen are more likely to be behaviourally disruptive and girls to express it inwardly as anxiety. This affects to provision in mixed sex environments particularly where resources are already low and teaching is as much about crowd control as education.

Of course it does. That's become very clear.

If wanted was the key: ie if the boys and parents prefer single sex they can choose that.

How? If the boys' school only has Co ed sixth form?

The answer to all that being three different Sixth Forms . However, I have to say i don't think they are many boys who have a problem with having girls in a school with them. This is why most 'Public' Boys Schools admit girls to the Sixth Form and if girls Independent Schools are now admitting boys it is for survival not for enhancement.

Try St Bernards - though they take boys I think there is very few, it might suit your needs better. We found it very old school and traditional.