Given the sexual assault statistics we need to move back to single sex schools

[jeaux90]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/oct/04/child-on-child-sexual-abuse-schools-england-and-wales

We could have a debate about the causes of course but the current government won’t ban porn for example so my view, we need to completely segregate at secondary school now if the government is serious about stopping VAWG.

I will never tell my sons that they are going to be sexual predators because I don't believe they are doomed based on being born with a penis. I do agree with your post in general though.

I have a 4 and 6 year old. We have already started these conversations in age appropriate ways (general things about enthusiastic consent, pointing out physical differences between different people and how we must always be mindful if we are physically bigger than someone else, speaking up if you see something mean or wrong, even if it's hard or you're worried it will make your friends cross with you etc.).

It is never too early to start raising the kind of adult you want your child to grow up to be.

But I don't think it's enough to just talk about these issues. Dads (and other male role models) have a huge part to play here. Boys need to see men they love and respect treating women with respect and calling out problematic 'banter' on a regular basis.

What??? What sort of logic is this?

Girls do better in STEM at SS schools. I agree we need to address the core issue (clearly we aren’t) so give all girls the opportunity for SS education between 11-16. (And BTW I am 55, 30 years in tech, single sex education from 11-16 and I survived the male dominated industry) Point is girls do better academically in SS schools!

With single sex schools you find the girls from the local girls school tend to have an obsession with some of the boys in the local boys school and visa versa. And they meet up outside school on the way home, in the town centres and local parks. The single sex schools are probably better for education but I don't know if there is less sexual activity.

Any sort of assault in school you would think would lead to expulsion and/or prosecution, the schools should keep girls and boys safe on the premises.

Not girls jobs to police boys behaviour.

Great for him, but that is a population sample of one. Obviously most boys are well socialised with girls- have friends outside of school, siblings, cousins etc. However, in my experience, boys from all boys schools are more likely to treat girls like alien pieces of meat

But back in the real World, females need to do whatever they need to do to keep themselves safe. We're not in this perfect World where males behave themselves and never will be.

Do have any statistics/research to back this up?

Well yes but that doesn’t usually include confronting a badly behaved boy.

The boys behave like this partly because no one calls them out. You can move a girl into a single sex environment temporarily but it doesn’t get away from the problem in the long term. These boys don’t suddenly turn into respectful people at the age of 16. Your daughter will have to deal with males throughout her life. It may be wise to teach our daughters that they do not have to accept abusive behaviour from males. They shouldn’t sit meekly in a corner and turn a blind eye to it.

Are you the poster who started your daughter at a small single sex school, then the school merged and became a larger single sex school? Who then decided to switch to co ed partly because bullying was so bad in the single sex school? Single sex schools are not some kind of utopia.

Mine were SS until 6th form and mixed thereafter. DD was pastoral prefect in the wake of everyone's invited and organised a survey - she could not believe the crap the year 9 girls had to put up with every single day. She was so glad she had been able to go to school without the stress of upskirting/rape talk/unwanted touching/constant scoring.

Thank for the thread OP. It's evident that opinions are divided over this.

What we should agree on is that no girl - or boy - should be subject to violence and sexual assault in or out of schools.

And that adults need to wake up to the awful influence that unregulated social media and porn is having on children. We must tackle this - both as parents and society as a whole.

that you are acting like boys are going around chasing girls when in actual fact my experience is that there are issues with both sexes and sometimes it is the other way around - and if you dont bring your children up properly to have respect for themselves or others then you will have problems.

This is the kind of thinking that gets us where we are:

1. no one thinks these boys magically get better at 16
2. girls are entitled to an assault free education
3. girls are not on the earth to police boys behaviour
4. yes my DD went to a lovely SS school which got merged with a totally different SS school with different culture and ethos in which was a highly competitive place and not one I would have ever picked, and I had always intended to put her back to mixed sex 6th form which I did. What is your point?

I agree with you. But nothing changes. The statistics are getting worse (for girls in particular) so we should give more choice and more SS schools.

I don't think they're very typical! But it does go to show that there really is no such thing as 'Muslim culture', and there should therefore be no expectation that we should accept things that go against our hard-won values just because they're claimed to be part of a religion.

I wouldn't personally blame the increased presence of Islam for the growing misogyny in society, though I do think our unquestioning acceptance of certain aspects of the cultures of some immigrants is part of the problem. I'm very uncomfortable with any notion of 'female modesty' and teaching children that girls/women should be treated differently depending on what they wear, or that good, honourable women stay home and have babies rather than work, or that they must blindly obey their fathers/husbands. It is possible though that boys are witnessing how other cultures treat females and are following suit; if some boys are calling girls sluts that are 'asking for it' if they don't cover themselves sufficiently, or if they have contact with males they are not related to, or if they go out unchaperoned etc it would certainly seem plausible that the other boys will be influenced. But these attitudes are certainly not only Muslim, or only held by immigrants. (They are also certainly not held by all Muslims!) They have also long been part of our own culture and I think we just no longer work as hard as we once did to challenge them (which may in part be down to not wanting to insult immigrants). When I think of the people influencing teenage boys, I would argue it's more down to scum like Andrew Tait than Islamic preachers.

I think we really need to figure out what's making boys and men so easily influenced by such characters, and why they find a world where women are oppressed, second-class citizens so appealing.

(Sorry, turned into a bit of an essay!)

My point is that it probably depends which school you are at. Some are good, some are bad (like the new SS school you used). My daughter has not experienced any sexual assault, or any mysogynistic behaviour, at her co ed school. Perhaps the answer lies in the ethos of different schools. The girls (and boys) at her school are taught that everyone matters and they are treated equally. Everyone is taught, and shown, that they have to respect others, regardless of sex.

You keep saying that it is not the girls’ job to police boys. No it isn’t, but they should be taught to stand up for themselves. What should we do? As women and girls, should we sit quietly and accept it? Perhaps that’s where we are going wrong.

Girls are entitled to an assault free education, but so are boys. Everyone regardless of sex should be able to enjoy school. Pitting boys against girls is not helpful. It’s not a case of boys v girls. Doing this alienates boys as they tend to be lumped together.

The idea is more that there wouldn't be any 'male dominated careers'! I had no idea until after I left school that there were apparently 'boy subjects' and 'girl subjects', and I was very confused. Maths and science were hugely popular at my school, and many girls went on to study them at university. Why on earth wouldn't they?! And I don't recall any of us having any issues if we found themselves outnumbered; we'd always been taught that males and females were entirely equal so wouldn't know we were expected to cower if boys talked down to us, we'd just think he was a total moron, and likely tell him so.

My career has been in technology and I happily say I've have never felt discriminated against, nor have I ever encountered sexism. In recent years I have wondered whether that's actually true, or whether I just never noticed as never knew to look out for it; misogyny was something we studied in history as far as I was concerned, and I imagine I'd assume a man was making a bad joke if he tried. Either way, it's certainly not damaged my career and I'm very happy in my 'male dominated trade', where I've been managing teams for over twenty years, including many men.

(To be clear, I am obviously not talking about sexual assault, purely offensive, demeaning and/or sexist comments and behaviours.)

I agree with PP that girls and boys need to be educated more about how to treat each others with respect. The stats showed a significant % of victims were males. Also relational aggression is more often perpretrated by girls.

Last year my DSis found messages on my 14 year old nephews phone from his gf and her best friend harrassing him for not immediately messaging her back every minute of the evening. Messages that included 'you better message her back or she says she's going to hurt herself'.

Pyschological torment can be equally damaging to a yound person. It was quite upsetting to see the impact it was having on the lad.

A girl asking a boy out, is in no way comparable to sexual assault and rape.

Well look at my example above about pyschological manipulation from girls against boys. Girls make false rape accusations as well, and the majority of false rape claims are made by young people who probably don't appreciate the severity of such claims. Education is far more effective than segregation. If the stats are saying things are worsening that is the result of poor and ineffective education.

So, according to some posters, we should have mixed schools to benefit boys (otherwise how will the poor little wallflowers learn how to socialise with the fairer sex?) and other posters think it's better that sexual assaults happen in schools as they are more likely to be reported?

Wowser!

We went for single sex for both of my son and my daughter for a myriad of reasons but yes safety was a huge factor when choosing for DD in particular.

My (now well adult) kids went to mixed sex senior schools, without any issues. They have different sex mates thst they keep in touch with now.

I went to a single sex school, and it wasn’t the same.

But, all this was before instant porn and influencers, so perhaps it’s different now. 🙄

It’s difficult because I would worry that boys having no female friends and their only experience of girls being family, online or very rare would make them see women as even more ‘other’. And that would increase risk post school.

Yes, seriously.

Segregation of the sexes for "women's protection" ends up with societies where women cannot go out unchaperoned "for their protection" and where men develop more extreme reactions about women.

I was at single sex secondary for the first 3 years of my secondary education and there was no way I wanted that for my kids (boys or girls).