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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think mixed sex schools a PITA for we poor undeserving Mums?

60 replies

valhala · 16/09/2009 23:43

The thread on the 11+ and selective education has made my mind turn to the subject of mixed sex schools.

My own was a single sex school and although there was the inevitable cattiness that often goes with large groups of teenaged girls and a certain amount of competition about clothes, shoes and the like, despite a very strict and fiercly enforced uniform policy, I can't help feeling that we studied harder and benefitted from not having the distraction of boys.

My own DDs go to a mixed sex school. Here too they wear traditional uniform although the rules are overlooked depending on which teacher passes by the girls with the extra short skirts or spidery mascara. I confess that this drives me nuts and I'm a harridan, coming down on DDs like a ton of bricks when they try to sneak out of the door with anything other than the "natural looking" make-up allowed by the school, despite their protests that everyone else wears it.

It seems to me that the need to impress the boys, the constant talk of who fancies who and who has been dumped by whom, or who is fit is far more prevelent in the conversations which my DDs and their female peers have than about their homework or lessons. Call me an old fogey but it wasn't like that in my day!

I know that they need to have fun as well as learn but I am convinced that they would learn more without the distraction of the boys. I guess I had the best of both worlds as from the Lower 6th we took some consortium lessons with boys from the local lads' grammar and two mixed comprehensives. My only defence is to say that by this time we'd got 5 years of uncomplicated study under our (navy blue, regulation) belts!

Am I right? Are mixed schools a PITA, did you go to a single sex school and feel that your own DC in a mixed sex environment are not learning as much as they could because of their determination to play up to the opposite sex?

Or am I just an old so and so who needs to get with the times?!

OP posts:

LovelyTinOfSpam · 17/09/2009 09:48

I went to a single sex school and it certainly didn't stop me or my classmates having skirts up round our backsides, plenty of makeup and endless chuntering on about who was going out with who.

My personal view is that girls are more likely to study maths and sciences etc at single sex schools. Whether research actually bears this out is another question

LovelyTinOfSpam · 17/09/2009 09:48

Oh and girls feeling able to opt for maths and sciences is a good thing IMO!

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 17/09/2009 10:22

LTOS - the girls at my DD's mixed comprehensive don't appear to feel that there is any problem in outshining the boys at maths and science. DD is in top sets for both and from what she has said the top performers in her set are the girls. She and her friends are very critical of the boys lack of application to their work and I don't think it would even occur to them to try to court the boys opinion in any way.
For example - in science last week the teacher showed them a Youtube clip of Tom Lehrer performing the elements song and challenged them to see how much of it they could learn in a week. Yesterday, DD stood up in class and recited the whole thing (the first of his pupils ever to manage it apparently (yes I am a proud and boastful mummy ). I don't think it ever crosses her mind, to dumb herself down in the presence of boys.

booyhoo · 17/09/2009 10:36

i went to a single sex school and as a girl who had more male friends at primary than girls i found this really strange. i hated the bitchiness and really missed the way in which the prescence of male friends keeps things grounded (in terms of the bitching).

i did get used to it but to be honest i think that any pupils who want to work will find a way to do it regardless of distractions that are around them. the support of family maters alot.

as a result of my single sex education i became one of those giddy 'obsessed' gir;s whenever around boys, and i lost the ability to relate to boys in a way other than as an object of desire. still to this day i find it hard to form friendships with males on a platonic basis.

ToffeeCrumble · 17/09/2009 10:47

Not read the other replies, but i also went to a single sex Grammar and i also worry about the same things. Not about the uniform so much, but about the thought of my 2 girls worrying whether they are attractive to boys when they go to High School. (They are only 2 and 5 at the mo.) And what if they don't make the grade in the attractive stakes and feel bad about themselves.
In my school you could be popular because you were funny or fun, even if you weren't pretty. Not sure if that can happen in a mixed school.

camaleon · 17/09/2009 10:56

Of course it happens in a mixed school. In the same way that boys are popular based on many other things...

I can only guess this conception on needing to be beautiful to be popular, comes from being a single sex school... Not that I cannot see how being beautiful or handsome when you are 13 may add to your popularity among boys and girls

It must be so really strange to grow up without having male friends who come to your birthday, play with you during breaks. I have always had male friends (less than female) but they are still my friends today. I remember the curiosity for everything (including sex) and how important was at that stage to have the view from the other side.

onepieceoflollipop · 17/09/2009 11:02

In answer to one of your earlier questions, I live in a largish city and we still have 2 (state) single sex schools. 10 years ago we actually had 4, (2 girls, 2 boys)

The girls' school has a reasonable reputation academically, the boys not so much. (local opinion rather than research btw)

Dh went to a boys only. He maintains that it may have been better academically, but it didn't help some of the boys emotionally/psychologically. Again, just an opinion.

I will be sending my dds to a mixed school, although we could probably get them into the girls' school.

Incidentally families that live in the catchment areas of the single sex schools tend to send them there.

abra1d · 17/09/2009 11:13

My daughter, aged nearly 11 and just having moved from a mixed primary to a single sex school:

'Well, I do miss the boys because they're funny and they make you laugh. But they do make rude smells and I don't miss that.'

Seems to sum it up, really.

Clary · 17/09/2009 11:14

curiosity you got that right.

The girls at my school were sooo fascinated by the boys at the grammar school, desperate to be in their school play etc. It wasn?t healthy IMO and yes, when we got to Uni, we all went a bit mad.

Whereas if they had been part of the furniture all the way through, I am sure it would have been less exciting.

And for an anecdotal piece of evidence - of 80 girls in my 6th form, more than 60 took English lit a-level; 5 did physics. Hmm not so much of the single-sex-schooled girls do science then.

mayorquimby · 17/09/2009 12:32

"the constant talk of who fancies who and who has been dumped by whom, or who is fit is far more prevelent in the conversations which my DDs and their female peers have than about their homework or lessons."

do you really think that students from single sex schools spend their time discussing their lessons and homework? not a cace. i think you're over thinking it and maybe looking back with rose-tinted glasses.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 17/09/2009 12:43

Agree - I went to a convent boarding school and was obsessed with boys. Dear god, did I go wild when I hit university. Not to be recommended.

OrmIrian · 17/09/2009 12:48

"gorgeous Nat or lovely Isaac" !!

At our place it would probably be 'gorgeous Tyler and lovely Jorden"

I went to a single sex school and yes, I can see the advantages, but I am hoping that my DD is sufficiently disinterested in boys and clothes to be fine

OrmIrian · 17/09/2009 12:50

And I'd be interested to know the average age at which virginity was lost at private girl's schools compared to mixed-sex schools IME most of my school mates did the deed as early as possible and the boarders seemed to have lives of wild debauchery during the holidays. Of course that might be a little embroidery of the truth....

WoTmania · 17/09/2009 12:54

I think it depends on individual personalities, the year group as a whole and (IME) if there ar opposite sex siblings in the mix.
I also think that if you go down the single sex school route mixed 6th form is a good option as it allows for some interaction with boys/girls befoe uni and the heady combination of living away from home, much alcohol and sex.

The reason I say about siblings is that as a tomboy and being the only girl I grew up usd to boysand had many male friends an a healthy disrespect for boys. My cousins (all girls) and some of the girls at school with no brothers were the worst giglers ever.

Carrotfly · 17/09/2009 12:55

I went to a mixed school.

I send my children to single sex schools.

GrimmaTheNome · 17/09/2009 13:03

abra1d! Whether your DD has exactly that rational view at 13 remains to be seen...

Having been to a mixed school, single sex ones seem a bit odd to me. Didn't do me any harm - I did sciences even though few other girls did, just got on and beat the lads. I suppose it wasn't so good for some of my friends. DH having been to an all-boys definitely doesn't think they are a good idea socially.

However, our current favourite school for DD to go onto next year has what may be a very good balance. It has separate boys and girls divisions - on the same site but two sets of facilities and separate teaching. They do some extra-curricular activities and some breaktimes together - and of course the school buses aren't segregated. So the benefits of single sex education are there without the opposite sex being a totally alien species.

Fennel · 17/09/2009 13:23

I went to mixed schools and spent my time competing against the boys, not simpering at them. And I would expect my 3 dds to do the same. I don't feel that daughters of mine will need a single sex environment to thrive, isn't it better to teach girls to kick ass (metaphorically, of course) than need to be segregated to succeed?

One of the boys I used to compete against is my DP now, though we were never a couple at school, we got together a lot later. We first met at 14 fighting to be top in maths.

LovelyTinOfSpam · 17/09/2009 14:00

ladyglencora that's interesting. I wonder if now it's "science" rather than physics etc it is more accessible for girls. I took physics at a-level and degree level and certainly there were not many other females at that time.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 17/09/2009 14:04

I don't know LTOS. They do 'science' up to Yr9 afaik and then have the option to do seperate subjects for GCSE, which I imagine DD will take up.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 17/09/2009 14:07

I did Physics for Leaving Cert as well (Irish A-level equivalent) and, although admittedly we were an all-girls school, lots of us did pick it as an option.

LovelyTinOfSpam · 17/09/2009 14:09

I think I heard that applied maths has more or less been dropped as well at GCSE? At least in name. That was the "male" side of maths when I was at 6th form, while pure maths was seen as more suitable for girls for some reason.

I guess it's all rebranding - and maybe it's working.

OtterInaSkoda · 17/09/2009 14:11

I was friends with the boys at my school but didn't fancy any of them. I went out with older boys who'd left school and were in bands. Other girls preferred their boyfriends to have Ford Cortinas.
There's a dearth of places at mixed secondaries in my town, which means that it will be difficult to get ds into one (unless we convert to Catholicism, which seems unlikely). I mentioned to him not long ago that he might be going to an all boys school and he was horrified.

Gumbo · 17/09/2009 14:26

I went to a mixed school, and would have hated not to have. I found the girls dreadfully bitchy and competitive, while the boys were all just laid back/chilled out and were lovely friends to have. They also provide all the humour and light relief in the classroom - which made school quite enjoyable.

I hadn't the slightest interest in any of them as anything other than friends - any boyfriends I had were older than my classmates, anyhow!

My DS will definitely go to a mixed school.

rattyrouge · 18/10/2009 21:00

From my own personal experiences, I found that going to an all-girl's school in retrospect wouldn't have been my first choice. The amount of bitching reaches excessive heights with no boys to keep you grounded. Although I found groups of boys to socialise with and therefore didn't end up too badly maladjusted, some girls aren't so lucky. The lack of boys means you begin to revere them in a strange way, building to obsessions and unncessary worrying. Comparing notes with girls at mixed schools, who often said they never bothered much with personal appearance, at our school, unless you came in with your hair straightened, your skirt short and your face made up then you were a 'geek'. All for the sake of boys who we might have caught a peek of through the school gates? A little excessive?
Sometimes it's easy to forget just how cruel 14 year old girls can be in their cliques. However these memories are fresh in my mind.
It just seems ridiculous to take a girl going through her years of puberty away from boys.
I'm not saying every young girl will make the same mistake, but I did some pretty bloody stupid things, all for the 'mystique' of a boy. It's probably just a case of the grass is greener but I think I would have adjusted better in a mixed environment.

ABetaDad · 18/10/2009 21:23

I went to a single sex boys private secondary school. It went mixed in the last year of my 6th form years. Only a few girls came in the first year, all from local mixed sex schools and they seemed well balanced and quiet unfazed by being outnumbered 100:1 by boys.

In contrast the girls from the single sex private secondary school across town who I used to see occassionally were obsessed with boys and very bitchy to each other.

We are very keen to have DSs at mixed sex school as DW also went to a single sex girls school and we just both think it is a very artificial environment we do not want for our boys. The children at the secondary school our DSs Prep is atatched to sem to have quite normal relations. The school are very strict about 'no kissing or other physical contact' between sexes.

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