Who'd send their sprog to Eton now?

[felulageller]

£46k a year for your DS to watch Neighbours at lunchtime, take all the drugs going, have sex with older adults in fields, leave with a B and D at A level.

Learn zero social skills.

Sounds more like a sink comp to me?

Mental health among girls at ny nieces state coed 6th form college is so poor that she cannot see a counsellor herself and seeing the knots she ties herself in over the boys I'm very glad my girls went to single sex schools, achieved well and came out as very sensible women with confidence in their own strength. Sadly its a girl problem not a single sex problem. In fact getting sweaty and mud covered on a football pitch or hockey pitch with no boys in sight seems to do wonders for many girl's mental health.

@Ziegfeld this thread makes me wonder why Winchester went coed. There seems be very few boys only boarding schools left now.

I guess you cannot afford it

To whom is your remark directed, @barneshome ? As already discussed, the school in question makes ample provision for families who would not otherwise be able to afford the fees - so it’s not clear what point you’re making.

@Windinthewillowtree

I have wondered that a lot too.
My theory is that Winchester used to be first choice for clever boys outside London.

Since Eton became much more academically selective, the quality of boys from British prep schools accepting Winchester places fell a bit. It compensated by admitting more overseas boys, as there is a bottomless pool of brilliant applicants from Asia. But then the nature of the school began to change, and sometimes there would be only one or two British boys in a house year group. That had a knock on effect on things like sports - the school couldn’t compete with its peers - and it put off more home applicants. Then some of the overseas parents weren’t happy - they wanted their boy to go to a traditional British boarding school but it increasingly didn’t feel like one.

At this point I think Winchester decided to press the reset button. A bit like a football club firing its manager. Do something drastic to survive. In theory, admitting girls improves a school’s exam results and the behaviour of boys, plus it doubles your potential applicant pool. (What it does to the girls, nobody really considers - too inconvenient). Personally, my view is that deciding to take a small handful of girls into the sixth form was a very bad way to go about it. It’s not fair on those girls and it doesn’t bring out the best in boys either. You either need to go all-in or don’t do it at all.

@Ziegfeld

Your explanation makes a lot of sense. I agree that introducing a handful of girls into the 6th form was odd way to go. I can't imagine who would want their daughter to be one of the few girls there. It seemed like a very badly thought out and rushed idea. I wonder if many boys left after GCSES or even earlier. It won't be the school they thought they were buying into.

Winchester was all about the full boarding experience, they promoted it to parents as that until very recently. There must be parents who regret their decision and are looking elsewhere. Eton will be even more popular I imagine.

Princess Margaret's two went to Bedales, which I always loved the sound of. I'm the same age as Lady Sarah and desperately wanted to be her!

it wasn’t unheard of for boys schools to start with girls in the 6th form only. Stowe and Wellington did this. It’s just starts off slowly to see how the ethos is affected.

Most parents don’t choose schools for 3 children based on security or even convenience. Obviously most don’t have to worry about security. However if you want your children to be well matched to a school, you don’t necessarily send them to the same one. Harry wasn’t bright enough for Eton. He also complained William took no notice of him! So that definitely means the same school isn’t always a winning formula. It’s far far better to look at the strengths of your child and fit the school to the child.

@TizerorFizz
No. Wellington started taking a few girls in the sixth form in the mid 1980s, with absolutely no intention of going co-ed. They were there only to improve A level and Oxbridge numbers. There was then no change at all for 25 years - 25 years!!! - until finally, with numbers and academic standards declining and a dubious reputation for rugby, and loutishness well established, the governors had to press the reset button by hiring Seldon to take the school coed. Within months of his arrival the school started taking girls all the way through.

Stowe was just as bad - they started taking token girls for the same reasons in the 70s and then did nothing more about it for nearly 30 years. Until a new head said enough is enough and bingo, girls all the way through, straight away. Not that hard, was it?

It is disappointing that Winchester seems not have learned from this. Wellington and Stowe have proved that

1. it’s a cynical cop out to take a small number girls into the sixth form: it’s not going to tell you what the school might become if fully co-ed but it will give your results and fee income a boost
2. the token girls usually end up performing less well than they had been doing at their previous schools, particular if they take science and maths.
3. the token girls don’t get equal opportunities: eg proper girls sport, or the chance to compete against boys in house competitions
4. being in such a small minority means the girls are objectified in a really unhealthy way, for them and for the boys
5. if you want to go fully co-ed you don’t need to mess about - it can be done very quickly with the right leadership.

By the way, I am not in favour of all schools being co-ed. Parents should have choices. Girls in particular should have the choice of single sex education. At some ages eg prep, it might even be good for boys to be in a single sex environment.

They still started with girls in the 6th form! Whatever the intentions.

One of the main benefits of having girls in the sixth form only is that you get a really big intake at 16, which is great for league tables (given it's much easier to judge who's going to get top A levels at 16 than at 7/11/13). I suspect that's why Westminster do it and imagine Winchester is the same.

I'm in my 50s now but went to a co-ed grammar school. Most of the grammar schools where I lived were single sex. It was interesting that I had a mix of male and female friends while I was at school and have always had a mix of friends, but the girls I knew who went to the single sex schools always saw the boys from other schools as potential boyfriends and would be preening themselves at the station and applying lip gloss with the hope of being noticed. I know it's a generalisation but I'm all in favour of mixed schools. We had separate sessions for games, changing rooms etc but in all other aspects we were treated as people not as boys or girls.

Erm, I thought Winchester was a very old school in the heart of Winchester with terrible parking and old crumbling Grade 2 listed buildings. Building new boarding houses for girls surely takes at least a few years, especially in this building cycle with sky high prices. Where would the money and space for that come from overnight? So I disagree that would be so easy.
Just as Westminster under really cannot on facilities compete with most other preps so it takes a certain type of parent to overlook that.

I agree that Wellington has been turned around offering Co-Ed as well as A levels and IB. Just looked up their IB results which are impressive. They are offering lots of choices and sound both traditional and modern at the same time.

I haven’t read the whole thread but on the issue of single-sex schools, my DS says a lot of the girls at his university who went to all girls schools are suffering from anorexia. He thinks it’s triggered by their drive to be perfect. It’s so sad.

My DD couldn’t wait to get out of her high achieving superselective grammar, she found the atmosphere and pressure that some of the girls put on themselves really toxic. She found joining the boys equivalent at Sixth Form really easy and flew with her Sciences and Maths. She found it refreshing tear the boys didn’t overwork themselves into the ground and still did well and had some fun. She found they diffused any girl dramas and pressure.

Building new boarding houses for girls surely takes at least a few years

I have no particular current interest in Winchester - but wouldn't it be easiest for them to buy or rent a large house in the town for the new female intake? (Thinking of the boarding houses at my own school a million years ago.)

@Cath667 At my co Ed grammar we put the gloss on for the boys at school. No other school nearby. Stereotypes are so boring. My DDs went to single sex schools. They wore make up to please themselves. Not anyone else. They were also perfectly capable of doing enough to pass exams well without sacrificing enjoyment.

I did say that I knew it was a generalisation but it was my experience. It's hard to feel romantic about boys when they were flipping paperclips at each other when they were 12.

I hope that sort of thing is still not going on Eton It doesn’t bode well if some of our MPs have studied there then.

They are looking to develop a section of the Kingsgate Park area and it will include boarding and sports facilities. For Sept 24 they should be able to do this. As long as they get pp fairly quickly.

@MsBucket Yes. Teacher was dismissed. Then won £45,000 at an employment tribunal due to Eton not investigating the issue properly. Harry was found by the exam board not to have cheated. Not sure how they could possibly know. I suspect Eton high achievers elsewhere in public life didn’t receive “help”. No doubt they managed their Oxford finals on their own.

@Aleaiactaest You don’t need to build new houses immediately if you take the decision, as other schools have done, to convert boys houses into girls houses. Not popular with the residents of those houses but it can be done, and it’s less unfair overall than charging girls the same fees as boys for substandard unequal provision.

convert boys houses into girls houses

Where do the boys go??

One of the things that made me less enthusiastic about Winchester was the size of the dorms - we didn’t feel they were 21st century friendly. (This with the benefit of experience of much smaller 20th century girls’ dorms.) If the introduction of girls makes the boys’ accommodation more squashed, wouldn’t parents find that off-putting?

#singleroomssomuchbetter

Single rooms is the unique Eton selling point? What other boarding schools offer that all the way through?

I remember now that the rumours are that Kate was bullied at Downe House so I doubt she would promote single sex for Charlotte (unless she has spent hours reading the research which I agree is largely unambiguous). Every child is different though. So yes, to some extent I agree that there should be a choice across all sectors. However, in the 21st century co-ed should be the default. And personally I question the advantage of single sex even for girls. I would have hated it as a teen and it didn’t really suit either of my girls.

world-education-blog.org/2021/03/29/in-which-countries-do-children-attend-single-sex-schools/

I found the above chart quite interesting and where we (England) sit. As compared to hardly any other European countries. We are firmly sitting with other countries with less feminist tendencies…