For those who did, do you think going to an all girls school was a good thing for you...?

[BraveMerida]

...or did it scar you for life ? Why?!

And would/did/do you send your dd to one?

just interested.

[MILLYMOLLYMANDYMAX]

Mumpire-judgement a bit teenage!?

Well given I was at school and I was a teenager, so correct judgement I think.

Also you mention your aunt living for the weekend. Makes it sound like she was just marking time in her job during the week. So probably wasn't very inspirational.

Friends dd was failing badly at school truanting and worse. Df spent hours getting her up to date and doing the course work to help her through her GCSE's as her dd was not interested.
Come A levels a new teacher arrived from overseas. Df described her as a willowy blonde that looked like a super model and dressed accordingly. The pupils loved her and the results for A levels were so good her dd is now at university and has a renewed interest in education.

Clothes do go someway into making a teacher. If you have someone stand in front of you dressed in some charity shop cast offs and they are telling you that if you work really hard then you too can look like them. What do you think some teenager is going to think.

[duchesse]

Andi, I can only speak for the girls at DD2's school and say that there is a very much above average proportion doing sciences and maths at A level.

[motherinferior]

Milly, I would hope 'some teenager' would have the sense to listen to what's being taught. And I'd slightly think intelligence, passion and the ability to communicate about the subject are more important than willowy blonditude.

[motherinferior]

Andi, I can only speak for DD1's school which is a maths and science specialist school.

[Stropperella]

I'm not completely getting the idea that single-sex girls schools are the only schools that have women in positions of authority. There are plenty of women in positions of authority at the enormous 13-18 comp that my dd attends. Yes, the HT is a man, but there are female deputy heads and several female HoDs, including Science.

[TobyLerone]

The (excellent) HT of DS's single-sex grammar is a woman.

[motherinferior]

and DD1 has plenty of Bloke Teachers too.

[duchesse]

Yep, DD2 also has loads of male teachers. All of whom are judged on their own merits.

DD2's chemistry teacher (who is an immensely tall former investment banker) has gone from being über-scary to being awesome in her eyes in the last 6 years. Horses for courses. She loves chemistry, he gets the results with his pupils.

The 30 something bloke who tries a bit too hard to down wiv da kidz, drives a convertible and dresses in a very particular way used to be fun when she was 13/14, but at 16 she finds him a bit a plonker.

[Mumraathenoisylion]

I went to one for a while.

Their grades were good.

Their attitude towards men and life was not.

[Guttersnipe]

In answer to the title:

No, I don't. I still didn't do as well as I should have done in my exams (because, in the presence of boys or not, I was still a lazy, unmotivated, distracted teenager) and I suffered years of being unable to speak to people of the opposite gender.

I have a teenage daughter now (and teenage sons) and, although none of them seem any more confident with the opposite gender than I was at their age, at least they are mixing with them and I hope that will help them long term.

Academically, my daughter is doing just fine. I think whatever disadvantages girls used to suffer being educated alongside boys have mostly been ironed out now.

[zooweemumma]

Interesting reading this thread. I loved school (girls grammar), it was a refuge from a very difficult home life. I wanted my daughters to have the same feeling of loving school and feeling safe and nurtured. They absolutely do and they and I have been incredibly fortunate to find such an academically excellent yet non selective girls school that turns out really lovely, grounded girls. Annoyingly it costs a fortune

[steppemum]

my favourite teacher at my all girls school was a classic cambridge blue stocking.

She was a miss, wore brown brogues and tweed skirts, had no patience with anything 'girly' and inspired in my a lifelong love of geography.
She wasn't the only one from that mould either.

There were a couple of young, good looking, nicely dressed teachers, who were a bit meh and bland compared with these strong older women. Personality and good teaching was far more relevant.

This teacher took all of us in the second year sixth form outside to the car park, in groups of 3. She taught as all how to change a flat tire on a car. She said that while she understood that many of us would prefer to smile nicely and persuade someone to do it for us, we may find that we actually needed to do it ourselves one day, and we ought to learn. No girl of hers was going to leave without being able to do such a basic life skill. Really funny when I think about it now, but actually, the first time many of these girls had done anything like that.

I think the issue is not the clothes or the car, but the teachers attitude. We were taught to work hard and get good results so that you can choose to be anything you want. Slightly different but key emphasis I think.

[duchesse]

steppe, what a wonderful teacher! Teaching you all to stand on your own two feet rather than hoist your cleavage and get a man to do it for you-perfect!

[MumpiresYellowCard]

Milly etc You sound very hard work.

What I meant was that you haven't updated your teenage perceptions now that you're an adult.

And judging by the number of girls at my aunt's funeral, she was far from 'uninspiring'.

Teaching you, inspiring you, would have been like pushing water uphill. That's my adult perception there.

[nooka]

A large proportion of the girls in my year went to the local sixth form college and studied hairdressing. Academically selective single sex school, which put out the whole girls can do anything message.

I know our headmistress was very disappointed but lots of girls left at sixth form, and one of the main reasons is because we were all fed up with the segregation.

Both my children go to a non uniform mixed school and dress to please themselves. Sure there are some airheads who dress to impress, and some who spend ages mooning over boys/girls, but then I remember a fair bit of that at my school too, it's just that the boys were waiting outside of the gates instead (and they were a really crap bunch of boys that we went with purely because they were known to us, not because we particularly liked them).

Plus both my children are currently thinking about whether they are gay or straight - single sex schooling won't stop them being distracted if either of them do turn out to be gay!

[MILLYMOLLYMANDYMAX]

Obitchery I probably was hard work, I wouldn't have been if I was allowed to go to the school I wanted to.

My dd goes to a mixed school and I asked her if the girls stressed about whether a certain boy is in the class, or whether another boy would like their new hair style and she just roared out laughing.

Dd has friends who are boys at school and spent a night recently at a sleep over with 3 of them whilst working on a GCSE film. I don't think it crossed any of their minds that they were anything more than friends.

[UmpireHalfTimeKids]

Steppemum just read that post about teacher teaching girls to chsnge a tire! Fantastic.

[EBearhug]

I was at a single sex school from 13 to 18. Some of our 6th form classes were mixed - mind you, one of my subjects was entirely at the boys' school, but was an all girls class, because no boys took the subject at A-level. I suspect these days, they wouldn't even run it as there were so few of us.

It was a small town, and we'd been at school with most of the boys up to age 13, and saw them outside of school at various activities (swimming club, youth club and so on.) There were also some mixed activities like French exchange trips, drama productions and so on.

There was bitchiness and cliquiness at times, but I don't think it was any worse than it would have been at a mixed school, with all the shifting alliances and so on (internet messageboards can be like school was in that way) - and at other times, it was very supportive.

I do think being at a single sex school helped with my confidence. There was no discussion about whether STEM subjects were not for girls or not - it was just a question of whether you were good at it or not. Mind you, I had a grandmother who had done maths at Cambridge and went on to teach maths and physics, and an aunt who taught chemistry, so I already knew lots of women doing that sort of subject.

We were told we were the academics and business women of tomorrow. And we were shielded from a lot of everyday sexism - when I was in the 6th form and we were at a planning meeting for an A-level French trip to France, I was so taken aback by the idea that the girls would be in different accommodation just because we were girls, I stood up and challenged it. I am not sure (but obviously can't know) that I would have had the confidence to do that if I hadn't been in a single-sex environment most of my teenage years. Also, if I'd been coed all that time, maybe I'd have just been so inured to everyday sexism, I wouldn't have been shocked or thought to question it.

I socialise well with men as an equal, but have less success romantically - however, I think this has far more to do with my mother telling me no one would ever love me and that if I ever went out with someone in the county, then she would know all about it, and being assaulted at 16, just as I was starting to gain some confidence, than because I was at a single sex school.

If I had a daughter, I would definitely consider sending her to a single-sex secondary school. It would depend on the school in question, though. There are good and bad single-sex schools, just as there are good and bad mixed schools, and while I think it was good because of the lack of everyday sexism and the expectations you did subjects because you were good at them, not because they were a subject for a particular sex, I think mostly it was a good school that just happened to be single-sex school, rather than because it was single-sex.

[Schmedz]

I only spent the last two years of school at a single sex school and LOVED it. Could be because the general standard of education was superior to my previous co-ed, but it was also a relief as a girl who was a year younger than her peers, I had relief from the constant embarrassment of being physically less developed than my peers and having the almost constant irritation of being teased by the lads!
Girls can really focus on their work in a single sex school because you are not going to fall out with your boyfriend in the lunch break.
Did miss beating the boys in tests, but actually achieved far better academically in a single sex environment.
As a teacher now, I fully support single sex education for girls, not only because of personal experience but the vast majority of the research. Boys probably do better in coed, but there are also some great single sex boys schools.
But there are always exceptions to the rule...some girls probably prefer a mixed school and can hold their own!

[DIddled]

I went to a vv strict Catholic convent ex grammar school in the 80's when grammars had been abolished in Manchester. Taught by nuns plus 'normal teachers'. I loved it, had a fantastic education, inspirational teachers and made the most wonderful friends who remain like family nearly 30 years only. Never had any issues with mixing with boys- and I was very sad when it went part coed the year before I left. My son goes to an all boys grammar but is incredibly comfortable around girls- if you had seen him on holiday this year with five girls hanging on his every word!!!

[Metebelis3]

I also went to a catholic convent which was an ex grammar (very recently ex). It gets mentioned a lot on MN. I bloody loved my school, it was fabulous. Funnily enough I was reminiscing in FB last night with some of my friends from school about our wonderful Xmas concerts and how we all miss them. Of my friendship group, 2 of us went to Cambridge (and we both came from working class second gen immigrant backgrounds), one went to music college, one went to a very good RG university (and I'm sure she would have got in to Oxbridge too had she wanted to apply).

I feel very lucky and blessed to have gone there. I really wish my DDs could, but we live hundreds of miles away.

[Blu]

No. It was one more factor in the whole rareified quasi private school atmosphere (it was Direct Grant - funded by LEA scholarships) that felt stultified and separate from real life.

I would not opt for single sex ed for a boy or a girl.

[3asAbird]

Im puzzled how many single sex state schools there must be in uk,

Grew up wales my town had one co-ed comp which was bitchy,lots teen preganciess and sexual harrassent was rife.
The boys always disrupted class and girls did less well in sciences and aths did wonder if was just my year but other say other years euqlly as bad. I did know some who went to private girls school they all did well seemed happy the boys scool was next door so there was some socialisstion, plus in 6th form shared some subjects and few exes were boys school and they were much better behved and more academic than boys at my school.

But even in bristol all the independents are co-ed think they teach some lessons bu single sex ie maths, english and scinece.

theres one girls school which is now state academy which is hard to get into,.Only 2[rivate girls schools. no state boys provision and only 1 independent boys school, no grammers although some commute to gloucestershire grammars so not much choice.

I have 2girls and 1 boy and would love them to attend single sex but dont think we ever afford it.

My freind in windsor just says her biys wilol go windsor boys her girl will go wondsor girls both do well both non grammers but guess selection by catchment.

It is scary to think of pressures these days seen too much on news about sexting, grooming.

At primary does not seem as bad dds school so small the boys very few of them in her class are lovely and they socialise in the playground.