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.

Those of you who didn't attend attend one and think they are hives of bullying/bitchiness really don't have must faith in your own sex do you?! That wasn't my experience at all, although I am sure some others have found that. But bullying and bitchiness happens in a variety of environments and having teenage boys to square up over is by no means going to reduce it! In fact I would be fascinated to know if there have been any studies about the prevalence if the behaviour across mixed sex and/or single sex schools. It certainly goes on in mixed sex workplaces.

Yes, when men are bitchy it's labelled something else, but they sure do know how to belittle and undermine and takeover. Like I said, I went to two mixed schools so, it's not just one experience. I found that it was the boys way, what suited the boys. And some of them were quite aggressively dominant &/or insulting.

boys rather.

Well, I was bullied by the boys at my co-ed primary. Taunts, pushing, occasional punching etc. I then got into a girls' grammar and it was an absolute haven of tolerance to a geeky, eccentric girl like me. It did me the absolute world of good.

What I'm finding strange is the perception that it's automatically girls who bully girls, when the anecdotes on this thread suggest that it's often boys doing the bullying. I'm sure I can smell sexism at the bottom of this assumption somewhere- almost as if boys bullying girls is being ignored or downplayed...

For my dd at an all girls school, I feel relieved that she won't be on the receiving end of the everyday casual sexism that surely inevitably happens in a co-ed school? Am also bemused at the idea that there is less bullying in a co-ed school. And that at least one kind of bullying that my dd will not have to face during school hours is the sexual kind.

Been reading with interest... I am definitely pro single sex schools for girls, and I think they can offer a wonderfully supportive and stimulating environment for girls. But while I would want to keep my daughter from "the receiving end of the everyday casual sexism that surely inevitably happens in a co-ed school" (which from what I hear from friends with older daughters definitely does happen), I wonder if girls in supportive single-sex schools then suffer when they go on to university or the workplace, from not having had to deal with that kind of thing? What if they have no coping mechanisms for it? What can we do to help them develop ways to cope with it, if they've not faced it in senior school? Not that I'm sure girls who are exposed to it necessarily have coping mechanisms either...

Oh, they will be on the receiving end of it for sure. But hopefully will get some respite during their school hours.

Good point Mintyy.

Yes, school is only 6 or 7 hours a day. I think it must be nice in many ways to be in an environment that is not dominated by the opposite sex.

Dd goes to mixed secondary school and definitely hasn't come across any real bitchiness. There was no way I would have sent her to a single sex school.

The op asks if it scarred you for life going to a single sex school. I have to say yes. Dm wanted a certain career path for me. I begged and pleaded to go to the local comp. But she thought that at the mixed comp I would be distracted by boys and not full fill my "potential." She wouldn't hear of what I wanted to be and I was never cut out to be what dm wanted. I hated the school, I hated the way the teachers would stand in front of the class in their terrible clothes, having come to school in some old banger car and tell everyone that they needed to get 8 O levels, 3 A level a degree at Oxford like they had done. Anyone not subscribing to this level of thought or trying to point out that for all the qualifications they didn't seem to lead very happy lives and they always seemed to be incredibly poor was set upon like a pack of wolves.
Never got to do what I wanted to do which would have come in incredibly handy throughout my life.. Instead I left school without an O Level or any sort of qualification. Left home at 17 and have never spoken to my dm again.

So anyone thinking that going to a single sex school will somehow mean their dd will get better results, make sure it is what your dd actually wants and be very careful when they finally leave home/go to uni. A few friends, me included went completely wild after years of being cooped up with only female classmates.

And have to agree with Nigella probably not on this thread but definitely on others the general consensus that unless your child goes to uni your child is definitely screwed. My dd wants to sing or act, but is in the bottom 1 percentile academically because of dyslexia. I was told by one MNter that because she would not be getting a degree the only openings would be in porn films. Dd earns more than me when I went to work. She has regular work. She is 13 and she lives her life and loves her school.

I hated the way the teachers would stand in front of the class in their terrible clothes, having come to school in some old banger car and tell everyone that they needed to get 8 O levels, 3 A level a degree at Oxford like they had done. Anyone not subscribing to this level of thought or trying to point out that for all the qualifications they didn't seem to lead very happy lives and they always seemed to be incredibly poor was set upon like a pack of wolves.

Wow. Yes. Hmm. What can I say?

Poverty and terrible clothes. Such sad, sad spinsters...had their fiancés all died in the first world war or something, to complete the cliché?

No they were married with kids but to do in effect 5 years studying to end up like that it had to be said why bother. It wasn't as if they were happy. They were the least inspiring bunch of teachers you could have come across.

Maybe because I didn't want to be there coloured how I viewed them but really, if I wanted to be able to buy my clothes from Oxfam then why would I spend 5 years studying for the privilege. I could go on benefits and get the same outcome.

One of the former pupils is an author and I was reading about her the other day. She actually said pretty much what I have said about the school. It was the worse time of her life.

Yes and has been for my daughters too.

1. The most academic best results schools in the private sector are all female (not surprising as women get better exam results than men) and those were the schools we wanted.
2. They don't need to worry what to wear as no boys around.
3. Girls can be rbilliant at science and all manner of boys' things and excel which does not always happen once boys are there.
4. Girls get better exam results in single sex schools.
5. My daughters had their first boyfriends at university and got very good school results. I think that might have been less likely at a mixed school and they have brothers of course and know boys out of school.

In that example above I don't think any of us can say that a badly dressed spinster teacher who is very bright and teaching the subject they love has an awful unhappy life! It's amazing anyone might think so.

I'm an Oxford graduate who buys her clothes in charity shops . I can't say that my life is madly dreary, frankly. Sorry your school experience wasn't good but you're making rather a large set of assumptions, really.

In all honesty if I were teaching a bunch of kids who said "Miss, your clothes are crap, you don't earn very much, so why should I listen to you" I'd rather lose my spark.

I resisted the very idea of girls' school for my daughters, until that isDD2 refused to go to the school her brother and sister attended, and instead chose a girls' school. I was resistant because I had a notion that she'd be too sheltered and not get the social skills she'd need to deal with the world as she found it.

In fact, the school she is at (which is very academic and very feminist) seems to turn out bright, assertive and determined young women and I could not have been happier with having sent her there.

The teachers at my DD1's all girls comp are most definitely not a bunch of dowdy old spinsters although her maths teacher is a bit scary Most of the teachers seem quite young and modern in their outlook. DD1 is in year 7 and seems to be making excellent progress so far. She is not missing the boys at all at the moment, as they are the ones who used to be most disruptive in her mixed primary school.

The science GCSE results this year were very good - 70% A*A - not sure the mixed comp down the road did as well and that has a science specialism.

I loved the girl's High School I went to. Academically competitive and only mildly bitchy. It WAS full of raving nymphomaniacs though, although that could be just as much about the fact it was set in a small, rural town, with nothing much else to do. It was charmingly nicknamed *** Whore School by the locals!

DD1's tutor is a total babe, a dance teacher in scarily high heels and fabulously short skirts.

Generally speaking neither the teachers at my all girls or all boys (girls sixth form) were particularly well dressed. As I never aspired to be a teacher that wasn't an issue for me, what did really annoy was being lectured about being scruffy whilst being forced to wear my badly made and poorly fitting school uniform!

But that's another story. We've been asked for personal stories here though, so MILLY's view is as valid as anyone else's, of course it comes through her teenage eye, because we were all teens at secondary school after all.

Fundamentally we should pick schools that suit our children, assuming that there is some choice. Personally I am very happy to have moved to an area with one mixed school which everyone except children of the extremely religious goes to. I have a son and a daughter and quite apart from our negative views about segregation I wanted them to go to the same school which obviously would not have been possible if they were only allowed to be educated amount their 'own kind'.

Regarding the bullying/bitchiness both of my children have only really had grief from girls so far, and my experience of the workplace is that diversity is very helpful in diffusing tensions and homogeneity. I'd certainly not choose a single sex environment for myself.

I have a question for those of you who said you were a bit intimidated or distracted when you had boys join you for sixth form (or whatever it was in that case). What happened to the apparent confidence you gained from being in a class of all girls before?

My problem with an all-anything school is that while it may offer an academic advantage, I wonder how the child will cope when faced with a real-world environment? I mean, at some point, their lives will once again be co-ed. Does delaying that help anything by the time they are in their 20s?

Not trying to stir the pot, I'm genuinely interested in the answers.

wow, millymollymandymax, you sound so mean about your old teachers. you didn't like them, ok, but deciding that they weren't happy on the basis that their cars were old and their clothes weren't what you'd wear yourself....

That would have been how a 15 year old saw it, now that you're an adult have you not reviewed that assumption at all!?

As MotherInferior said, if a pupil said to me 'miss your clothes are crap, your car is shit, you're not happy' I'd find it hard to staplegun the encouraging smile back on to my face. And MotherInferior, yes, I agree, an A is an A!

@AndiMac, my answer to that would be that it's probably best to deal with any difficult, threatening and new situation for the first time when you're older and have a healthy self-esteem.

I guess dealing with casual sexism along the way (from 12 ish onwards) just made me accept it. It damaged my self-esteem.

If I'd encountered sexism in my real life (not just in ads, magazines, tv shows) for the first time as an adult with a healthy self-esteem, I'd imagine I'd have been better equipped to deal with it than as a 12, 13, 14 year old.

I went to an all girls' school and loved it. I sent my daughter to one, known locally as The Virgin Megastore, but when we moved for work reasons just after her GCSEs she went to a mixed grammar. the worst thing I could ever have done - she discovered boys in a big way and thought of nothing else. From A*s in every subject, she plummeted and just about scraped through her A levels. I really wish I had left her in a boarding school. She had had a good social life and boyfriends out of school, but having them around all day - well, her hormones seemed to go haywire. I think it's best either to get them used to boys at an early age, or keep them apart until after their A levels and hope that their hormones have calmed down a little by the time they go to uni.

Yes. I think an 18 year old can rein her self in a bit! even if her heart is beating at some 18 year old with a skate board and jeans half covering his pants, at 18, a girl can remember to try to get on with work/study/life.