Girls - co-ed or single sex secondary?

[Cornygirl]

Just that really!?!

There's a pretty new girls (and accompanying boys) academy near us, not taken over from anything. It's a sports specialist school, perhaps that's why they went single-sex, I don't know. There's at least another 3 girls state schools in the wider area in my bit of London.

Goodbye, it's not a convent, it's a girls school. Girls who attend ss schools are not isolated!

Many girls schools were in fact started by the Catholic Church!

I did some research on the distribution of girls schools for this forum a while ago. I'll cut and paste it here as it is factual and took a bit of excel wrangling to get.

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I did a quick look at the data on the DoE website.

At the KS4 England level there is a list of about 5,500 schools.

754 are listed as single sex.

Take out "independents" and 440 single sex state schools are left.

Take out "selective admission policy" and 319 are left.

The data set didn't have a "faith" field but a quick look shows probably about 50% are obviously St Faith schools - but that doesn't mean they are necessarily only accepting pupils of their faith.

The boroughs of the schools are listed. It is clear is that vast majority of the state, single sex schools are in London and the Home Counties. Yes, there are a significant number of exceptions but they are in the minority (by some way).

So? That was then, this is now. Girls who attend SS schools do not have to be socially isolated from boys. It's 6 hours of the day.

I wonder whether the Holt was founded for girls to match the boys' school (the Forest), which was originally a boys' grammar school? It's interesting to follow the history of these things ... and in how many cases the 'converted from a grammar' comprehensive is still, umpteen years on and often in defiance of objective evidence, regarded as somehow 'superior' to the one converted from the secondary modern!

Sorry - to clarify, the data is for single sex, not just girls schools.

It's a London/Home counties thing.

It's not just a private school thing, it's a church/state thing too.

MN, thanks for that. I suspected that might be the case, hence wanting to do sector and sub-sector comparisons rather than just broad brush.

Here (not home counties) all girls' schools are either private or state selective.

teacherwith2kids

I think the trend is for boys schools (of all types) to convert to co-ed. Some quicker than others in London, but there is a "hard kernel" of single sex schools.

I suspect that the ones that will remain longest will be the ones that have high regard for their own reputation and ranking. The ones highest on the league tables (for example) seem to be least likely to want to change their educational model and risk there position.

The top end of the dreaded and misinterpreted league tables has a much higher proportion of single sex schools that the country as a whole.

So at a rough guess (since they mostly come in pairs) there are about 160 girls' state non-selective schools, out of a 'school population' of 5,500 in total? 2.9%ish?

*their .... ugh .... I need to go back to school myself!

Ah, cross posted - so it isn't a 1:1 girls:boys when it comes down to non-selective state schools?

I think the "selective" tag is a bit misleading, so your estimate might be a little higher. I'd guess 4-5% ... but you could get the actual number from DoE (too much hassle in my view!)

I'm all about the data and personal gut feel. Other people's anecdotes are interesting, informative but clearly what might happen is driven by many factors and that's why I like the data - it has no opinions.

goodbystranger

Fair point on my position, but I hope you accept that when I see evidence contrary to my opinion, I will change. Much of my argument is not based on GSA brochures, but on evidence from independent research. The Centre for Longitudinal Research does many types of research - the single sex thing is just an offshoot.

If you look deep into the DoE past research on bullying in school, you will find that there is a statistically significant difference showing that bullying at girls schools is lower than at co-ed schools. In fact it's higher at boys schools. These aren't anecdotes, they are nationwide impartial evidence gathered by education focused professionals and academics.

Find me credible impartial data in the other direction and my opinions will change.

Lastly, I don't want single sex schools. I don't think they are better. I do think they continue to offer something many girls will benefit from in today's world of stubbornly continuing sexism, misogyny and harassment.

For us, I just worry that as DD is very bright, she'll be pushed academically as the expense of everything else. But again, maybe that's just the crazy high achieving school on offer to me. It's difficult to make an across the board judgement.

MN, is the bullying thing across all sectors? If so, do you think it's skewed by most single sex schools being either faith or selective/fee paying?

I was bullied (by girls) in a co-ed school, but was ok when moved to all girls. Both were private schools.
I remember how disruptive and silly the boys were - constant rubbish about who was gay, etc, and noise during lessons. Boys mature later than girls, and that difference in maturity can make having lower secondary boys around tedious.
DD1 loved her all girls school (left recently), and everyone we met who went there or had a daughter there really liked it.

I think that not having the pressure of boys, many of whom will have been exposed to porn on the internet, for those crucial adolescent years is a good thing. For one thing, it's nice to have a few years in which our DDs are not judged on their looks.

leave do you have sons too?
I would think that teenage girls are just as sexually aware as teenage boys. And what about brothers? Should I keep DD away from them and their friends in case they've been exposed to porn. DD is 10. I have spoken to her at length about sex, porn, respect for herself and any partners she chooses.

No, no sons. The fact is that many boys look at hard porn on the internet - porn which portrays young women as being there for the sexual gratification of men. It's been widely documented that there has been a big change in how boys see girls, because of this. And that girls suffer harassment from the boys at school. And on social media.
I think that spending the core of your day with other girls, not exposed to that, during the difficult adolescent years, is a good idea.
You have some control over your sons and how they behave, in particular at home. You don't have control over how the boys treat the girls at school.

Leave, perhaps, though I would disagree that seperating the sexes is the solution. DD's school did a joint exchange with a single sex school at one point. Both boys and girls from her school as well as pupils from the co-ed overseas school, were quite shocked at some of the behaviours of the single sex girls. Girls sext as well. All the schools DC have attended have clamped down quickly and heavily on unacceptable behaviours. It surely has to be a real advantage for a child's education, especially in this modern and complex world, to include guidance and experience of how to get along with the opposite sex in a normal manner.

And on mother inferiors inner city point, our local inner city girls schools takes boys in the sixth form. Girls in the years below have had to be expressly forbidden from socialising with, or even talking to sixth form boys. Weird....and sad.

Homemama - It was a report by the DoE so definitely included state schools. I think it was all, but it might have excluded private.

Whether it's co-ed or single sex, one area that seems different is the pastoral care system. Schools seem to fall into two dimensions:

1. Those that prefer to deny issues at the school for mental health
   Those that acknowledge it and support/intervene

2. Those that recognise that girls/boys have different issues at different time and allocate resources to both. Those that don't.
   On this dimension, girls schools are often ahead as they are only concerned with girls and can dedicate more time to them. Clearly my point is subject to debate about what girls need/experience that boys don't.

MN, on the bullying data point, are the datasets 'matched' by school type and standard?

For example, you have said that it is the higher-performing schools that have remained girls only - so when the data on bullying is matched to similarly performing mixed and boys schools, is there still a clear difference in favour of girls schools? Or is reported bullying (or lack of it) a proxy measure of school performance?

Equally, are selective girls schools matched with selective co-ed and selective boys schools for the analysis of the data? Same for faith schools.

You see, if you said that high performing, private, selective and faith schools have slightly lower bulllying figures than the average for all other schools, that would seem to match a gut feeling that that would be what would be expected.

It is only if girls schools have less reported bullying that other schools of exactly the same type that the 'girlness' becames relevant IYSWIM?

I wonder whether there is also a reporting bias in that physical bullying (often, though not of course wholly, a 'male' thing) is reported and this shows up, while verbal / emotional bullying (the type at which, IME, girls most often take part in) is less often reported?

Leave, I do think you would feel differently if you also had sons. I have read, and certainly my own anecdotal experience bears this out, that parents who only have daughters are far more likely to choose a single sex environment for their daughters. There is a slight sense of boys being silly, immature and worse, predatory which is a view not held by mothers of sons.

I have of course talked to my sons about pornography too. Both DH and I described it like a cartoon in that many things are depicted that are beyond the realms of real life. Same conversation with DD. At 15, I expect my sons to be highly sexually charged but no more so than I expect DD to be. It is my responsibility to teach all of them how to deal with that in a way that is decent and respectful both to themselves and others. Most parents I know teach their children the same thing.
A 15yr old boy doesn't sexually harass a girl because he's a boy. He does it because no one has taught him how to deal with his sexuality. The overwhelming majority of teenage boys I have encountered both as a mother and a teacher, would never dream of behaving in a sexually inappropriate way towards the girls in their class.

Apologies, X posted.