Abingdon school to go co-Ed

[HooleyB]

Apparently they have had failed merger talks with SHSK and are now going to go it alone and move to co-Ed. It will be really interesting to see how this affects the girls schools and how well Abingdon can pull this off.

Oh interesting! Has that been properly announced today?

Abingdon is a very commercial
enterprise. They have been working very hard for the Hong Kong dollar recently - upgrading boarding houses and so on - so I expect they have an eye on the sisters of their boarders, the kids that are too late/don’t get into the top flight places like Eton and Winchester. Maybe their sisters don’t get into Wycombe and Cheltenham either. Makes commercial sense also because the Year7/8 entry will be the one most hit by VAT. If Labour wants to tax them like a business, they will think like a business I suppose.

Exam results will go up if international proportion goes up as generally the higher achieving types. Plus they will have more kids paying 50k instead of 25k. Not that they can compete with Marlborough and Sevenoaks where everyone pays 50k and the quality reflects that. But makes sense for a provincial school to future proof.

There's no talk of expanding boarding and it seems their first choice was a merger with STSK which failed so I don't think this is a bid to get more international boarders. I think this is more about becoming the only real academic all-through co-Ed option in Oxford. It certainly will differentiate them. It's going to poach a lot of sisters from OHS/SHSK.

They upgraded the boarding houses, appointed a Director of International Development and the Head flies out to HK. So I think watch what they do, not what they choose not to say. They don’t split their GCSE/ALevel results between boarders and domestic but I’d be prepared to guess that the boarders take at least half of their top grades. Ship in some clever international girls and their grades get closer to MCS. The other question being, how academic is it really for local kids when you correct for the outperformance of the boarders?

@Lamplightlady Does anyone report their day and boarding students separately? I'm not sure what percentage board but I always thought it was very low. It will be interesting to see if you're right and they expand to attract foreign money.

Interesting. It will be fascinating to see how many all boys schools are left in ten years. Do you think boarding grades would be that much better @Lamplightlady.? Surely the super-strong London day schools call that into question (though I guess London is a very different market). Not sure Sevenoaks and Marlborough prove the point on boarding fees ensuring strong results, as Marlborough is full boarding but Sevenoaks more than half day.

The boarders at Abingdon are a very impressive bunch, dominate the orchestras, top sets so their exam performance is likely to be strong. It’s not a general comment about boarding vs day because your point about the London schools is spot on @potionsmaster - I don’t think co-Ed boarding schools
compete on results primarily - it’s more the holistic experience and I would say Marlborough, Wellington, Sevenoaks are a different league ..

I think it's going to have a lot of local appeal. There are so many families including us that drop boys at Abingdon and then have to run to the manor/st Hugh's/chandlings with girls. Right now there's no co-Ed all through option with that level of academics.

When did a Director of International Development get appointed?

My son went there and isn’t impressed by this news. My daughter is at SHSK and said last night she would have asked to leave the school if it went co-Ed. None of her class liked the idea either. We are all firmly behind Rebecca Dougall in preserving a mostly girls-only space down the road. Whether this works for Abingdon is anybody’s guess. I think it’s a shame as it was the only single sex day school for boys that our son could get into. Save for Magdalen there will be no option for many miles after this news.

This lowers the amount of places for senior boys wanting Indy in the Oxford area, and adds yet another option for girls. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of Headington/SHSK need to go co-ed over the next decade in response. (Wychwood already have, but they’re so tiny the impact is negligible.) OHS are unlikely to go co-Ed as their site is so small it makes extra changing rooms/loos and boys sports difficult to provide.

I had 2 boys at Abingdon and still have a girl at the top of shsk . Abingdon has been talking to Shsk about merging for YEARS but Shsk is not interested. It really believes in single sex education, it gets fabulous results (much better than Abingdon) without undue pressure on the girls, and Mrs Dougall is a proper feminist and champion of girls and women. Abingdon wants to ship in girls to increase their results and so its place in league tables. I can see that and my boys probably would have loved having girls around and standards raised. But I can’t see what Shsk would gain from a merger. It’s pretty perfect as is I think. It will lose from not having joint plays and music with Abingdon but if it has any sense it will become much closer to Radley.

Headington might - they have acres of room with the rye site joined to their own. But generally boys single sex education is dying out. Boys do better with girls in the class. The same isn’t true in reverse.

I’m aware of those stats. But places for boys will be thin on the ground, with everything co-ed + 3 large girls schools and only 1 for boys - and even then, MCS is mixed for sixth form.

If any of the girls school enrolment numbers dip with the new co-ed option, opening up to the boys who can’t find local day places seems the obvious solution.

Another SHSK parent happy that they are staying single sex. That said I had also had the same assumption as pp that SHSK had much better results than Abingdon but having looked I'm not sure it's correct E.g. (from their websites):

2023 A-level: SHSK 73%A-A, 91.7% A-B. Abingdon 70.1 A-A, 90.5% A-B.
2023 GCSE: SHSK 60.7% 9-8, 81.5% 9-7. Abingdon 60.8% 9-8, 81.4% 9-7.

2022 A-level: SHSK 77%A-A, 94.5% A-B. Abingdon 79.1% A-A, 93.5% A-B.
2022 GCSE: SHSK 72% 9-8, 90.3% 9-7. Abingdon 71.3% 9-8, 86.9% 9-7.

So some differences but largely same ballpark and last year's GCSE almost identical.

I wish the * didn't make things bold! You know what I mean! Results here if you don't:
https://shsk.org.uk/academic/results-and-leavers-destinations/
https://www.abingdon.org.uk/academic/gcse-a-level-results/

I think this will take away from headington more than SHSK. As more parents feel the squeeze with an added 20% a singular school run makes sense. If they can get to SHSK on the joint bus then fine but the ones that would have travelled miles to Headington will likely opt for Abingdon. Give the size and intake of the school I'd actually say Abingdon results are more impressive. SHSK only take the best of the best.

Abingdon are going to have to make do a better job than they did in the question and answer section about girls in STEM. It read like chat GCP had written it. It really wasn't impressive at all and highlighted an ignorance of the reality of women and girls in STEM. One hint of a problem for the girls at Abingdon and the parents will flee to the other good girls options.

Isn’t it only about 10% boarding? If so looks as if the majority of local boys also get top grades

I have a daughter at SHSK and a son at Abingdon. Will be keeping her there as SHSK academically superior and the benefits of single sex education are well known for girls! Personally think its a real shame they have decided to do this and hope it doenst affect shsk!

Top sets at Abingdon do very well indeed @SHSKParent but eg if you look at ALevel results posted above - you have eg Psychology “including SHSK”. SHSK’s website has 13 Astars and 9 As for Psychology - so do they include those in Abingdon’s reported 14 Astars and 13 As?? And since it’s STEM A Levels where Abingdon really shine, I assume that’s boarder heavy vs other subjects (I could be wrong). Not disputing it’s academic at the top end in any case. Also, probably removing the entrance test for the Prep was more of a business decision than an academic one - to compete with Moulsford and get the Henley crowd - but an even better business decision to widen their catchment to OLA, Chandlings and Cokethorpe. If they were talking to SHSK, you’d expect one of their real estate mercers to have been talking to OLA and Unicorn as well - if only in pursuit of a new girl’s boarding house … I wonder who might have one of those lying around…maybe SHSK could consider boarding.

@Lamplightlady unicorn actually started out as part of Abingdon, but has also just bought the ock mill site to double in size. OLA is likely to suffer, their junior school is tiny already. Manor might also find it harder as girl heavy, but Abingdon prep has a bigger site, better facilities.

@HooleyB where are these Q&As? I have a daughter at SHSK and other parents keep mentioning them (mostly how terrible they are), but I haven't seen anything!