Pros and Cons of all-girls schools

[ANightingaleSang]

Just that really. I went to a bog-standard mixed state school and so have no experience to draw on. What are people's thoughts and experiences with all-girls schools? Thank you!

you just didn't speak to boys. I remember being 15 and desperate to have a first kiss and a boyfriend, but with no idea of how to make it happen. I sometimes felt that I was living a 1950s teenage experience.
When I started university, I was very nervous around boys. I was hugely naive about what actual men are actually like, mostly because I had spent more time reading romance novels than interacting with actual males. I developed huge, debilitating crushes and, I think, behaved in a very immature way for an 18 year old. I think university would have been a bit easier (and also more fun!) if I had got some of that out of the way at 14 rather than 18. I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 20.
So that's my view - for some of the girls I was at school with, it was fine, and it might have been fine for me if I'd been friends with the right people, but for some of us, we were effectively cloistered, and it seemed to come down to where you were in the coolness pecking order. It's easy in middle age to dismiss it, but romance it's a big deal to teenagers and a big part of your development.

I’m definitely pro girls schools but this is a very good point. I was a bit similar and know other girls were too.

I have 2 nieces and a god daughter who went to (different) all girl state schools. They were all pushed to do STEM subjects at A Level and university. 2 of them have dropped out of uni, and one is repeating her 1st year. All 3 say they regret their choices but say they were made to feel special/successful at school because they were studying science/ maths/ engineering.
A small sample... but true nonetheless.

I personally hated being in an all-girls environment. Many of my primary friends were boys, and I found it weird to suddenly be away from that. I had a fantastic academic education, but I wasn't at all happy socially. Also, I think the idea that girls aren't interested in appearances etc in single sex is false - there was still a lot of sexual competitiveness among the girls, and everyone still rolled their skirts up! I also recall there being quite a bit of intense and rather unhealthy attention towards younger male teachers.

We ended up choosing independent secondary for our kids in order to avoid single sex grammars but still have an academically selective school. Co-ed was the main factor in going private. The girls are still absolutely involved in sport, STEM etc, and the boys and girls grow up as really good mates. But I realise that might not be the same in every co-ed environment.

I think it depends on the girl. DD went to a mixed primary school and was very keen to go to all girls for secondary. Just found boys immature and dominating in the classroom. However, some girls will have a lot of friends that are boys and single sex may not suit them at all. DD’s school has great behaviour and work ethic but that is to be expected - it is a grammar school so everyone there has had to earn their place via entrance testing. I think there’s a lot to be said for all girls schools. DD says she feels like she can be herself. But it won’t suit everyone and as we know young girls can also be quite mean, so there is that aspect to it.

I went to an all girls school and fully agree with all the comments about female being the default

personally I had plenty of boyfriends and boys as friends outside school and I don’t have any brothers either so they were boys I met through just hanging out - I mean it’s a school not a nunnery 😁

My DD went to our local girls high school after a mixed primary school. She’s now at a mixed 6th form doing (you’ve guessed it) STEM subjects. She finds some of the boys a bit patronising and overbearing but certainly holds her own and has rock solid confidence from her high school years. Academically, she’s flying.

She LOVED her high school and saw it very much as her ‘safe space’. She got involved heavily in music and drama alongside STEM and really blossomed. In fact she’s back there this evening as an ambassador for her college and can’t wait to see her old teachers again ❤️

If I had to choose again, I would absolutely choose a single sex high school.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to respond so thoroughly. All the replies have been very helpful. I am surprised by the overwhelming positivity surrounding single-sex school environments. As people have said, I think many of the cons can be mitigated by ensuring girls have the opportunity to participate in mixed extracurriculars.

I have heard horror stories about extreme competitiveness resulting in breakdowns due to the pressure to succeed in STEM subjects; I think those fears can be parked.

While I have come across single-sex secondaries, I have not come across them for primary years (ie. age 7+). Do you think the same applies, or are there different things to consider with younger age groups

There was extreme competitiveness in my school but looking back that was more to do with a high proportion of girls with undiagnosed ASD - because back in the 80s/90s girls didn't get ASD - who were brilliant at academics but no focus on social skills or managing anxiety. Selective private school - but most pressure came from parents not teachers.

I think the competitiveness might be more of a grammar/private thing rather than a single sex thing? My DD is at a single sex comprehensive and there's definitely not a lot of pressure to be top of everything. Or at least not more so than in any school at the moment.

I'm not sure there's any less focus on appearance either. Plenty of skirt rolling. Plenty of flouting the make up rules. I guess they're doing it for each other rather than boys. Although it does have a mixed sixth form so who knows?

It was a great choice for us. There's opportunities to socialise with boys outside of school, especially now when things like Scouts are mixed. I'd echo all the stuff about women being the default, not being spoken over by boys, not thinking something is a boy's subject, etc. It won't suit all girls though so you need to consider your child's personality.

I went to an all girls school and deeply regret that I could not send DD to one due to location (none within 60miles of where we live). DD was sexually harassed horrendously and repeatedly put down in Maths. She was predicted a 6 by her male teacher, got a 9 and a A* at A Level and is now at Cambridge studying maths. The school saw a 'pretty girl' and did all they could to crush her - teachers and male pupils.

I was on the fence but dd insisted on state girls comprehensive and it is fabulous. She is so much happier and more confident. Her favourite subjects are maths and biology, she is aiming for a biochemistry degree. Many of her classmates are thinking about careers in IT, engineering, medicine (the rest mostly want to be actresses!).

Also I think the relationships of students with teachers are often quite mature and amicable.

Although apparently the loos are “disgusting” according to dd - not sure if this is a particular problem at girls’ schools!

I make sure she encounters the male of the species in extra-curriculars at least 3 times a week. But I don’t actually think that makes a good impression on her (she still finds boys immature and/or crude and violent like her primary school peers).

Maybe just lucky, but with SO many girls it seems easy to find your tribe and dd hangs around with an amorphous gang of about 25 girls who variously group and de-group depending whether its drama rehearsal or netball or k-pop club (or detention!). Or whatever.

There has been surprisingly little bitchiness. My mixed school was far worse.

That’s appalling.

Our second choice was a mixed state school which at least said “we try to get girls interested in computer science and maths, but they just aren’t.” I was gobsmacked !

Five minutes up the road, the girls schools is smashing out 9s and A*s in Stem

My DD was mixed primary and now in an academically selective all girls secondary and she loves it. It wasn’t our plan and we all thought she’d go mixed secondary but a few things happened in Y6 where a couple of incidents (wider class rather than specific to our Dd) opened our eyes to how girls are held to account for boys poor behaviour and the teachers and school weren’t even aware that they were doing it. She then got into this school, chose it and from the first week commented positively on how ‘quiet’ it was in lessons compared to mixed classes and the having freedom to talk about girls specific things (puberty etc) without ridicule or having to ‘hide’. She does have a lot of mixed extra curricular and two closest outside of school friends are both boys as it happens. I probably would feel differently if she didn’t have such a mixed social group outside of school as might be too limiting having no boy contact ever!

My 8yo is desperate to go to an all girls school. She is already fed up by the disruptive behaviour of a lot of the boys in her class but has more recently also started to lose some confidence as they dominate. I didn’t expect to start seeing her think she was ‘lesser’ in the primary years and it’s really shocked me. I’ve also been struck by the high numbers of girls doing stem subjects in the girls schools but also embracing creative subjects and being equally happy to do textiles or wood work.

I went to a girls secondary school and vowed I would never inflict that on my daughter.

Well, fast-forward 30 years and I found myself enrolling my 11-year old in, yes, a girls' secondary (private, mildly selective which might be relevant).

She is very much a maths-and-science girl and we thought that this would be great for her, but to our surprise, the opposite was true. All of her friends seemed to endlessly complain that maths was hard and that science was boring. She was considered a bit weird for liking them and being good at them.

We moved her in Year 9 to a mixed school and she has thrived - finally she has mates who think that chemistry is cool, and who can match her at maths, and she is delighted. OK, it's mostly boys, but who cares, she's finally got some like-minded peers and that's all she cares about. She is one of only two girls in her computer science GCSE class, but at least they're running a computer science GCSE. In her old girls school, too few girls signed up and it got cancelled.

When we visited the mixed school, thinking about a move, I asked the (female) head of science how they dealt with boys dominating the class. She looked horrified and assured me that this simply would not be allowed to happen. I was doubtful, but everything I've now seen and heard confirms that she was right. Good teachers do not allow this to happen and will bend over backwards to support a girl who is into STEM.

I've recently discovered that DD has a 'boyfriend'. I think they very occasionally hold hands. I don't think there's been any snogging as far as my intel goes. I could not be more thrilled at this development. I didn't have my first boyfriend until I was at University and being at a girls school (and not part of the cool set that somehow knew boys) I had completely bypassed the snogging and giggling stage. At 18 it was straight into full blown adult relationship and I was Not Ready. DD will be, and I'm very pleased about that.

Bitchy, competitive and stripped me of my confidence. Totally naive when it came to boys too. Would never ever send my daughter to an all girls school. Never.

That's very worrying. I hadn't considered this. There can definitely be a culture in society of trying to tear down successful people or making false claims that someone excelling in one area must be bad in others.

It's horrifying that teachers contributed to this.

My DD is at an all girls secondary school. She is thriving. She struggles socially and I wanted her to be in a single sex environment as she'd basically have a wider pool of girls to potentially be friends with. She remarked in her first week there that it was much easier to concentrate without boys mucking around.

I went to an all girls school, I felt like girls could be anything we put our minds to. My friends have become doctors, lawyers, they work in the city, there was no limitation because we were girls.

I felt very confident in PE, putting my hand up in class, and I wasn’t interested in a boyfriend until I was about 18.

My friends at mixed schools started boyfriends at 13, and they became a huge distraction.

I didn’t have a problem with men, I went to a very male Uni, joined the Army and got on fine, and now work in a male dominated industry! My girls school gave me the confidence to think I’m equal and it never occur to me I’m not.

Both my primary and secondary schools were all-girls. I actually find it hard to imagine what a mixed school is like (although my DS is at one). It was just the norm for me. And I agree - although had never thought about it - that having so many female role models in all the subjects was inspiring. We used to have regular lectures from alumnae who had gone on to do amazing things and it definitely gave the sense that the world was your oyster.

I also never had a problem interacting with boys! We hung out with the boys from a couple of local schools both informally and in joint lessons or drama productions. I mainly remember being at university and in tutorials with boys and rolling my eyes about how they talked such crap so confidently. I am glad I didn't have to put up with that at school!

I am considering an all girls' secondary for my DD who is currently in year 5, so this is an extremely helpful thread - thank you.

I'm 65. I won a scholarship to a private (GPDST) girl's school. (I did well in my 11 plus.) It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Didn't see it at the time, but hey...

PPs have covered a lot of it, but:

• no sexual harassment/general misogyny from boys and teachers. (My sisters got that from their local secondary school. "Girls can't/shouldn't do physics").
• No mean girls nonsense ac I recall. Times may have changed.
• when I ended up working in the computing industry:(professional, well paid, interesting, my mortgage will end this year, etc.) I joined the BCS (British Computing Society's) Female SIG and went to meetings with them.
• At their first meeting, the BCS chairwoman started by asking how we all ended up in the industry. After a boring sequence of women starting with 'well of course I went to a girl's school...' she asked everyone to raise their hands if they'd gone to a girl's school. 90% put up their hands. We moved on.

Just a thought...

I agree with all of the positives people have mentioned, and never had an issue with boys as friends because I did a lot of mixed extra curricular and out of school most of my friends were boys.

Our school also did a lot of co-Ed events with the local boys' school (including holidays), so I think the downsides of not knowing how to be around boys can be mitigated with some thought and choosing the right school/activities. The girls that hadn't spent any time with boys did struggle as they got older, but single sex was nothing but positive for me.

I did consider an all girls school for my daughter, however she had lots of friends that were boys at primary and so went to a mixed high school which has been fantastic for her. I think it is good to mix and builds confidence. I've also heard horror stories since about the girls' school in terms of bullying and bitchiness. I guess it's really down to the individual child and what is right for them.

Girls do generally better in girls schools. While it was excellent for my education and safety, it was sooo boring for me socially. I was a tomboy. Overall though, it's worth it for the as mentioned default female aspect.