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!

Correct on all counts, apart from actually living with nuns, but they were our teachers! Strich catholic parents. Didn't go to uni , did my foundation degree at local HE college as an adult. I know boys are not a different species, but I didn't know that at 18😆 My sister and I never had long term boyfriends until our husbands , who we met and married in our 30s.

I was always against single sex schools. I thought there was no difference between boys and girls in school and the world isn’t single sex so it’s not realistic to have single sex schools.

I now think back to school and remember being Y7 (and Y8) and trying to avoid much older boys from school on my way home because they would make inappropriate comments and I felt intimidated and uncomfortable. I was a very, young looking Y7/Y8 child too. Probably looked about 10 when I was 13. This continued for a number of years, to me and many other girls, on school grounds and on the way out of school. You just had to put up with it or stay out of their way. Nothing happened to me beyond that, but I still remember how I felt and I’m 48 now. I’m glad DD won’t have that at school.

DD2 goes to a state all girls secondary school and it is been a good choice. I can’t imagine her attending a 1600 students mixed school. Not sure how the teachers manage. And I do worry about sexual harassment in this big state schools.

DD1 went to a coed private secondary school; she didn’t want single sex and it was fine for her but it was smaller 500 kids in secondary instead of 1600. She is now in a coed state sixth form.

I studied with girls primary and secondary and it was fine for me, but I was a bit more shy around boys at university; but I learned to study and work with them.

No boyfriend until late teens is a win surely?!

I went to a mix of single sex and mixed schools, years 6-11 were at an all girls school. All the academic advantages you'd expect, but also a lot of bullying and unpleasantness, which is why I left for 6th form. By that stage (no boys in my social circle, or family) I didn't know how to relate to them as people, and I've never entirely sorted that out.

My DD by contrast would have loved single sex but is in a mixed secondary school, y10. Her friendship group is both boys and girls, her subject friends are boys and girls and there's no sense of her being odd for doing separate sciences and top set for maths - she's certainly not the only girl in that category, possibly they are the majority. It's working very well for her.

I actively sought mixed sex school for my children. The real world has both and work has both. It has meant their core friendship group is mixed.

I went to all girls, it was hell for some girls who didn't fit the "mean girls" ideas.

I went to all girls and wouldn’t choose it for my daughters. There was a lot of bitchiness and it was always someone’s turn to be left out and criticised. In the later years everyone became obsessed with boys because most of us didn’t know any unless we had brothers. I was delighted to leave and find that in general, people are nice to each other.

I will say out of our friendship cohort - the majority of whom have children at co-ed schools apart from our DD- without fail all their children (boys and girls) have talked about being intimidated by older boys in the passageways between lessons, and that's it's always 'noisy' and 'rowdy'. Fine, life can be noisy and rowdy but I'd prefer my DD has a gentler, less disrupted way through secondary school which she seems to be having at her all girls school. And the changing friendships through Y7 seemed to be across all schools, co-ed or mixed, so haven't seen any unique cliques or bitchiness from the all girls school thus far. In fact, anecdotally, the girls at co-eds in our circle seem to be struggling more with friendships groups.

Well I was at a mixed sex school and really wanted my dds in single sex make of that what you will! So it works the other way round.

I went to a mixed school and still ended up totally clueless about how to interact with boys! At my school, only the 'cool' kids hung out with the opposite sex until Y11; if you were lower down the social pecking order (as I was), you missed out on the dating/romance aspects of school anyway. So I personally think I'd have been fine in a single-sex school until sixth form, and I suspect it might be the same at plenty of other mixed schools even now.

@LesMisSaigon Id say your problem was your parents. They actively separated you into a female world. Most of who choose a single sex school do ensure DDs meet boys. Keeping dc entirely separate is not a good idea.

Agreed, co Ed certainly doesn’t mean interaction is all about dating! Lots of girls do try and keep separate from boys and sometimes find them very annoying. Many girls are very happy without boys in y7-11.

"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)."

If my daughter was developing these attitudes I would be worried for her, and would be encouraging her to notice and get to know the many kind, gentle, intelligent boys to counter the stereotype.

Just out of interest, how are you finding these gentle intelligent boys? I know very well they exist in numbers. Just not sure how you guarantee your child is meeting them. If you don’t happen to have convenient family friends or relatives, then surely you’re just at the mercy of whoever turns up to activities?

My DD used to go to Scouts for example but stopped because the boys there were so awful, culminating in a poorly supervised trip to Laser Tag where she was mercilessly bullied out of sight of the leaders. She’s not at a single sex school so this wasn’t her only experience of boys her own age (although she has a fairly dim view of them anyway but that’s her call) but you can’t control these interactions much.

My son is one of those gentle intelligent boys, and he mostly hangs around with the girls because of the behavior of most of the boys.

I genuinely think that one of the main reasons I do like men and have make friends is that I didn't spend any time with boys during their secondary school years, so I totally bypassed the teenaged boy stage.

I wouldn't equate quite with healthy. Some of the most psychological damage I ever saw was by so called quite young ladies.

Whilst the mix and energy of a large school can be where older students feel able to call out inappropriate behaviour. My eldest is in a secondary, a year off equivalent of A levels.

It's busy noisy and high energy. A few parents of the first years comments at the post starting were giving the board feedback.

A few times older students had pulled up younger ones acting the brats. The parents felt it was a good sign and a great comfort to know a six foot sixth year tell a twit to stop being a dick and cop the hell on.🤣

Full disclosure there is a s itmaller group of older learners they waited a very long time for their new building and they are very proud of their school and fully accepting of my bias they are a good group of young men and women who have been together since they were 3.

I really believe you can change an atmosphere of a school with leadership programs I know our schools have been investing since they were about 9 years of age.

My 14yo attends an all girls school. There can be a lot of conflict between the girls and sometimes they fight physically eg one of her friends punched another girl in the face last week
Otherwise I think irs very positive and that school is much safer than a mixed setting. No secual assaults no harassment etc.

I went to an all girls grammar and loved it. As did my friends whom I'm still friends with 30 years later.

I wanted my dd to go to a girls grammar but she wanted the mixed one mainly due to friends going. I regret not pushing the girls school more. She's had some horrible experiences with the boys. Luckily PE and registration/ pshe is segregated.

I went to an all girls' school. I appreciated the fact that being "clever" and/or "trying hard" was not deemed socially unacceptable for girls in the way it was at my previous co-ed school. It made me confident in what I was capable of, and confident to have a go at anything without fear of ridicule.

One of my DDs went to an all girls' school and then co-ed for sixth form. She enjoyed both but the presence of boys was definitely a distraction. The other one is at an all-girls' school but has plenty of boy friends through her outside school activities.

I wanted my DD to go to the local girls school, but we weren't in the catchment area, and she went to the local co-ed school. She ended up being in the same class as boys from her nursery and primary school who are lovely but the boys palled up with other boys and the girls with other girls. All through the various arguments and stresses of her female friendships there was always a nice boy from primary to hang out with if necessary. I was so grateful for them.
DD is an only child so I was pleased that she had normal everyday interactions with boys, and her teachers have always said that she engages in all of her classes, so I have never worried that she has been silenced by them either.

Yes I agree with this.

The idea of tall, man size 16 year old boys jostling in the corridor and my quiet 11 year old DD having to navigate that filled me with horror.

By the way I'm also a mum of a 16 year old boy who said it would be better if she wasn't sent to his mixed school.

A lot depends on the school.

Mine we didn't do some subjects (wood work metal work) but did do 3 years of domestic science that I hated, detested and would have dropped in a heartbeat.

I would hope there is none of that now.

My all girls school in the 1990s did not offer home economics or food tech as they now call it....as apparently it was anti feminist. I was gutted as my dream was to become a chef.

My girl's school - we did cookery (I think it was home ec at the time, but only covered cookery). Also did some metalwork, plastics and woodwork as part of CDT. I suspect some of this is because we were on the site of what had once been the secondary modern before it all went comprehensive. I have never asked any of the boys (we're now in our 50s,) whether they got cookery - I suspect not, as I suspect they never had kitchen classrooms built for them.

It really depends on the school, DD's school keeps the younger years separate from the older kids, so no being jostled by older bigger kids.

I think all you can do OP is go around the open days and talk to the kids that are there, they are usually pretty frank in my experience.

I can appreciate your opinion. I am in a country where secondary is 13 is typical the age of first year. I think it makes a more logical age appropriate sense to have it then.

In the last years of primary here the 11 and 12 year olds do a lot of leadership and mentoring. It really does them the world of good and sets them off on a good foot for secondary.