Did I just go round the 3 schools that exhibit this characteristic by pure fluke or is the private prep school system really biased towards boys and the girls are just added as an afterthought?

[Miggsie]

After looking at 3 private prep schools locally (co-ed) with a view to entering DD at age 7, I came away with the distinct impression that the schools were geared up towards boys education and the girls were just an add on that they used to keep the numbers up.
One of the schools is so sought after parents put their kids down for recption at age 6 months to get a place!

A friend commented that as the schools had boys up to age 13 and girls to age 11 they always favoured the boys as they had them at the school for longer.
I counted the class numbers and the general class size was 20 with 8 or 9 girls max in each class.
One school admitted they took more boys as they had to make the last 2 years financially viable.

Boys got to play cricket, rugby and football and do martial arts while girls got to do rounders, and in one school they also got netball!
Apparently one girl once was in the cricket team.

And it isn't just me being hyper sensitive, the first thing DH said after we had the tour was "it seems to be set up for boys".
Engineering club: all boys.
Chess club: all boys
School photos showing activities: ones showing boys ratio to those showing girls about 5:1.

Have I just had the misfortune to look at the 3 prep schools who are biased in this way or has anyone else experienced this?

The ones where the boys leave at 7 will probably only have a few token boys in the earlier years IME

Good luck with your search .

In our co-ed state primary, both girls and boys are offered a broad range of extra-curricular activities, which are free and run by male and female teachers. Sports clubs include tag rugby, football, cross country, cricket, athletics and multisports, and children take part in competitions at local and county level. Specialist sports tuition is offered by local sports providers, for a small fee. Other clubs (also available for both boys and girls) include drama, recorder, orchestra, lego, art and craft, maypole, country dance, modern dance, mini-enterprise... and we're just about to start a virtual car racing club for gifted mathematicians.

I did think it was mad that the state scholl DD is currently in has more sport for girls than the private prep schools.

What would I be paying for I wonder?

I'm in West London too and have just been through 7+ with ds.

Dd is 4, so have less knowledge of girl's only schools at the moment.

All schools nearest to me are co-ed initially (4 of them).

Ds' current school (that he is leaving in July and dd will be starting at in Sept), has boys till end of year 2 and the girl's stay on until 11yrs.

What year are you intending that your dd will go into?

Many schools that I know locally, are very compeptitive for entry at 7+ - unless you are thinking of joining a school with a pre-prep.

ds' school have even numbers of boys and girls till the boys leave as opposed to a token number of boys.

Happy for you to CAT me if you want to talk more about specific schools.

Sounds as though I might be slightly west of you geographically but know lots of people who will probably be able to answer questions about girl's schools!

I have not found this at my DSs school.

Sportswise boys do rugby, football and cricket, girls do netball and rounders. They all do swimming, athletics, tennis, cross-country and hockey. I know some of the older girls play cricket too.

For extra activities some of the clubs are aimed more at girls - knitting, sewing and dance - and I suspect not many girls to to Warhammer. All others (climbing, archery, fishing, art club, drama) are mixed.

The school is very outdoorsy which may put off some girls who lose interest in that sort of thing at adolescence.