Should we bring back more single sex schools

[Ddakji]

Slightly following on from some of the threads about Adolescence (which I haven’t seen), I started wondering - has the demise of boys’ schools negatively impacted boys?

I’d be really interested to hear from others, especially the parents of boys - I have one DD (15h who’s been in mixed sex schools most of the time but is now in a girls’ school.

Hmm...I went to one of those and there was an active program to recruit people with financial help.

I suppose a control rest would be to see if similar coed schools produce girls who are equally, more or less successful and mentally healthy?

I think pps comparing to their experiences in 70s-90s may overlool that now a lot more children do many extracurriculars and meet the opposite sex there. Girls' schools often twin for music, drama etc also.

This comment is a bit odd : ' And decided she was a lesbian whilst in Y9.

DS now - after Uni and work realised that women are not the enemy. And is a much more rounded human being.

DD has given up being a lesbian for the moment and has a lovely boyfriend.'

Are you implying going to a single sex school somehow made your daughter believe she was lesbian? Plenty of girls who grow up to be straight have teenage crushes on girls, I don't think that's confined to girls at girls' schools.

And anyhow there's nothing wrong with being lesbian. It's not something you 'give up', it's more accurate to say that adolescent perceptions of who you're attracted can fluctuate no matter what orientation you end up being.

I've taught in mixed schools, a boys' school and a couple of girls' schools. My ds currently goes to the 'brother' school of the girls' school where I teach, but he only went there in the 6th form.

Anecdotal, obviously, but the boys' school is much more old-school, robust and hands-off than my school. We have a more nurturing and sensitive approach. They have a mixed 6th form and some of our girls go there, but they don't always like it, as they are used to the nicer atmosphere of the girls' school. Ds likes it, but I think that younger, more sensitive boys might struggle.

And whilst we certainly had plenty of sexism in the past, the toxic masculinity and misogyny we have now seems of a far more vicious nature.

Isn't this just the perception given by social media though? Half of the stuff people handwring about online isn't evident to me in the real world. Like, I'm sure it happens but I'd not be particularly aware of it without reading stuff online.

Young men engage in much less drinking/drugs/fighting than they did a few decades ago (e.g. in the 90s) and nowadays people get cancelled for saying things you would've seen on comedy shows in decades past.

I think the rise of people like Andrew Tate is more a pushback from those annoyed that this type of conduct is now frowned upon. The common theme in all that stuff seems to be an encouragement to say "fuck em, us men will act however we please". It's all about 'reclaiming the alpha male' as they see it.

For example, I work in construction. Not in the office. Actually doing onsite stuff. I've heard so many women who've clearly never set foot on a construction site opining about the terrible sexism in my sector and how they could never possibly do that job (often in the same breath as complaining about unequal representation).

Meanwhile I'm actually doing the job and mostly loving it. But if I'd read all that stuff online first I'd have possibly been scared right off the idea. I just love big trucks and heavy machines so I went for it and it's so much better than sitting at a desk and navigating cliquey work environments/office politics.

I always hated it in my graduate job when all the senior men dumped their cups/plates in the sink after a meeting for the women to wash up and nobody dared call out the 'very important man' because they all wanted a promotion. And the fact that it was always a female secretary/PA making the coffee and taking lunch orders.

Can't say being in a single sex school was better or worse than the school I went to or my child went to, but being female has never been an excuse for me for not achieving what i want to to achieve

Yes! Girls only schools excellent for girls in my personal experience, and many older women I've met agree. Unfortunately boys only seems to produce dreadful men, like Boris Johnson and his ilk.
I don't understand why teachers in boys only schools can't seem to civilise them.

My local state schools were single sex, I fought to send them out of area, wasn’t a good fit for my DD’s, both are nd, interests are more “masculine” and it was definitely the right choice, no way would they have had the opportunities in science at the girls school because they pushed them towards languages and humanities. One of my dc does a job not even open to women when she started school.

Whenever i talk about the advantages of girls only schools, which i benefitted from, literally everyone says "yes, but girls are SO bitchy". Well maybe but they don't send dick pics to other girls, or sexually harass or assault each other on the whole , so no contest I'd say. People seriously underestimate the harm teenage boys can inflict on girls, and in fact upon women generally.

Both my kids (boys) are in a single sex grammar and it’s been the best choice we (kids and I) made.

I really think there should be a choice. In many areas there isn't.

I have friends who moved precisely because their local area was single sex and it wasn't suiting their kids.

The problem with this take, which is not an uncommon one since it's evidence backed on an individual results basis, is that on a macro policy level it requires a cohort of sacraficial girls to provide the coed environment for boys to flourish in. One in which they are likey to be a minority and therefore face even more issues than a current roughly 50/50 environment.

We went to view an all girls primary school. The head started off “girls flourish without being distracted by boisterous boy behaviour”. I dont have boys but i do know not every boy is boisterous.

This seems like a good compromise. I went to all girls school and loved it, but I did have a brother so boys were around socially.

I went to mixed junior and all-girls senior school and really liked that. I felt fully able to be myself. We had the usual joint dances/events with a nearby boys school, and saw boys on the bus home, which was more than enough socialising.

My boys aren't school age yet but I hope to send them to all-boys as well. I think boys benefit from having strong male role models who also understand reasonable limits for boys' behaviour (i.e. not expecting them to be basically girls with short hair, but also channelling their energy productively and with limits, challenging them, not just letting them misbehave and run riot).

I read an interesting substack article recently about how boys need to earn the respect of men first, before we start worrying about female socialisation. It resonated with me quite strongly. https://open.substack.com/pub/lanescott/p/how-to-build-a-solid-boy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=rqax3

The first line: "My oldest son once said that boys have to find their place among the male peer group first before having any understanding at all about how to approach girls." I agree with this.

Can I push on this point? I am not sure if I've seen strong evidence that "boys do better in mixed schools", although it's a very common sentiment online.

When I've looked it up in the past, I've found it's not that widely studied in the first place. What literature there is suggests that girls do very well out of single-sex schools, but that the effect on academic results is either neutral or more limited for boys (though still finding that boys do better in single-sex, just not as strong an effect as for girls).

This then gets cycled into the press as "girls do better in single-sex and boys do better in co-ed" (with a side implication of "because the nice girls are a calming influence on the horrible boys").

I'm not aware of studies that have looked at the character development aspect, and how much boys enjoy school and feel they're in a great environment, which are both far more important to me, but which I assume are much more difficult to study.

But even so, isn't he infinitely more likely to talk to girls because they're in the same class? If he is that shy, he'd never do it outside of school anyway.

I was like that, maybe not quite that shy. I would never have gotten a gf had she not been in my class (all boys up to sixth form where it became mixed).

After enduring physical and sexual assault from boys at mixed primary school, I threatened to run away from home if my parents didn't send me to a single-sex school.

Girls may be unpleasant and judgemental, but they weren't beating me up nor putting their hands on my vulva. SSS was a safe haven for learning.

Mixed-sex schools are a safeguarding fail for girls. You would consider it a human rights violation to lock men and women in the same prison. School is day prison for children, they have minimal autonomy and are not allowed to leave even if they know are in danger, so how isn't it a human rights violation to lock girls up with boys for thirty hours per week?

@fluffbreeder "it was rough as anything but fun and 100% gave me a sense of being able to do anything" -this sounds a bit like my DDs' girls' school. It's an inner city school with a warm, independent, anarchic vibe and as a family, we're smitten. Excellent results. Brilliant girls from all over the world. It's been the making of my DGirls.

Yes @Ddakji we should bring back more single sex schools.

I say Yes. Mainly because single sex education creates such confident, articulate, ambitious young women.

My dd16 goes to a state comprehensive girls school which is massively oversubscribed, gets great results and is definitely not a “bitchfest”. I asked dd to count how many friends she might “need” to invite if she had a 16th birthday meal, and she listed 17 people who she counts as excellent friends. She is not a popular girl - it has just turned out to be a really great place to socialise and learn. Also the school does an impressive job making sure the girls are ready to launch into a world that is still, in so many ways, dominated by men. They grow up with an attitude that they can do and be anything they wish.

This is in large part due to the female-led SLT. There is an active focus on making sure women are kept front and centre in the more flexible lower school curriculum - eg in art and English they study the work of contemporary women working in the arts and literature, whereas in history or science they might study secondary sources authored by women. It’s quite subtle but the point is made - a girl has published this research; this could be you.

There are not many options for state comprehensive girls education where we live but this has been a transformational educational experience for dd.

Interestingly also the problem of trans people hasn’t really come up at all. There are girls who are out as lesbians but I’m not aware of a single girl leaving because she is claiming to be a boy. Why would you need to define yourself as male, when girls can do anything and “be” however they want? If you want to be a woman with masculine characteristics, then be that. Problem solved.

And furthermore there is no school-sponsored LGTBQIA+ club, like there is at the local mixed comp. So none of this navel-gazing.

So for girls - it’s a resounding YES from me.

I echo everything that @HelpfulHelena expresses above.
I find I never tire of recommending DDs school and singing its praises. It will have been one of the most significant, defining spaces in their lives.
The trans issue is interesting -it's the same at DDs school. A few lesbians but no trans-identifying pupils, whereas at the mixed comprehensive attended by my neighbours DC, there are quite a few girls identifying as boys.

It depends a lot on the school how confident girls are. I came out of mine miserable and with zero self confidence.

I'm not sure students in girls ' orthodox Jewish or Muslim schools are that confident and ambitious.

If more single sex schools are brought back they need to be, as far as possible secular.