Does anyone have an imbalance between boys and girls in a class and what does the school do about it?

[Anchovy]

My DS is in Reception and we are very happy with the school in general. The school is mixed, private and with a single intake class per year of about 20. DS can stay there until he is 11 (which is my preference as DD will start there soon).

One thing that is niggling me is that there are 7 boys and 14 girls in the class - this will change over the summer when another boy will leave and another girl start so we will be down to 6/15. Now DS has a little sister and has plenty of friends among the girls. Also he is not a "roughy toughy" boy and is fairly popular with the girls. But I have noticed that they are at an age where their interests are starting to divide (Ds was talking rather pointedly about how a very good friend of his - female - only wanted to play "princesses" these days and was simply not interested in Thunder Birds at all).

Obviously the school can't chuck out girls who are there to make way for (or keep a place open for) hypothetical boys. But I do need to see some way in which the "boyishness" is preserved and not subsumed by a class tidal wave of girlyness. I've got a nasty feeling that at some stage the number of boys will fall below "critical mass" (haven't quite worked out what that is).

Does anyone have this "problem" - or the other way round - and have any views on how it has impacted on their child?

In ds' class (Year 4) there is an anomaly of 7 girls to 14 boys. There have been issues among the girls because there are so few that it is easy for them to become cliquey and leave just one or two out but because there are 3 classes in the year there are still enough for them to remix at break time and make up sports teams. How does your ds' school tackle team sports, do they mix age groups ?

In dd's class (Year 1) it is a more even split but she plays with more boys than girls atm although I can see that gradually changing over time as boys make up a football game. Was the school traditionally a girls' school which has become mixed as it can take time for local expectations to adjust. Perhaps they would give priority to boys who apply, when places come up to redress the balance if numbers became very low .

You def. get this in state schools, because they're not allowed to take gender into consideration when doing admissions. Ds's class is 2/3 boys, but pretty nice boys on the whole, so it's great for him. Not so much fun for the girls, though.

But I've been told by private school heads that they can and do manipulate admissions to ensure that they have gender-balanced classes, so clearly it can be done. Ask the school what they intend to do to preserve the balance.

My DS is in a similar situation to yours except that it is the other way round. the boys outnumber the girls by 2 to 1. I dont see it a problem at all, and I have not heard any of the girls' parents say so either. IMO they all play together and learn from each other. My DS is equally happy playing princesses as thunderbirds - although I doubt he knows what thunderbirds is..

DD has a class of 6 girls and 1 boy. Boy is leaving in July, so will be all girls....this is year 1

DS (reception) has 16 in class, pretty even, but the boys are little sods.

Thanks, this is all interesting.

Its not currently a problem and actually I think I would rather have a boy in a class with more girls than vice versa (there are some extremely sharp cookies among the girls in his class!) DS is definitely "in touch with his female side" and does have a lot of friends among the girls. However I have noticed that the children he talks about at home, the ones he has chosen as his friends (rather than because I like their mother etc), are mostly other boys.

I personally think the school either does not see it as a priority or is not as over-subscribed as it likes to imply!

Hi Anchovy

This is a particular problem at the DDs' school as the boys stay only for Reception, Yr1 and Yr2 and then leave for local prep schools. DD1's Yr1 class has 13 girls and 5 boys. I doubt if it's a particular problem in the class room, although interesting the 'top group' is entirely composed of girls, but I get the impression that the girls and the boys are increasingly beginning to play separately during breaks (the boys like to 'fight and push each other' says DD1 disparagingly) and DD1 no longer has play-dates with the boys in her class.

I know that the parents of the boys do haver about taking the boys out of the school, but tend to keep them there as they are leaving at the end of Yr2 anyway. The mother of a particularly physical, sports-mad boy in DD1's class, is very close to withdrawing him.

The absence of boys after Yr2 and the total lack of male staff (except of course the caretaker) is one of the least attractive features of the school. It's just so preciously girly. The new headmistress has at least introduced soccer and rugby lessons, which is excellent. But it's only for the boys as the girls have to do ballet. DH wants to suggest setting up unisex games of British Bulldogs on the newly refurbished 'Our Lady's Lawn' (no, really), but so far I've contrived to restrain him!

I think it's more the norm to have more or less equal number of the two sexes - dd's class has a 16/14 ratio - would be interesting to find out!

not sure what the school could really do about it? I would think it very unfair to disciminate on the basis of sex when putting together class lists in private schools

dd's reception class of 12 starting sept 07 has 9 girls and 3 boys...
not sure what they can do tbh will read thread to see what others say about imapct etc

oh how lovely to have a class of twelve

small village school yes very lucky. nice litle school too

boys outnumber girls about 2 to 1 in both my dses classes. It's not a problem for the boys, but I think the girls have a very small pool of friends ( boys and girls tend to play separately most of the time)

Issymum, football and ballet are both mixed (and reasonable mixed take up of both) plus really good number of male teachers/teaching staff (DS has male teaching assistant). So I don't think much structurally wrong with the set up.

(I have steered clear of the Catholic school option, with, it seems successful results. DS told me last week there was a place you went if you were good called "Heaven" and another place "at the bottom" called..."Devon"!)

Think I'm going to have to look at how they mix them up for games etc. There are actually a disproportionately large number of boys in the year above, and coincidentally most of the boys in DS's class are quite old for the year, so that would seem to be the obvious solution.

21 boys and 9 girls in ds's reception class..

Perhaps because ds is in the "majority" i've not really seen it as a problem .. the girls certainly seem able to hold there own !

As playtime they seem to play chasing games (jails seems to be popular) as they're so little the playground assistants do seem to be more involved with making sure everyone is involved, they have a friendship bench/older buddy system.. ok its not gender specific but at the moment gender seem to be a major issue

Not sure if thats much help

sorry that should read gender doesn't seem to be a major issue

23 in my eldest's class of which there are just 8 girls. It does cause quite a few falling-out problems - samller pool to play with. Think it may be worse if teh girl pool is smaller, think boys tend not to have teh best-friend syndrome so much, more play with teh pack. Am generalising hugely but thta's the impression I get.

"But I do need to see some way in which the "boyishness" is preserved and not subsumed by a class tidal wave of girlyness."

What are you afraid of happening?

ds is in year 1, 4 boys 10 girls. It;s a smiliar number in year 2 as well

DD's school is mixed private. The class is almost always half and half although might sometimes vary by one either way, two once, I think.

Ekra, interesting question -I'm not "afraid" of anything happening (I don't think it will make him effeminate etc etc), but I'm not sure why I am concerned - good question!

One thing I have noticed is that when DS was in the nursery class last year, he was fairly "unisex": the boys and girls largely liked the same things. His best friend was a lovely, lively, sparky girl who I have no doubt will end up running the country one day. This year in Reception I have noticed more of a tendency to same-gender friends and that DS has gravitated a bit towards the boys as his "chosen" friends. He still plays a lot with the girls but he does seem to be moving towards more being with other boys. I suspect - but I don't know - that this will increase as they get older.

I think I wanted a more even B/G split so that there were more boys in DS's potential pool of close friends (lets just say not all of the 6 other boys are desirable play mates )

Also, however gender-neutral I am (and we are, very!) I'm trying to work out if this is depriving DS of, eg being in a football team or a cricket team. (On his class alone, they would only just make a 5-a-side).

When my son started in recption there were only 3 girls and 17 boys, after the January intake this went up to 10 girls to 20 boys.

They are year 6 now and over the years there has been a few leavers and newcomers and it has evened out.

in dd's class there are 23 boys and 8 girls!
Doesnt seem to cause any probs though, but having said that, the boys are quite rowdy and the girls dont get much choice of who to play with!

Tinker, are your kids at the same school as mine??

We did look at a school where ds1 would have been in a class of 6 boys and 12 girls. One of my concerns was that firstly girls tend to be quicker/keener/neater at writing, so there can be a tendancy for boys to make up most of the lower "sets". Not a huge concern but I didn't particularly want ds1 to have an expectation that boys didn't do as well in class - I think that current exams up to GCSE seem to tilt in girls favour though of course the workplace is still so male biased that overall there isn't an issue.

My second, and more pressing, concern was that in looking at poor behaviour, boys tend to be the main culprits, and ds1 can at best be called "lively", but in general "PITA". Statistically he would stand a greater chance of being labelled as a naughty child (by other parents if not be teachers) if he were one of the few boys in a class mainly of girls. We instead opted for a boys school where he definitely isn't one of the more behaviourily challenging boys in the class (though I suspect he is in the third quartile!). The downside of course is that there are a number of even more challenging boys in the class! But as a plus, there is no problem with being seen as being clever.

Interested in this thread - have any posters had experience of an imbalance further up the school, say in juniors?

That's interesting Ladymuck - that's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of, without being able to articulate it as well. Actually DS is quite old for the year and quite "grounded" so we don't particularly have the behaviour issue. There is one quite naughty boy, and I wonder if his behaviour is slightly magnified because he is in such a minority.

The naughty ones in the class seem to be some of the girls, who do a lot of talking/sliding/borderline cheeking etc!

Consensus on this thread seems to be it doesn't matter much at this stage but possibly not ideal for very physical boys. Also seems that a majority of boys is leass desirable than I first thought!

ds2 was in a class of 24 with only 9 girls. The school had a rule of 'only 8 in a game on the field' and wouldn't waive it in the case of this class, so one poor girl was always left out.

The school's answer was to introduce a 'playtime rota' to dictate who played with whom on each day.

Totally pathetic imo.