Why are so many boys' schools in particular going co-ed?

[TiggerSnoozer]

The obvious answer is that there isn't enough demand for the places if they don't. But it seems to me that, in and around London anyway, there are already many more girls' schools than boys... And anecdotally (and on Mumsnet) the demand for boys' places outstrips available places far more than for girls at 11+. Surely one of these 3 things must be untrue...

But how / where are the boys are going to be accommodated? If the boys schools go coed and the girls schools stay single sex, then the number of places for boys have effectively been halved. What are the boys who don’t get places at the coed schools going to do? Do you think we’ll see a market correction in a few years and get more single sex schools? Or will the coeds pull so many girls in that ultimately the girls schools will have to start to admit boys…?

The cooking suite was brand new and by far the best facility! The sports provision was great. The STEM provision was dreadful though. It felt very old fashioned in so far as girls were expected to do more cooking that STEM. There is a reason why single sex schools are closing and I wonder if some of the reason is that too many of them haven’t moved with modern times. I’m sure there are some exceptions.

There are girls’ schools closing as well. Some girls and boys schools are merging to become co-ed.

From speaking with my friend who is a CFO in the independent school sector - single sex schools are going co-ed to widen their market. In response to a drop in demand. Driven by more than one factor but economics is the main one

I think people with sons and daughters tend to send their kids to the same co-ed school. People with only daughters are more likely to send their daughters to a girls school. I personally don’t know anyone with an option who sends their daughters to a girls school when they have brothers at a good coed school.

We are those weird parents with a girl at an all girls’ school and her younger brother at a co-ed! Her school is amazing (we only wish we could have sent our son there as well!), and the school he’s at is our favourite of all the options available to him. Drop offs and pick ups have to be carefully choreographed since we both work full time, but they’re happy so we’re happy.

The answer is likely that those co-ed schools are going to have more than 50% boys. If we assume that parents of boys and girls are equally likely to send their kids private, then there should be roughly equal numbers of them in the system. If you have lots of girls’ schools and co-ed schools and not many boys’ schools, it stands to reason that they’ll make up more than 50% of the co-ed schools. Most independent schools need bums on seats to pay the bills; they are not going to leave seats empty to maintain a perfect 50/50 split.

I am also close to one of the boys going co-ed and I don’t know anyone who would use their girls as guinea pigs and send them when there are so many good schools that really know girls.

I would have jumped at the opportunity. I refused to consider girls only schools and at the time decent co-ed was limited so I would have been quick to sign up as would a lot of DD’s peers parents who were not keen on single sex having been in coed prep

It’s interesting but it seems the school I’ve mentioned used to separate both boys and girls but now seems to have them together. Fidelis if anyone’s interested. Main reason for going there in the past was the Catholic education.

As the nuns were against mixing in the past I’m guessing probably for financial reasons they’ve mixed them. In the past when I was there it was all girls probably because parents thought it better.

Depends on the school. In our closest city there are two grammar schools, a boys' and a girls'. The boys has always ranked higher in the league tables for GCSE and A level results going back at least the 20 years I've been interested in them both. But, the boys' school has recently started admitted girls to their sixth form and it's been quite popular. The reason? They're eligible for more government grants etc as some of the grants had an exclusion for single sex schools! They boys' school now has a brand new state of the art sixth form centre that they'd not have got the grants for had they remained a boys only sixth form!

Where I am in S London its to save failing girls schools from same foundation that just dont get the numbers of girls anymore - maybe people are increasingly seeing single sex education as out of date and a bit unrealistic?

I have boys so dont massively care but I think generally we all have to get on in the workplace so its probably better to socialise girls and boys together. There is a massive fall off in female attainment after education and my workplaces are still full of male bullies that edge out the women, so theoretically having them all go to school together is probably going to be helpful in improving that instead of othering girls and letting boys run rampage without having to consider girls until sixth form (where ime they are initially intimidated 😀) or uni or the workplace.

I actually think the figures are still that boys are more likely to be sent to private.
I suppose though the really big names (Eton etc) are not going to go mixed.

@TiggerSnoozer my eldest is at an all girls secondary, which is amazing for her and suits her down to the ground.

In comparison to my own co-ed education: There's no pressure to look 'pretty', the girls take leadership roles and aren't pushed to the side, they can speak in class without boys interrupting them, the sports in PE are directed to their interests, and no-one ever tells them 'girls can't do that'. DD loves physics, maths and DT, and Dungeon Master's D&D sessions, and no one bats an eyelid.

She was in co-ed for primary and says this is much, much better.

We’re in a town with state provision that is mostly single sex with 1 large co-ed that doesn’t really float my boat! Our private schools locally were all single sex (co-ed ones next town over) My oldest was at a boys independent that went mixed, I gather it was due to concern over the future roll and results. Their marketing for years had been we do/get/work best for boys. There was no consultation or discussion with parents and I felt completely gaslighted by the school. We left (although we were thinking about leaving for other reasons before they made the announcement).
The school is very popular now, mostly with wealthy families that like having their kids in the same place, they were lucky in that the area they are in has the weakest/least popular state schools (the girls in particular has a lot of issues) if they had been on the other side of town they might have struggled. I was told that all/almost all the girls initially were on huge scholarships, they still routinely offer 50% to girls especially if they have younger siblings! I was also told the local private girls schools (including their ‘sister’ school) were completely blindsided by the announcement and furious.
The school annoys me, they are very active at inter school competitions and they low level cheat at everything. By that I mean their debate team will have a professional external debating coach, the student directed drama show has a professional director hired to work with the kids, they turned up at a student run low budget theatre event with some very expensive stage props and costumes, everyone else raids the store room and uses a coat hanger and sticky backed plastic! They are so empowered they openly post pictures on Facebook: here are the student directors before the theatre show working with ‘Steve Spielberg’, here are our science students being taught by ‘Albert Einstein’ and so on!

Same we were at a boys independent for a couple of years that went mixed without consultation or warning. Luckily my son managed to get a place in the great local large boys state school and loved it. They really ‘got’ boys and worked so well around lots of sport if that was your thing, trades if that was your thing, academic classes if you wanted that. They had huge grounds and my kid was always off with his friends exploring (wrecking his uniform) taking girls would just ruin the place. Same with the girls school for my daughter it has something for everyone and does it really well wouldn’t be the same at all if there were boys there.

I know loads of parents who send their boys to a co-ed and their daughters to the girls school (next door). They much prefer the girls school for their daughters. The ‘Boys’ school went co-ed +10 years ago and the classes are still mostly 70/30 boy/girl. So it’s not even fully co-ed.

It is definitely a market demand thing - in Edinburgh we had a school with the diamond model (co-ed at junior school, then single sex for senior school and joining back together for sixth year) - they have just dropped the diamond model because parents wanted co-ed. Even when the school was able to offer spaces for both, just taught separately, parents were choosing other schools that are fully co-ed.