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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Girls schools - good for grades, terrible for mental health?

63 replies

JustHope · 05/10/2017 09:08

We have started looking at secondary schools for our Y5 DD. One of the options is an all girls school the other is an equally good co-ed Academy.

Apparently studies have shown that girls perform better at all girls schools but I am also aware of tales of bitchiness and increased risks of self harm and eating disorders. DH and I both went to co-ed so really we cannot draw from personal experience.

I would appreciate the thoughts and experiences of you wise MN folk.

TIA

OP posts:

cakeisalwaystheanswer · 06/10/2017 10:31

Cartoon - your point is exactly why I wish I had gone to a co-ed. Academically I did brilliantly at an extremely good all girls Indy and went on to a top Uni but it was poor preparation for life as I chose to work in a male dominated career and I found the environment difficult. If I could choose now for myself I would have gone to a co-ed and I would have been better prepared for a career in the real world outside of my girly bubble.

ujerneyson · 06/10/2017 11:16

I I was a geek, interested in sci-fi, gaming, coding, graphic novels etc etc. Remember this was back in the 90s when all these interests were pretty niche anyway. I was labelled as being a freak, for having interests that didn't fit in with what the alpha girls deemed "normal". Added to that, I was overweight. I was "Fat Freak" shortened to F-squared for more years than I care to recall. I developed an eating disorder and also self-harmed mildly. The staff preferred the plaster-on-an-amputation approach and brushed everything under the carpet. "Nothing to see here, except our results!" hmm

This x100 sums up my personal preference for Co-ed. Appreciate that there are so many different factors but I absolutely agree with every sentence of this. I was actually totally fine in a girls school, there was major bitchiness in years 8-10 and i absolutely got the brunt of it at time, but I didn't have mental health issues or anything but I totally saw how wrong an all girls environment was for some of the other girls in my year and how it wouldn't work for my daughter for all those reasons you mention.

iseenodust · 06/10/2017 11:19

Our catchment school for DS is all boys. We chose co-ed. Why plant the seed in formative minds that excluding either sex makes for a better learning environment?

BubblesBuddy · 06/10/2017 12:09

For some it does give a better environment though. The boys/girls are not excluded from your life. Just for a few hours in a classroom. Both my DDs found some boys very juvenile and silly and were pleased to get rid of them. Not that they think that now they are adults but a classroom without them was good at 11. The children in single sex schools really do not have any seeds planted in them about society in general, (other than what they observe for themselves) they just have a preference for not learning with boys or indeed girls!

iseenodust · 06/10/2017 12:25

For some it does give a better environment though

All future learning / professional development will be done in mixed environments so make it the norm throughout. They expressed a preference after the fact. Had they gone to co-ed secondary they might have had a fab experience, who knows?

Your DD found some primary age boys silly. DS had a male friend who left in yr8 due to bullying about his weight that came solely from a group of girls. You could say both could have been dealt with better by school (and possibly parents of those misbehaving).

CartoonGraveyard · 06/10/2017 12:54

Cake my career choice is male dominated too and that is hard, completely agree.
But personally I think I might have found it harder to deal with if my all-girls' secondary school environment hadn't inadvertently demonstrated to me what unnecessary bullshit sexism is.

The school I went to didn't take us aside and discuss sexism and stuff- far from it. But there just was a good focus on you doing you, to the best that you can.

So you could wear custard stains on your jumper or joke about and look silly or get really into whatever subject you liked or whatever at school, without worrying what a teenage boy in the class thought about that. so I feel grateful for that, with hindsight. It wasn't part of my awareness at the time.

It also made me really appreciate a meritocracy, which obviously the real world doesn't always work around. So again that has helped me with dealing with sexism later at work I think.

But I haven't got anything else to compare it to so it's hard to say really.

JemimaLovesHamble · 06/10/2017 15:06

I have done bits of work in the Indy girls' school and hated the bitching and flirting with the sole male teacher (poor chap was not remotely interested but these little slappers would not relent)

WTF?! You work with children and call them slappers? It's a very normal part of sexual development for teenage girls, even tweens, to develop crushes on adult male figures. I would hope that he would not be remotely interested in abusing his role, and also hope that he would understand the root cause. (I really hope you don't still work with kids...)

JemimaLovesHamble · 06/10/2017 15:08

Oh - it sounds like you were doing coursework as a student? I hope that's the case anyway.

Rose0 · 07/10/2017 09:31

The girls school near us is like this - DD is good friends with lots of the girls and in their 130 year intake 5 have been hospitalised with anorexia throughout their 7 years at school, and one hospitalised and taken out of school due to severe depression and anxiety. At DD's school there are more girls (about 150 girls) but none have faced these issues - though DD knows of one girl in the year below and one two years below suffering from anorexia, but they're both now back at school. I'm sure other factors must be involved but this anecdotal evidence definitely supports the above thesis!

Rose0 · 07/10/2017 09:33

Oh - and the results are much better! 77%A-C compared with 53%A-C...

Ginorchoc · 07/10/2017 09:53

My daughter attends an all girl grammar and loves it. She's in year 9 now, I was concerned and during the open evening asked our guides if it was an issue and they were honest and said there sometimes was a little bitchiness but it was sorted out straight away. My daughters has had no issues neither have her friends.

BubblesBuddy · 07/10/2017 10:58

Going to a girls' school really does not mean you cannot get used to university or future learning in a mixed environment. My elder DD is in a very male dominated job and CPE is often male dominated too. I think the girls schools do promote that girls can do what they want to do.

Girls always find ways to mix with boys and enjoy their company - but when they are ready. You don't need to worry about girls learning with boys from the age of 18. They are not in a convent from the age of 11! There are very many opportunities to meet boys and I really don't think many girls are remotely interested in male teachers! Any more than boys are interested in women teachers (except Danny Baker of course!)

bengalcat · 07/10/2017 17:39

let your daughter choose ?

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