Concerned UK "Co-Ed" Independent Schools are Sexist

[squiffymum]

Dear Mumsnet

Apologies for the somewhat inflammatory subject line...

We're currently applying for independent co-ed schools and I've just discovered that pretty much all of them have a 60/40 boy to girl ratio, rather than being truly co-ed (50/50).

Frankly, I'm deeply upset and pretty disgusted by this. It's 2022, not 1822. When I try and unpick the reasons for this ratio... it's sexism, plain and simple. And we're sending a signal to school-age students that this is acceptable and normal? I asked one of the schools for the rationale: it was "so that the boys aren't dominated". As parents of a daughter, are we truly expected to stump up independent fees (for the same fees as the boys) for her to be "dominated"?

Also, it also presumably means it's harder for girls to get into these schools than boys. How is this even legal - surely it's discriminatory?

Is anyone else upset by this, or am I all alone in my outrage? ;-)

(Background is - we're moving out of London and wish to send our daughter (ten) and later our son (still only seven) to an independent school - ideally, the same one. They're currently in the public/state system, however we feel they'll benefit from smaller class sizes. We are looking across a wide area of the South West, from Portsmouth to Bath - even up to Cheltenham. I can't believe we are willing to pay good money but there are no options that aren't single sex or effectively single sex ("co-ed" schools with 60/40 boy/girl ratios are boys schools that accept girls to my mind). Per the above - it's 2022!)

Yes, there is huge variation year by year at all co-ed schools (independent or state). That seems a fact of life. We've also had it at our state co-ed school. It's just odd that almost all independent schools (outside of London) seem to have the 60/40 ratio over the whole school population. However the overwhelming consensus is that that's because there are way more options for girls - which itself is pretty unfair!

@squiffymum she literally did NOT even say that the girls school is the “better” one… she said that they vary about who gets the best results???

However the overwhelming consensus is that that's because there are way more options for girls - which itself is pretty unfair!

NO! There are more DAY options for girls!! From our boys prep school, at least 50% go on to boarding! From our girls prep school, only around 10% will go to board.

FFS… please stop generalising about something you clearly came here to say you know little about!

The thing I find interesting about these threads (just been on another about boarding) is how much emphasis is placed on school
If independent they are only there for 8 months of the year, you still have a third of each year to influence their outcomes outside of this.
What you do outside of school I think it what makes more a difference eg the child who js nationally relevant or the one who is up at the stables at the weekend or organising parties for her peers or running a business selling on depop or whatever

Great tip, thank you.

So DS is at a co-ed independent. It was traditionally a boys school and there is still a girls school in the area so demand for girls is less hence 70:30 boy:girl. DD will be going when she is older but they actually seem sexist against the boys by trying to be over inclusive. I.e 2, class reps, 1 each gender so a much higher chance of being picked if you are a girl ( this year only 1 girl volunteered so was chosen by default while 3 boys did speeches and the class voted. Lunch time girls club with smoothies.

As other posters have said, I think it is because parents want single sex for their daughters and mixed-sex for their sons, because of the associated outcomes.

Dd is at a single-sex prep. (When we were looking at schools I felt quite strongly that if I was paying for her education, one of the things I was looking for was single-sex.) There is also a boys prep, and although they aren't officially affiliated schools, they do collaborate on term dates etc to make life easier for parents with kids at both schools. This also carries through to the senior schools which the preps feed into. Maybe that would be worth looking into?

I don't know if anybody has made this point already, but it's far easier for London schools to manage ratios far closer to 50:50 because of the excess demand. A more rural school might be faced with a choice of limiting overall numbers or working with an imbalance. The latter is the only choice they're going to be able to make.

Yes, that is likely. I suspect a lot of the top indies outside London also have excess demand, however as others have pointed out, they may also have a lot more boys applying.

Thank you. That sounds far more varied than others have suggested and far more fun. I spoke to my husband about the sporting discussion on here - he's the one I've been relying on in this aspect as he went to a private independent himself (yes, one of the "sporty" ones). This is what he reconfirmed as well. Lots of options at the schools we've been considering, and it becomes less compulsory as you get older/if you have other interests.

This is an interesting thread.. lots of people quite angry at the op.. sorry..

Overall in the UK, according to the Independent Schools Census, 49% of pupils educated privately are girls. This report makes for good reading.

www.isc.co.uk/media/7496/isc_census_2021_final.pdf

Having spoken to an ex head at a boys school that admitted girls, there was a culture of admitting girls because it was of benefit to the boys and also one of appearing to become coed while limiting the number of girls to less than 50% so as not to change the culture of the school too much.

In all coed educational settings, there is a risk of educational stereotypes being applied.. as someone up thread mentioned.. boys being lazy, boys being poorly behaved and for girls, that they do not do as well in Maths and STEM subjects.

Overall girls outperform boys, even in the STEM subjects - for the first time in 2020 a higher percentage of girls got A* in GCSE and A Level, than boys.. however, the number of girls taking maths, physics, comp science is significantly lower than the number of boys.. 43% (estimated from the graph below) of the A Level cohort sitting Maths, were female and 28% of the cohort sitting further maths were female. This is based on UK averages.

ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2021/09/which-a-level-subjects-have-the-best-and-worst-gender-balance/

If STEM subjects are important to your daughter, how does your school of choice fair on this metric?

We are surrounded by ingrained sexism and I see it in many areas. At primary school it was houses all named after famous white men, invited authors being male (despite the number of female authors outnumbering males ones), unequal allocation of access to sporting facilities for girls. At secondary school, it was unconscious bias in the classroom... putting introverted high performing girls with noisy lazy boys (yes I know - but it was admitted by the school) and not recognising that girls were showing their level of attainment in a different way to the boys.. (the higher maths class excluded girls with high grades if the teacher didn't believe them capable even though it included boys with lower grades, purely based on 'I know what it takes to achieve', what was happening was that girls who are socially conditioned not to shout out the answer were being perceived as not capable and were not being encouraged to trust in their ability). These are anecdotes but there is good research on the impact of stereotypes in the classroom.

We have a local university programme that takes high performing maths students from secondary school and gives them extra maths coaching. They have a much higher drop out rate from girls than boys and when they offer the programme divided by sex, the drop out rate for girls is significantly lower.

Someone else mentioned schools placing too much emphasis on gender - I disagree. Until every second person in the government, on every board, in every place where decisions are made - if I may be so bold as to steal those words - is female, we need to keep showing our daughters that they deserve to be there.

And ask them... why do you have a 60/40 ratio.. specifically ask them if they are over subscribed for places for girls...

I do not believe the answer is.. in every single year.. there were not enough female applicants to fill the places, it was either that... or leave empty seats..

I suspect that part of the answer is the justification used on this thread several times.. it is a 'what about the boys?' answer... we believe based on local provision for private education that we need to provide this because otherwise the boys have no other options.. if that is the case, it could well be doing a significant disservice to every single girl in the school who do not get to have an education in an environment where she is an equal, because she is in the minority.

I echo PPs, the split is due to there being more single sex girls schools than boys - so the boys only have a choice of the co-ed schools, and parents prefer to send their daughters to girls schools.

If you are looking for co-ed schools in the South West, I can dewiniftely recommend Wells Cathedral School and Millfield.

Most of the families I know who chose a girls’ school for their girls, chose a boys’ school for their boys. Both had an education tailored to them. Mainly boarding though!

My DDs went to a sporty independent school. No sport on a Saturday for them as they didn’t make it into any teams! They tried sports in the standard timetable and that was that! They did however enjoy lots of other things the school offered. Also small schools are unlikely to be able to offer lots of sports competitively but sport for all is often what they aim for. The ultra sporty DC will do well in any sporty school but the key is to ensure the non sporty get what they need too and the school isn’t ruled by sport! There’s more to school life but does the school celebrate it? That’s what I would look for.

Well, as others have suggested, from our prep, the only children that went on to single sex independents were girls. I would guess that there is generally more desire for the parents of girls
to separate them from boys, meaning the pool of applicants is smaller.

There are plenty of challenges that young girls face. Access to the private education of their parents’ choice is not one of them.

Re your last paragraph, out of interest, does this principle of equality only apply to positions of responsibility?

For example, and not wishing to be glib, I imagine you have no particular interest in seeing 50% of bricklayers as women. Or, in contrast, 50% of nurses as men.

And again, that’s fine. I have no interest in seeing that either. But equality of power is not the same thing as equality of opportunity in education. And genuine equality in education will see boys and girls gently veer towards certain subjects and activities.

I don’t think that imbalance, in an of itself, is a cause for concern.

Sure, have quotas for MPs. They’re all psychopathic liars anyway, so no reason not to shake up the gender balance. But I think it’s daft for us all to pretend that boys and girls don’t tend to have different preferences. What’s important is that those that want to study something a little
different are encouraged to do so and are fully supported.

@Talbot53 I am sure that in real life, you are neither 'daft' nor 'glib'. Neither am I.

I believe that until we see real equality in power, money and share of voice, we should do everything we can, not to give our girls 'equal education opportunity' but the educational (and otherwise) opportunities that will enable them to take the place and space that women deserve, even if that means giving them greater educational opportunities than boys.

This is off topic so I am not going to get too deeply into this here .. but this makes interesting reading.. wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/final-employment-2020.pdf. When women are 50% of the involuntary part time employees and 50% of the employees in the lowest paid sectors.. then we will be closer to equality. (but it's not the only metric)

Plus I didn't once use the word 'equality' in my original post.. that was your word.

Sure. Your phrase was ‘every second person’, which is an equal 50/50 split.

@ChateauMargaux

I actually think it’s more important for women to aim high in whatever role they choose. My DD had no support from her girls school whatsoever in her chosen career. They just thought she always had an opinion and they preferred the quiet ones. It was the career aspirations of her male friends that spurred her on. It had little to do with her girls’ school. She got good exam results and was happy enough not to be at school with boys. However their career aspirations were overall higher. DC take in all sorts of messages, not just from school.

@TizerorFizz.. I am sorry your daughter's school did not support her career ambitions.. yes, school is only part of the over narrative that our children are exposed to.

DX was asked to be a 6th form ambassador recently. Basically saying how the school enabled her to succeed in her career. She said she succeeded in spite of them, not because of them! That’s a bit over the top but it was disappointing after choosing a school so carefully. Change of head was the big problem. Which, when we are choosing schools, is impossible to factor in when it happens several years after DD starts.

I once interviewed at an independent school (day and boarding) that had about the ratio you mention, OP. I asked about it at interview and was told they kept it at that because they didn't want to have too many girls. They had allowed it to go to majority girls in one year group and it had been (direct quote) "a disaster for the school". They had been a boys' school that had expanded to take girls 20years previous, but still clearly saw girls as second class.

I withdrew from the interview; no way was I working somewhere like that.