DD's school going co-ed - I'm really annoyed

[SomewhereOutThere]

Am I allowed to talk about a private school issue in FC? I know that can be polarising in and of itself, but my particular issue here is about something I feel strongly about as a feminist so I hope this is okay.

We heard yesterday that DD2's prep school is going fully co-ed. (Currently there are a small number of boys up to year 2, a relatively recent change which came alongside an assurance that the school would be staying single sex to 11.) It won't directly affect DD's lessons - boys are being phased in so her year group will remain all girls until she leaves in 3 years. (Though there will be younger boys in her playground which will change the atmosphere I suspect.)

But I'm annoyed that:

• There was no consultation with existing parents or (seemingly) staff, who were surprised.
• A four page booklet about the change continually refers to adding extra facilities to be able to absorb two 'genders'.
• The four page booklet also explains that staff will get extra training to refresh their prior experience/training in teaching co-ed to encompass 'the different ways in which girls and boys learn and their differing interests, strengths and weaknesses'. Makes me feel like there will be lots of the 'boys like science/girls like stories' bollocks which is bad for girls and boys.
• Most of all, in the whole 4 pages the fact that many girls learn better in an all girl environment, and are more likely to pursue STEM subjects, is not addressed! Nor is the fact that there will now be 3 co-ed prep schools in the town the school is in, an all boys school, and no all-girls school.

We chose this school back when my elder daughter was a toddler because I wanted an all girl environment. DD1 was able to be her zany self at this school - she's maths mad and that was massively encouraged, as was sport - she got into one there that she now plays at a county level. She moved on to an all girls senior school in a nearby city brimming with confidence and loves being just with girls. It makes me sad that the governors don't seem to give any weight to the fact that for over 100 years this school has offered that to girls.

Oh, and as they say themselves, they have an all time high of pupils enrolled. So they are 'doing it from a position of strength'. So I have no idea - despite the 4 pages - why they feel it necessary. Something about the needs of our future demographic after engaging consultants to research the strategic future. It must be right then, since a consultant says so. Nice to know that's what fees have been being spent on. (I say that knowing all about consultancy bullshitting to justify a high fee, since I work in a similar field myself!)

I feel like moving DD2 into the nearby city, since it is clear the new (male) chair of governors at her school doesn't believe in and support the importance of an all-girl education, which is my primary reason for paying private school fees. I've contacted the girl's schools this morning. But it'll mean a massively long journey for her on public transport, and might just be too disruptive at this stage - something the school is counting on, I suspect. Gah!

Fwiw, my oldest dd is the only one of mine not to have had any single sex education and she's the most gobby erudite feminist you could wish to meet.

Yes because those nasty boys are really going to interfere with your precious darling learning at school. You even said they won't even be in her year so really what's your problem?
Sometimes MN is so anti boy it's almost unreal

I suspect I might end up with same conclusion, Speak, but if I don't give notice by Easter and move her in September it'll arguably be too late after that (wouldn't want to move her during the serious preparation for entrance exams) so I won't be able to vote with my feet if the culture does change. So I need to look into all the options quickly.

I think maybe the OP is getting a bit of unfair treatment - the fact is the school isn't what she signed up for, not sure we're going to solve the single sex/private education issue here :)

Good point, Somewhere, I'd forgotten to consider the time frame involved in swapping schools!

When this happened to a prep near us, my friend took her dd out and the school waived the terms notice as she argued it wasn't the school she had signed up for.

I have a wonderful son, Strawberry. And a husband I adore. I'm not anti-boy. I'm pro all-girl education. I went to a female college and loved it - though also met my first husband in a student bar while I was there and loved him too!

I would like to spend the substantial amount that fees costs me on schools that offers the ethos and environment that best suits my children. For DD2 that is all girls from 7-11 for a variety of reasons, partly idealogical but also personal ones about what suits her.

Cheers flaxen.

I started this in FC to try to keep it more specific to this dilemma, and less generally about co-ed, private schooling and the like, but on a talk forum anyone can raise whatever they like of course.

The thing is, you can't really have an argument about whether girls are better at girls schools or mixed schools without stopping to think about what's also best for boys. If there are girls schools there must also be boys schools (or else some very skewed schools with mostly boys) And if we want a fair and inclusive environment for our DDS when they grow up, we really don't want them trying to cope in the workplace with young men who only know how to function in an all male environment. Men who've grown up in all male schools have been some of the worst mysogonists I've known.

Most of the parents I know who've chosen a girl's school for their DDs only have daughters not sons. I don't think they need to be so scared of boys. I'd stay and see how it goes OP. You may find it's not as bad as you fear.

Well, I'm sure there's a Parents' Association. And I'm also sure there would be a large proportion of parents who feel the same way you do. In fact most likely you know a few on a personal basis. What does everyone else think?

Totally agree with everything Evergreen says above

Most of the parents I know who've chosen a girl's school for their DDs only have daughters not sons. I don't think they need to be so scared of boys. I'd stay and see how it goes OP. You may find it's not as bad as you fear.

True. One of the most gladdening sites I see these days is groups of male and female schoolchildren in friendship groups. They're not boyfriends and girlfriends necessarily, but just friends. Boys being schooled only with other boys is not healthy.

It's a shame that boys school's can't sort out being hotbeads of misogyny. What can be done to address this in boys schools?

You can hardly dismantle the "old boys network" by encouraging boys only education, i think that's insane. Or perhaps hoping to replace it with an "old girls network".

Also - why stop at school, there's probably a reasonable case could be made as well for having single sex higher education. I bet that wouldn't be too popular for all the people who met their "darling" husbands at uni though.

It's a shame that boys school's can't sort out being hotbeads of misogyny. What can be done to address this in boys schools?

Getting rid of boys schools would be start.

It's a shame that boys school's can't sort out being hotbeads of misogyny. What can be done to address this in boys schools?

Well the answer that most of them seem to come up with is to go coed Why wouldn't they? Surely leaning alongside girls, seeing them as friends and classmates, is the best thing you can do to learn to relate them easily as an adult?

Beyond that, yes I guess they could do more with the teaching and syllabus, but hard to see how that could really compensate for growing up in a world where girls are just people just like boys.

Yes TeiTetua I'm asking around. I texted a few people including some who have boys in pre-prep with a link to this thread and to asked them to pass the word around if anyone wants to discuss it on here. I'm interested in whether they've been consulted and I'm not at school much to ask directly due to lift shares.

Well the answer that most of them seem to come up with is to go coed smile Why wouldn't they? Surely leaning alongside girls, seeing them as friends and classmates, is the best thing you can do to learn to relate them easily as an adult?

And yet sexual harassment and assault of girls by boys in co-ed schools is frighteningly high. So clearly that isn't the solution.

I thought only the looniest rad fem separatists really believed gender segregation was the solution to a gendered society. Nice misogyny there. And it shows what little you know about radical feminist politics and in particular separatism.

Imagine my surprise though that the men on this thread are arguing for access to girls by boys. Men really don't like it when women want to have their own spaces. I wonder what they are afraid of?

I'm not sure that placing the responsibility on girls to reduce the misogyny in boys schools is fair on girls. Why should the responsibility be on them and not the adults running the schools?

Scallops

Given that there are apparently many people who think that boys do better are boys only schools do I take it that the typically arsey missive you typed above is you signalling your support for complete gender segregation in education ?

I'm sure that none of the "men" on this thread are primarily motivated by providing "access" to their daughters to boys, whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.

I thought only the looniest rad fem separatists really believed gender segregation was the solution to a gendered society. Nice misogyny there. And it shows what little you know about radical feminist politics and in particular separatism.

Great stuff scallops. isn't it just the case these days that any criticism of anything calling itself feminism is 'misogyny'; any criticism of the men's rights movement is 'misandry'; any criticism of the left is 'neoliberal'; any criticism of capitalism is from the 'loony left'.

Why don't we just give this bulllshit ideologisation of everything a rest. But that might mean we had to think outside our narrow little pet narratives.

Single sex schools and gender separatism in general are ludicrous: socially unhealthy, divisive bullshit espoused by ideologues of left and right.

Imagine my surprise though that the men on this thread are arguing for access to girls by boys. Men really don't like it when women want to have their own spaces. I wonder what they are afraid of?

They are afraid they wont get to grab their breasts and shout stuff like "nice tits love" and "you'll never make a Physicist !!" or "Computers are for boys, bitch".

Of course.

My daughter was at an all girl school and due to a house move, moved to a co Ed private school, genuinely I think it benefitted her. I think the argument missing here is girls need to learn to interact and compete with boys on equal levels. And I feel this is missing from all girls schools.

My experience is they come out not really learning how to interact with men equally, I saw too many inappropriate crushes on male teachers, leading to inappropriate responses to older men in positions of authority, inability to really tell a good guy from a bad one, often a lack of social skills when interacting with men, they are basically hot housed together and the only boys they meet are st school dances when the boys school and the girls get together, or with friends brothers. Many of them hit eighteen leave school and they've seldom had a meaningful conversation with a boy never mind anything else.

So whilst the academic argument is valid, there is another side which is producing a well rounded individual equally at ease with either gender and who has learned that as a normal right of passage.

Lastly the school will have made this decision for financial reasons.

Bluntness those social skills could be addressed by mixed sex extra curricular activities, plus interaction with family and friends. How common is it that a girl in a single sex school has no male relatives around her age, and does no activities that involve the opposite sex?

Also I think someone up thread mentioned that co-ed for 6th form has been shown to work well.

They are volunteer governors though, not business owners. It is not a privately-owned independent school - I avoid those like the plague

I would like to spend the substantial amount that fees costs me on schools that offers the ethos and environment that best suits my children

Oh please- it's a private fee paying school. Of course it's a business and "the best ethos and environment" just happens to be one only available in the private sector?

I don't have a problem with private fee paying schools - my son was at a private school for his entire school career but don't try and disguise you are buying a privilege which only 5% of the population have a chance at.

She used number of girls doing physics at A Level as her proxy. Something like three times the number choose it at all-girls schools than at mixed schools, and I've heard similar numbers where we live too

Scotland has a different system but I'm not aware of statistics on subjects taken being broken down on sex. There are league tables of exam results published and unsurprisingly the private schools out perform all the state schools but I couldn't tell, when it was of interest to me, how this broke down between the sexes.

Private education is indefensible

in some ways I agree, despite educating my son privately. The alternative of a society which says you can't, is more indefensible.

OP you are not being unreasonable in being annoyed. I would not have picked a single sex school and have been annoyed if my son's school had changed half way through.

Speak

Do you think we should have more gender segregation as well ? Is this a common feminist position ?