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!

Ah sorry yes totally misunderstood there.

ChocChoc and Vulva

So you think girls should be educated with boys and suffer repeated sexual assault (because, lets not beat around the bush, that's what it was - and it was entirely normal - and even at primary girls are told to wear shorts under their skirts to hide their knickers, so don't claim that this expectation isn't already there at primary) - so that boys can benefit from their calming influence?

The idea that boys need to have girls in school beside them to calm them down and help them perform better has already been debunked. So I take it your position is that all higher education should be sex segregated ? Why stop there ?

btw - my own kids have never once been told to wear shorts under the skirts and any boy who sexually assaulted a girl would be expelled, as I believe is common practice. You are painting a wholly inaccurate picture of high schools being places where monstrous boys bully and harass girls on a constant basis. What is the point of this rhetoric ? (this feels like the last thread I was on now...)

I think it is naive in the extreme to believe all sexual incidents in school are reported to teachers.

I would find it impressive if any were tbh.

Doesn't mean it's not happening.

Omg this is nuts. The majority of girls in this country go to mixed schools and are fine. Fwiw, at the last all girls school that my dd went to, one of the girls made another girl pee in a cup and made another girl drink it. They were bitchy, horrid and had no interest in stem subjects whatsoever. Noone took physics, one took chemistry. No maths or computer science. This is at a level. Time to get real people!!

Pilfner

I think you'll find that your own personal experience unless usable to further the narrative that teenage boys are evil, perverted little shits who ought to be kept away from girls so that they can reach their potential, is likely to be considered an aberration and not worthy of consideration I'm afraid.

Sounds like it must gave been an appallingly run school, and atypical if it was a girls school with virtually no-one doing stem, not even maths. Thats the subject with the highest take up at DDs, as its a facilitating subject useful or essential for many subsequent paths apart from science and engineering. Chemistry is essential for medicine which isnt a male dominated domain any more ... wtf was wrong with the place?

If the trade off was between getting an extra grade or being able to relate properly to the opposite sex, then I think I'd honestly go for the latter with my kids.

Making poor choices in relationships can mess up your life far more than a B instead of an A at a level.

Plifner was the awful culture ever addressed do you know?

Tinkly I don't understand why you think that attending an all girls school will lead to poor relationship choices. Upthread I linked to research studies including one that shows that girls who attend single sex schools in part get better exam results because they are much more confident. I think confident young women are more likely to be able to make smart choices about all kinds of relationships including romantic ones. Another study has taken large amounts of data and shown that girls who attend a single-sex senior school are statistically just as likely to get married as girls who attend co-ed.

They encouraged lots of girls from China who actually did do maths a level. Not one local girl did any. No the culture wasn't addressed, I never told anyone about the pee drinking thing! I did complain about the systematic bullying of dd but as it was the alpha girl who did it, the school wouldn't hear a word against her. After Peegate I went to see the local mixed 6th form and could have cried, it was so lovely. Academically much higher achieving as well when you looked beyond the private school spin. Yes 100% a* at further maths and Latin but only 2 girls took either! Yes good maths a level but only taken by Chinese girls! Dd couldn't be happier and although I do think girls schools have their merits, segregation isn't all its cracked up to be. Dds friends are almost all boys at her new school, I have met lots of them and they are lovely. Dd is NOT oxbridge material but lots of the boys she knows are applying and they are funny, kind and clever!

btw - my own kids have never once been told to wear shorts under the skirts and any boy who sexually assaulted a girl would be expelled, as I believe is common practice. You are painting a wholly inaccurate picture of high schools being places where monstrous boys bully and harass girls on a constant basis

LOL - as I said, I went to a friendly mixed school, and this was completely normal - no-one was going to be expelled for pinging a bra strap for christs sake, and do you think shy, timid, 14 year old me, who had her boob grabbed as she walked down a corridor by a year 8 (younger than I was at the time) went and told a teacher? If I'd been being bullied, maybe, but common, every day stuff by randoms? Of course not!

You have a strange view of life as a teenage girl, and yes, I only went to two schools, so I have a small sample, but you've heard from other women on here who had the same experience.

Segregated Higher education? Well, was on an IT degree course, so as one of only 3 women in the 100, it virtually was.

Plifner sounds like a dreadful attitude from the teaching staff, makes me embarrassed to have been in the same profession. No one is advocating enforced segregation for all students (at least I don't think so), but Somewhere wants the option to choose it for her DD who she thinks it will suit.

LOL - as I said, I went to a friendly mixed school, and this was completely normal

LOL indeed - i know a boy who was suspended from my high school (very rough, drug deaths and stabbings) for grabbing a girls breast at PE. This was totally understood by everyone as an appropriate response and is known to be what would happen. I'm sorry, but the idea that girls are being routinely groped and that the school a) know nothing about and b) would not tell is absolutely no basis for complete gender segregation - which I see you did not answer, are you in favour of this or not ? I can only assume you must be.

maybe, but common, every day stuff by randoms?

You're saying that you were molested an a daily, or almost daily basis by random boys who you may or may not have known, and you think that this was normal ?

fucking hell, well if this is the sort of thing my kids can expect in a mixed high school then I am very concerned indeed. I went to school sometime ago and it was a rough area, a few of my peers are deceased for various unsavoury reasons. The idea that you could grab a girl in the classes tits in the corridor however was unthinkable and would lead to severe punishment.

If posters are genuinely telling me that this is routine and that my kids can expect this in high school then I am indeed appalled and would be going absolutely fucking bananas at the school if I hear about this.

I'm not sure how calling someone a bitch counts as sexual harassment and tbh i am very dubious about laura bates.

It was normal for me too. I'm 30 so it wasn't that long ago.

Why are you telling us our experiences didn't happen?

That's one comment from one contributor given as an example. It is part of the culture that is the problem. If it's no big deal you wouldn't mind your DDs male classmates calling her "bitch" on a regular basis?

I amn't telling you it didnt happen, of course not.

I find the idea that girls are being molested by random male pupils on a daily basis to be so at odds with my own high school experience (which was shitty in other ways) that I am horrified at the prospect of my own kids attending high school. As is my wife btw who doesn't seem to believe this constant groping went on at her school either, but YMMV.

I remember one girl at my school was assaulted by a boy putting his fingers inside her vagina during chemistry class. He then told his friends she'd given him 'fishy fingers' and then much hilarity and years of bullying for the girl ensued. She had not consented by the way.

The teachers must have known. But no one gave a shit. She was a bit common, and probably up for it was the general attitude from the teachers. There was a big focus on stop making a ruckus and get on with things.

I remember telling a teacher that all the girls were being harassed by a particular group of boys to say if they masturbated, really hassled and threatened into answering, and then if you said 'yes' you were up for it and a slag, say 'no' you were frigid. She gave no shits and told me 'it's not a conversation you ought to be having'. Apparently it was my fault!

I have many such stories.

I remember one girl at my school was assaulted by a boy putting his fingers inside her vagina during chemistry class

Fucking hell. How did he manage to get his fingers inside her skirt and pants without anyone noticing what was going on !? Surely a teacher would be facing the sack if this happened in their classroom ?

Her skirt was rolled up fairly short and she was wearing a thong. The benches were shaped such that there was quite a gap between top of thigh and bench for him to get his hand across unnoticed, whilst the front of the bench was closed off, something to do with the gas arrangement (taps for Bunsen burners periodically placed along the benches).

Not that what she was wearing, or how she was sitting, is what should be relevant to that story.

Surely my wife and I are not so misinformed that this sort of daily random sexual assault stuff is going on at an epidemic scale and I somehow drifted through high school (in a complete shit hole) unaware of it all !?

Sexual assault and rape are incredibly common in our society. If you are unaware of that you are indeed woefully uninformed.