Would a move back to single sex education help our girls?

[BalletBunting]

I've been meditating on this recently - particularly seeing reports of the shocking levels of sexual harassment girls experience at school, as well as seeing the levels of gender stereotyping both my DC (one of each) have experienced since they were born. It made me wonder whether a move back to more single sex schools (for secondary at least) could actually have a positive effect on children of both sexes (and girls in particular)

Less sexual harassment, less stereotyping and as I understand the research shows that children do better in single sex environments, where they don't feel they need to 'perform' for the opposite sex. It also means that difficulties of puberty including hormones, menstruation etc can be dealt with in what might feel like a more safe environment.
Thoughts?

I think what we've established is that you can't actually point to any actual examples of all girls' schools which put their girls in for a different range of exams from boys' schools. There may be the odd exception (I know someone who teaches in a Plymouth Brethren school - but that's about the bonkersness of that religious sect, not single sex education per se).

Minor differences between EdExcel and AQA are neither here nor there - both are accepted as university entrance qualifications. The fact that there are some schools which offer children a choice between GCSE and BTec (and some which steer children to BTec for the wrong reasons) again is neither here nor there.

You were trying to construct an elaborate argument to the effect that girls' schools as a whole were inherently anti-feminist because they restricted girls' education by restricting the subjects they could study - when in fact there (outside of weird religious sects) there are no such schools. Girls schools teach for the most part (barring minor, unimportant differences in choice of exam board, which also vary from one mixed school to another) exactly the same things mixed schools do.

(There may be the odd thing like metalwork where a girls' school, for historical reasons, doesn't have the classroom space - but even back in the 1970s when I was at school, some of my contemporaries simply went to the boys' school next door a couple of lessons a week in order to do workshop classes - they weren't debarred from taking these subjects because they were girls.)

Practical subjects are also not considered facilitating subjects by many universities

Unis have dumped facilitating subjects

Dd1 got into Bath uni with a sports btec
Dd2 is aiming for eng lit at Russell group with a textiles a level

You are out of date

No I was not trying to construct anything.

I was replying to your post that said it couldn't happen because all students sit the same subjects.

My reply was that, in theory, it could happen. That's all.

Fibbke

Ok, fair enough if I'm out of date. My youngest is about to go into 3rd year at uni so not done the UCAS thing for 3 years. If they've changed then fair enough.

But why did you comment "science BTEC? WTF?"

The only school I've taught in that did GCSE Engineering was the all girls' one. Also the only school where I've struggled to recruit for a level English language and English literature. They were all doing maths and science.

Quite Fibbke. I had a long discussion with the music teacher at one of our local secondaries when we were doing school preferences. BTec music, for instance, has more of an emphasis on pop music, and skills like composition using computers and learning how to use a mixing desk. GCSE is more aimed at people with an interest in classical music. The two courses will suit different students. (My DS might well be more interested in the BTec course. And, straying into extracurricular stuff, as a classically trained musician, I can vouch for the fact that the Trinity drum kit exams are of an extremely high standard in terms of the musicianship they require.)

But why did you comment "science BTEC? WTF?"

Because i assumed you meant the girls schools ONLY did science btec

If you meant they offer it as an option along with triple or double science gcse then so do lots of mixed schools

The mythical girls' school, Fibbke .

There really is a lot to be said for single sex education as an escape route in a patriarchal society. For me it was definitely part of what established my "don't give a fuck" attitude when it came to female socialisation (I definitely failed some of the crucial aspects of female socialisation).

If you meant they offer it as an option along with triple or double science gcse then so do lots of mixed schools

It's only an option if you are given the choice to study it or not.

In the school that I know the bottom set in science could only study BTEC so they had no option to study double or triple science. They were forced to do BTEC, like it or not.

It's shitty to force the bottom sets into BTEC if they'd rather be studying GCSE, but that's an education issue, not a feminist issue. It doesn't undermine the whole idea of girls' school. Anyway, we're going round and round in circles, discussing this completely made up school of yours, and your made up scenarios which may involve failures in education policy but aren't actually about single sex schools at all.

Anyone want to talk about the actual topic of the thread?

Also, can anyone remind me of the web browser extension which enables one to hide posters?

Decomposing dds girls school have done gcse English lit a year early for 3 years now. The results are better and frees the girls up to study their other subjects without intensive reading of eng lit texts at the same time. It’s been a resounding success in every level. Why do you think it’s “not allowed?”

It's not not allowed but they changed the rules around how schools could report exam results when they brought in progress 8. They made it so that schools could only count subjects sat at the same time in the P8 scores.

For the students it has no impact (although I did notice when my dd went through UCAS that some unis insisted that exams had to be sat together and only the first sitting counted but that was for A levels).

For the schools though P8 scores are very important to most want to maximize them. Most that I know of have now stopped students sitting any early so that the best results count towards P8.

I was at a school with separated sexes in the main from 11-16. There was A Boy in geography, and music was mixed, but otherwise it was only stuff like drama and cdt. Meh. I got the same grade in music and geog as I did in maths and English. Wish we'd had swimming together though: my first feminist campaign was for girls to be allowed to do the Award of Merit in lifesaving not just the Bronze Medallion, when we found out the lads did both as standard in 5th form. We (in retrospect bullied) convinced the new pe teacher to run it as a girls only lunchtime club in l6!

Don’t really understand your answer as not in education myself but in any event dds all girl school has by some measure the best results in the county with parents climbing over each other to get their daughters in so doesn’t seem to be an issue

I think what we've established is that you can't actually point to any actual examples of all girls' schools which put their girls in for a different range of exams from boys' schools. There may be the odd exception (I know someone who teaches in a Plymouth Brethren school - but that's about the bonkersness of that religious sect, not single sex education per se).

Yes completely ignore the experiences of me and my cousin.BTW we both have brothers who went to different boys schools in the same town. Neither had a cooker lesson or a needlework lesson.

My cousin (girl) and eye did not get to do woodwork ormetal work but HAD to do cookery, needle work and in my cousin's case childcare.

This was happening i the 1980s, I suspect it is happening in some religious schools (incidentally I and my brother were in RC schools, our cousins were in non religious schools) it could easily happen again.

Yes when it came to O Levels I did physics and maths(different syllabus to my brother's school, so different, i fact, that the A Level syllabus in the mixed VI form was different for boys and girls)and computer science but half of my first three years at high school were training me to be a wife and mother.

FFS we were taught to make a bed, hand wash clothes and starch shirts.

Sorry about the eye for I and typos, I will improve after I have coffee.

I think a lot has changed since the 1980s! My old head teacher used to throw drawers at pupils heads if they got on his nerves! Not sure you can extrapolate your experiences from 30 odd years ago. Dds girls school has a massive and popular DT department and big focus on science and maths

But in that era, sashh, coed schools had girls doing home ec and textiles and typing etc, boys doing technical drawing, metalwork etc.

The maths and physics was the same but I plus my loyal friend were the only girls in our year who did it for O level and I was the only one at A level. Subjects evidently being perceived as for boys ... I was weirdly accepting of it at the time.

The hard evidence seems to be that now (not 40 years ago) the toxic concept of 'girls subjects' and 'boys subjects' may not be being enforced by the schools but still exists - it is a 'choice' in the mixed schools but single sex girls schools seem to be able to avoid that peer pressure or whatever the heck it is.

Mixed schools need to fix their 'gender balance' problems before we ditch girls schools.

Some interesting stats here.

https://www.iop.org/education/teacher/support/girlsphysics/reports-and-research/pagee_63816.html

Eroll

Yes things have changed but can you really see a boys school having childcare as an option?

And if you scrapped coed schools where are the childcare teachers going to work?

Then if you have a childcare teacher employed in a school are they only going to teach GCSE childcare? No you are going to have it on the curriculum for years 7 and 8 because a teacher is a resource.

But if you introduce a true national curriculum where year 7 and 8 children all take the same subjects whichever school they are at and all have an entitlement at KS4 to subjects traditionally seen as 'girls' and 'boys' so the boys' school HAVE to have a childcare teacher then you could create a more balanced education in single sex schools.

OOPs, Eroll, that was aimed at you.

I thing that was re my comment upthread
'I reckon some level of teaching of 'girl subjects' such as food tech and childcare for all pupils might be a very good idea.'

The food tech is a reality - boys schools have added kitchens, I don't know if all yet.
The childcare is unlikely IRL, but note it's unlikely in many all girls schools too.
If there was a requirement eg as part of PSHE type provision it could be delivered by shared teachers, or possibly via offsite courses.

My local secondary is sex segregated. Never went coed when it changed from grammar to comprehensive, my DD's said over their dead bodies did they want to go there. My friends dd did and the bullying was terrible, they seemed to be sex obsessed, friends dd couldn't play football because they didn't own goals even. The reason why many girls schools look so amazing is because they are super selective and private - comprehensive girls schools are just as bad as the other comprehensive schools!

I would NOT want childcare lessons at all.

I went to a single sex comp and it was fab

"Sex obsessed" ! Tell your dds not to be so judgemental.

Sex obsessed is what people say about girls schools as they literally can't get their heads around girls actually being happy and successful in a place with no boys for a few hours a day. Pathetic.