GCC Vote to Allow Boys into only Single-Sex Girl's School

[ThatsMeInTheSpotlight]

I know some MNers have been following the campaign on Twitter. Notre Dame was the only state single-sex school in the country. The majority of the public consultation voted to keep it single sex but GCC (Glasgow City Council) have voted to make it co-ed.

Ironically their impact statement said it was about 'preparing girls for the outside world'. I think they meant because the world is mixed sex but they could just as easily have meant that the wishes of girls will be overlooked as soon as a boy asks for something or is minorly inconvenienced. I know the arguments for and against single sex schools but the point is it had a fantastic education record; it closed the attainment gap since it had a very mixed demographic and it produced concrete results in encouraging girls into STEM. It just proves that for all the campaigns from Me Too to STEM, it's only lip service and if a male wealthy demographic stamps their feet, their needs over-ride everyone else's.

Yes, girls at the bottom of the pile again. I'm becoming quite militant in my feminism in my old age (radicalised by Mumsnet) and the more you see of this the more you become aware of the extent.

Poor girls. Never allowed anything of their own.

I am so disappointed by this. I'm nearly 40 so left NDHS a long time ago, I still am friends with many women that attended, I also have relatives who attended & we all feel it was a special environment that influenced the women we are today.

To those complaining that the primary is mixed parents send boys there knowing this and there are excellent free schools nearby. NDHS was unique with a long history & now it will be changed forever

I just came on to post this:

It's with great sadness we announce that @GlasgowCC has decided to make Notre Dame High School co-educational. This is unforgivable and every councillor who ignored the pupils should be carrying a heavy cross

What utter bastards. And yes ''preparing girls for the outside world' does mean 'absolutely shat upon'.

This is awful. Everyone knows statistically girls do better in single sex schools. Cant have that now can we.

Best train them early on that their sole purpose in life is to be harassed and be plonked I between boys who cant behave. Mustn't let them get stupid ideas like careers in stem subjects

That's a real shame - I'm a big fan of single sex education for girls. Scotland is really just riding roughshod over women and girls rights

I suspect that this school is not going to do very well now. I don't think it was ever full, and many of the girls there are via placing requests purely because it is single sex. There's going to be a huge drop off in numbers.

This baffles me, we have single sex schools for boys.......why on earth can’t girls have the choice of single sex as well?

That is not very good for choice. My children went to English single sex schools as did I ( I paid school fees). Plenty of people here in England want single sex schools.

ex I'm a former pupil too although much older than you and yy I think all the pupils I'm still in contact with were very much shaped by the school. I don't think it's any co-incidence that half of my closest friends went into STEM and the % of pupils going into STEM when we left (over 30 years ago) was higher than the average for girls going into STEM in 2019.

As someone who attended on a placing request, I feel equally strongly about the opportunities it offered to girls from less affluent areas. I was the first in my immediate family to go to university and ND definitely impacted on that.

ItsAll yy I imagine the placing requests will drop considerably and there won't be enough boys in ND primary to balance that fall. Plus not all boys from the primary will choose to go on to the high school.

By in the country, do you mean Scotland or the UK? There's a number of girls' only schools in England still. They're grammars so still state rather than private.

I went to a girls' school (not ND). During my time there, there was a similar, albeit more limited, change, with the A-Level years being opened up to boys as well (the boys' school was similarly opened up to girls for Y12 and Y13). I don't recall there being any consultation around that, but certainly we had the impression that it was just the schools' policies rather than any involvement from the local council.

By in the country, do you mean Scotland or the UK? There's a number of girls' only schools in England still. They're grammars so still state rather than private.

There are plenty of girls' comprehensives as well, certainly in London. The ones that have gone mixed were usually because the school was undersubscribed. There's still strong demand for single-sex schools, particularly for girls.

By in the country, do you mean Scotland or the UK

Scotland

yes, I assume Scotland as I heard about it on the radio. I had a call from the department of business today doing a survey which was quite a long one about my business and quite a few of the questions were not just about exports but about what bought and sold fro England to other parts of the UK - it was really unusual to be interested in that. I ahve always really regarded us all as one nation. I don't really divided my clients between English ones and who is Scottish or from N Ireland.