single sex schools

[MarieDeGournay]

Girls do better in exams at all-girls schools than mixed, research finds | Schools | The Guardian
I remember research showing that was true some time ago, then it was debunked, now it's back again
As a product of all-girl schools, I've always believed it was very beneficial. Given that I was gender-non-conforming to the point of dysphoria, that might sound strange, and I did feel a huge disconnect with my classmates; but if I'd been in a mixed school I'd have been drawn towards the boy-side, whereas in an all-girls' school, I just had to work out a way to be a different kind of girl.
And I had the female teachers - even the science teachers - as role models. I wouldn't have worked things out as well in a mixed school, I think.

That's not even mentioning the shocking rate of sexual harassment of girls in mixed schools.

Here in Ireland, single-sex schools are disappearing in a blaze of 'aren't we wonderfully progressive?' but I think it may be one more thing we wish we'd held on to. Any thoughts?

Yes, we went to parties, pubs and mixed with boys all the time. I had a boyfriend along with many of the girls.

We all had boyfriends! The school held socialising events with a local boys one; we all swapped phone numbers and met up to play rounders and when we got a bit older, on ‘dates’ lol. I would be all for that, I just don’t want the classrooms mixed.

My understanding is that sexist attitudes are commoner among men who have attended all-boys schools. Single sex schooling for girls cannot be considered in isolation.

So "I want my daughter to have the advantages of single sex schooling. Other people's daughters can do the work of socializing the boys my daughter will eventually have to deal with as an adult."

This is an interesting bit of work based off the Irish school system
https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/berj.3841

Boils down to single sex being more middle class or engaged parents so therefore better results. And anecdotally this sounds right. DD friends are in the girls school in town. Entry was done as a list which started from birth. I know 2 men who dropped the application forms in to the school after bringing home their brand new DD from hospital. My DD went on the list age 10, at which point it was already over subscribed.

@user1477391263 what a very strange attitude.

My boys were/are single sex educated for secondary school and neither have an issue with how to behave around women, in fact they are very respectful and had an education at home and at school that taught them to be. Neither has an issue with women. I strongly believe that the parental input on this is important whatever school they are in.

@turkeyboots not for me, raised working class, youngest of 6. I chose the school and my parents let me because the mixed school my older siblings went to was awful.

Girls thrive in the absence of boys emotionally and socially. There is less pressure to adhere to beauty standards, eating disorders are less prevalent and girls have higher self esteem

This is the opposite of my experience. Admittedly most schools are dysfunctional at the moment, but my daughter has left an extremely toxic, appearance obsessed girls school. I would ordinarily agree that’s purely anecdotal but I think it’s the new norm

My daughter went to a non selective mixed private school. Up until GCSEs, she was a good not brilliant student. But she always complained how disruptive the boys were. Once she got to GCSEs and was in the top sets she said the boys were better behaved, but said for sixth form she wanted an all girls school. She got into a very (not super) selective one and while socially only ok she was able to really study without distractions or the teachers attention being divided.
She got all A stars (2023). Was it the teaching? Was it the very pro-female ethos? Was it the lack of boys? Was it her determination? A mix I imagine. Thing is I can't rewind time, keep her at her old school and see if the results would have been different.
My son however would probably have descended into a complete hoodlum if he was at an all boys environment! The presence of girls definitely tempered things.
Though one thing about the all girls school: I didn't like the 'you are the future captains of industry' push. Not everyone can or wants to be the 'captain'. And the arts were considered not the point (Math was the most popular A level). They had loads of lawyers, scientists, finance people come chat. At the careers fair the only vaguely creative thing was fashion - but the business side. There was nothing relating to social science either. The girls were expected to want to rule the world, not help understand it.

That sounds great, but I'm not talking about your particular individual situation.

At the macro level, parents are generally a lot keener on SS schooling for girls than for boys; that's going to create some dilemmas (or would, IF we were shifting towards a situation where more SS schooling was an option. As it is, the opposite is happening, as private education is gradually becoming less affordable and there appear to be no signs that state schools are interested in bringing back SS education en masse).

Where I live there are still a lot of church schools, both Catholic and and Cof E These all tend to be single sex.I went to an all girls secondary school myself and really appreciated that - although mainly in retrospect - since at the time I didn't even question it - it was just how most secondary schools were.

Apart from the ability to focus on lessons free from the pressures of puberty and the opposite sex - sport was really good; and in my experience as a teacher I'd say that all girl's schools are generally better for girls who are sporty. There is also less conformism with sex based stereotypes in terms of subject interest and choice.

Social media has changed the landscape for young people now. When most of us were at school it was simply not a thing. Though I'm sure there are as many, if not also additional, pressures for girls at mixed sexed schools.

My daughter and a few of her fiends suffered terribly in an all girls secondary. Which she wanted to go to much to my bewilderment as I come from Poland and we do not entertain such artificial separation anymore. There were a few toxic alpha-females running the roost, being overly sexualised, wanting to jump anything that's moving at 13-14. We moved our daughter in Y10, and a couple of friends did the same, to a mixed school nearby and there was an immediate improvement, benefits of the blended environment manifesting themselves, which mirrors the real world. Boys and girls can learn and revise together, which is what I know from back home. Just normal existence together. Friendship etc.

Though one thing about the all girls school: I didn't like the 'you are the future captains of industry' push. Not everyone can or wants to be the 'captain'. And the arts were considered not the point (Math was the most popular A level).

DD went to a girls grammar - while maths was the most taken A level, the humanities and arts were well supported and encouraged too. While her gcse options included FM, electronics and CS (as well as drama), other girls did music, art and drama for theirs.

As always, the individual school of a given type will vary. Hers was very good - a not superselective GS, which did a certain amount of social events, theatre and music together with the boys' GS. But clubs such as robotics were for girls, the teams they sent to inter school competitions were girls - DD wryly noted mixed teams displaying the dominant male phenomenon with the girls reduced to 'helping'.

Single sex still pretty popular here- all four grammars are single sex and there is an academy that is sort of twinned- there is a girls and a boys school on the same site with some shared facilities but lessons are single sex- that is the most popular comprehensive. There's also a girls private school 4-18 but, possibly tellingly, no boys equivalent. There are of course more co-ed schools than single sex in total but all the ss schools are oversubscribed.

The article doesn't surprise me as it's an open secret that demand for boys single sex is falling but support for girls single sex is fairly solid. Seems that is actually rational given the evidence.

That said, it is important to look at the individual schools because you cant send your DC to the paper's average girls school that outperforms the average co-ed school. They may get better results/ be happier at the co-ed school that is available to you than the girls school that is available to you.

That's interesting, and clearly your daughter's experience; though I went a single sex secondary school, as did my daughter. Admittedly they were also both grammar/selective schools - and the academic atmosphere, and high expectations worked well for both of us. Sport too. Great teachers, who were often good role models - in that they were strong, knowledgeable women.

I always got on with my father as a child; he nurtured my intellect and political nature; and I've always got on with men and boys in general - to the extent I also post on another forum which is 99% male . My daughter too - very much gets on with men. In fact because we're both quite confident in ourselves and a lot of men react well to that.

I've had boyfriends, am married and have had two sons. So I don't recognise the portrayal of segregation/lack of real world experience at all. The girls from our school used to go to discos etc with the boys from the boys schools. That was always a treat; and you still mix with boys in your neighbourhood and family out of school time.

I wouldn't be surprised if things have changed considerably in the digital age

Sorry that this was your daughters' experience @Happyinarcon

I went to a state girl's grammar too - also have a close relationship with my dad and tended to "click" more with boys. But the girls I hung out with were the nerds, weirdos and lesbians (I guess I'm one of those, and not a lesbian), so I don't know if that particular friendship group had zero pressure regarding appearance etc.? Although there was a degree of social contagion around cutting amongst my peers - it was the "emo" era 😞

Edited to add that I had a generally very positive experience and look back fondly on my experience 😊

Thank you for all the responses and sorry if I missed an existing thread on this topic and started a duplicate- was it on FWR or elsewhere?
I totally agree that going to a single-sex school does not preclude socialising with the opposite sex, and it could be argued that the 'serious' teen socialising with the opposite sex [or same, as in my case] starts from a basis of a stronger sense of self.
The blurring of gender stereotyping in single sex schools applies to boys too, I remember being told by a former boys' school pupil that the older boys had to look after the little ones, if they were upset or missed their mammies or fell and hurt themselves in the playground, they couldn't 'outsource' it to girls - he felt strongly that their emotional development benefitted from that.

Maybe it was just him! but you could see how a mirror-image of what we value in single-sex education for girls could be beneficial to boys - in their case being more emotionally open, learning to talk about their feelings - that kind of thing.
Then we'd have stronger girls and more sensitive boys, growing up into more balanced adults. In an ideal world😇

I worked in a private girls' school that went co-ed. In the private sector, it's led by parent consumer choice and I think single sex education has just gone completely out of fashion.

I attended a state girls grammar school, back in the 1970's, with a boys grammar on the same site. We had female staff and were expected to be "achievers". We met males in social settings and, I believe as a result of our education, we had a confidence that was not seen among our co educated counterparts. I would certainly recommend single sex education for girls.

Your second paragraph is exactly what I had. Two single sex schools on the same site, joint orchestras, drama etc and some joint small classes in the 6th form using teachers from both schools, e.g. Music and Greek. Sanity in the classroom but socialisation outside it.

It worked well.

My daughter was adamant that she would attend a girls secondary having spent most of primary school years sat next to most the disruptive boys (she was life threateningly ill in year 2 and missed a whole year followed by a part time timetable in years 3-6 so was then kept up front near the teacher afterwards, with a rotation of male disrupters as her table partners).

We discussed how bullying can manifest in an all-female environment and she decided she’d rather risk that than risk both female-typical bullying and male-typical bullying in one school, which seemed quite sensible to me. She’s quite physically cautious, presumable as she had various tubes, including a Hickman line during formative years, so a push-and-shove incident in a dinner hall or corridor is her worse nightmare.

Thankfully, girls schools are still very popular here (2 privates, 2 grammars, 2 high schools within public transport reach) and we managed to get her a waiting list place at the furthest away high school by the October half term of year 7. Our nearest girls’ high is crazily over subscribed and living in catchment didn’t help! She was too poorly to partake in the grammar entrance process.

So far, it’s been excellent, lots of new friendships and every subject is a subject for girls, whereas back In the 80s I was one of just three girls in the top science group.

Perhaps somewhat predictably in a big city the state girls schools are particularly popular with immigrant parents and parents of conservative religions, my daughter’s school is non-religious and the vast majority of the pupils are South Asian, Muslim of any race/nationality background and a growing number of Hong Kongers. My daughter is a minority as a Welsh/English atheist but it doesn’t seem to affect friendship building, her friend group even had a ‘Secret Santa’ for Eid 😂
(I am under the impression that the non-religious girls’ grammar is similar, whereas the Catholic grammar girls are largely from Eastern European, Irish, Afro Caribbean and African backgrounds. I don’t have any info on the private schools).

My much-older son technically went to a co ed independent but he started at a boys’ school which started admitting girls while he was a pupil. By time he finished there the upper school was about 5% female and the lower school was about 25% female. It’s properly co ed (and no longer fee paying) nowadays.
He then went to a co ed grammar 6th form which was also mostly male as the girls from the main school seemed to prefer to move on to separate 6th form colleges and the boys more likely to stay in school (perhaps because girls are more likely to be able to cope with independent and self directed study at 16? My ND boy would’ve been terrible at a college!)

You could be right! I was never part of the little cliques, either. I don't like gangs or groups - so would always have one particular close friend and then keep a a bit of a distance from those kind of group dynamics. I do like team sports, though. Netball, Hockey......