Is there a case (again) for single sex schools?

Witzend

I don’t think my daughter failed to fit in because the girls were bitchy, on the whole they seemed very kind, but something just didn’t click.

The school was very sporty and she excelled at all sports , she probably struggled academically a bit, but mainly, I think many were boarders and she was a day girl, and they had come up through the prep school.

I used to watch her at matches, and think she was just trying too hard to fit in, it was sad.

I don’t know if we’d left her there, she may have started to fit in, but we weren’t prepared to take a chance.

How do single sex schools cope now with so many children wanted to change from boys to girls and vice versa. Do they accept children who have changed sex?

Bullying between girls is probably worse than boys my eldest daughter suffered for a while and lashed out giving one of the bullies a black eye. She got suspended of course but they left her alone after that - and her younger sisters too

Maw Coming back to your quote
MORE than a third of girls say they have been sexually harassed at school, a charity has found, compared with just 6 per cent of their male classmates. Two thirds of girls have been targeted in public, with thousands complaining of feeling unsafe and being held back by sexism in schools. More than half of these faced sexual harassment while dressed in their school uniform, the survey by Plan International UK found
I wonder how much of these statistics relate to single-sex vs co-ed schools, and how much relates to the changing attitudes and mores of the present day.
Harassment and bullying of any kind are not acceptable.
But harassment has always happened, except that we didn’t call it that, and it didn’t always come from fellow pupils. While some of the male teachers at my co-ed school were perfect gentlemen, some were not above inappropriate remarks or even inappropriate touching.
The article states that girls reported harrasment in public, so what type of school they attend is irrelevant. They are going to face this behaviour anyway.

I think what is important is that girls are taught how to deal with it and call it out, and boys are taught to respect women and girls.

That has to come from within the family as much as from the schools children attend.

I can see fors and againsts for both. I went to a single sex convent from age 11, and whilst it was quite a while ago, in retrospect, there was a feeling of developing along separate lines, and that the male of the species, apart from one's father or priests, were not to be trusted, insomuch as they would always be trying to wear, us girls down with a view to stealing our virtue. That notion was propagated by the nuns that tought us, who I now realise in fhe fullness of time were definitely on the far end of the batshit spectrum and really shouldn't have been around children.

However, having said that I know two girls quite well, who went to private single sex schools in more recent times. One is a son's girlfriend of five years or so and the other is a daughter of one of my closest friends. Both very nice people, but it does stike me that they don't have the vast array of friends of both sexes that my sons have, many female friends retained from their days at the local comprehensive. Both these girls mentioned appear to have smaller social circles. The mixing of sexes can be a positive insomuch as it did appear to me as a parent of boys going through a mixed sex school they were far more relaxed around the opposite sex than I was at their age.

The downsides, undoubtedly, sexual harrassment, not to mention the relatively new phemenon of sexting and the humiliation that inevitably ensues. Possibly some girls don't reach their full potential around boys, maybe some might feel they boys are an intimidating presence. I can only speak for myself, but at such a difficult age, the introduction of gender neutral toilets would have been embarrassing in the extreme. I can imagine some girls avoid going in such situations, which isn't good.

On the whole I think my boys did benefit from being in a co-ed school, not sure I would have done though.

phemenon phenomenon they that

who I now realise in fhe fullness of time were definitely on the far end of the batshit spectrum and really shouldn't have been around children
Terribull I know one shouldn’t laugh as there’s a serious point there but I couldn’t help

I've always thought the best solution would be for the schools to be mixed but the classes single sex. That way the children will not be distracted by the opposite sex in class but can mingle during breaks.