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

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.

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

phemenon phenomenon they that

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

Bullying happens in most schools whether single sex or mixed. I agree Farmor

I was an only child and went to a single sex school, I was quite naive and not at all 'street wise' when I left school although academically I did quite well. I think its an individual choice now, some children thrive in a single sex school others in a mixed school. I don't think there is any hard and fast rule.

How would this work in State Schools. Where I live each town has a Mixed Comprehensive, I believe there are 2 single sex grammar schools away in the east of the county but there is no other choice than, very good comps. for the rest of the population, unless you can afford private education. Building a second school in each town would cost a fortune and finding staff almost impossible. I have never heard of anywhere that has separate schools in the state system. Thankfully the local comp. my children went to and my g.children will attend is not just good academic but also for sport and drama. Girls are held in high regard and taught to be freethinking and confident.

I agree that bullying between girls in all girls schools can be pretty bad. At 25th class re-union it emerged that one of my classmates had been so badly treated by a couple of other girls, that she didn’t want so sit anywhere near them 25 years later.

Our dds went to a girls’ only senior school. Fine for the elder, who was always intensely sociable, but not as good for the less outgoing younger, since there were some nasty little bitches - no apologies for using that word - in her year.

I wished later that we’d sent her to a mixed school, which was slightly less good academically, but at the time she’d wanted to go to the same school as her sister. I do think she’d have been happier at a mixed school, though.

It’s sad that ‘mean girls’ are so often a thing, and I say that as someone who suffered at school from a coven of little bullies with a thoroughly nasty girl as its Queen Bee.

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Me, a mixed London comprehensive, DH a posh single sex boarding school in the countryside. I can knock spots of him educationally and in a social setting.

My twin grandchildren started off in a mixed comprehensive mainly because it has an autistic unit for the grandson. However my granddaughter was very unhappy there mainly because the ratio of boys to girls was 3to 1 and the boys messed about She transferred at the end of year 8 and is now much happier with just girls. I think girls do better academically in a single sex school while boys thrive in a mixed environment

That is a very good question - and one I have been pondering, as a mum, a teacher and a gran- for a very long time. I taught in a ss school, my grandchildren are currently in ss schools - and it is a concept that just does not exist where I grew up and where I live now.

A lot if not most of it happens online. It happens just as much between the single sex schools (im in a mostly single sex area)

Farmor

How very true, we make such massive decisions on our children’s behalf, and we never really know if we’re doing the right thing.

I went to a single sex state school in Scotland ,a convent school.Ibelieve the last single sex convent school in Glasgow has just or is about to become mixed sex.Apart from the fact I couldn't wait to leave school I had no issue with no boys and the education we got was as good or better than the private school a few hundred yards away,I would have liked my children to have been able to have that same set up but the cooncil in all its wisdom decided that the boys school should be housed in the same building .For a wee while the classes were still seperate boys and girls but it became mixed classes a number of years later ,around the time there were more teachers who weren't nuns and more men .

I was an only child and went to all girls’ school. I had very little opportunity to mix with boys till I went to university and at that stage felt very lacking in self-confidence in a mixed environment. I know other girls in my school had plenty of opportunities to meet boys socially but somehow I didn’t and it took years after leaving school for my confidence to improve.

As a result, I was very keen not to send children to single sex schools. Local primary schools were single sex - no choice- but we sent all ours to same mixed secondary. In retrospect it may not have suited 1 daughter who was very academic, but she would probably have been a high achiever wherever she went.

I suppose there always should be a choice and the problem for parents is that you have to make a decision and will never know if it was right!

The way in which our state education system is currently mis-managed, IMHO leads to a skewing of results.
There seems to be a perception that single sex education leads to better academic outcomes. So in areas (such as my GCs) where there are historical single sex schools, they seem to be over-subscribed (including from out of area) and in a self-fulfilling prophecy, perform better (academically)

Personally I would prefer co-education, properly funded and managed, but it seems as if my GCs will either be 'back door' selected for the 'better' school or sent to the one that is regarded as 'inferior'. They have already picked this up from their school friends' chat. I told them that any school they attended, was, by their very presence, a superior school!

My fortunate children attended a co-ed comprehensive that taught them well and equipped them for life. I am so sad that has been lost (in that area anyway)

Scotland has no single sex state schools so it’s not an option here unless you have money. My boys and my girls have all done well for themselves and I don’t think a single sex school would have made any difference.

However, I started at a girls grammar school which then amalgamated with the boys GS to become coed. I think I might have done better, or at least ended up with more confidence in myself, if it had remained a girls-only school. Although I had two brothers, I found the boys at school very boisterous and overwhelming. And naughty.

However, even though we were a co-Ed school we were strictly segregated outside of the classrooms! We had lunch at separate sittings (boys first, of course ), we had to walk to the train station along separate routes and on the train, there were separate carriages, front two for the boys (of course) and girls in the rear two. Madness, eh??

My children went to an independent school that was mixed until senior school then single sex until 6th form when it was mixed again. There were plenty of mixed events in senior school too eg drama productions etc.
That seems to work well. Both DGSs are at that school now.

We have single sex grammar schools in my town, my daughters went. Both are highly regarded schools, my own view there are no advantages other than economic in mixing the sexes at secondary level.
Thinking back to my own schooldays boys and girls simply did not fraternize and any thought of harassment did not occur.

I hear that we have had progress since then!.

My understanding is that single sex education leads to better outcomes for girls a nd worse for boys. As the country is mainly run by men, why would they champion single sex education.