Although they are (I would assume?) slowly becoming less popular, many parents in both the UK and Ireland are still opting to send their children to schools that are segregated into all-girls or all-boys schools.
(This is, I must admit, all a little incomprehensible to me as a Scandinavian, where all primary schools are state run, mixed gender – and where entry is based on post-code and not religion. But that's a whole other rant...)
But now, (finally), a British college headmaster has spoken out against what he deems "outdated notions" about young women performing better in girls-only schools.
Richard Cairns, head of Brighton College, explains in an article for the magazine
Independent School Parent that girls who attend single-sex schools leave with top grades but may be at a "huge disadvantage" later on in life if they are unable to talk to boys.
He wrote:
"All parents looking for a school for their daughter have broadly similar criteria in mind," he wrote. "They want somewhere that readies their child for the world beyond the school gates, academically and socially. That is why I am often perplexed when they end up being swayed by outdated notions about girls performing better in single-sex schools and plump for that deeply unrealistic world. After all, if girls do not learn to socialise with boys as children, what happens when they go out into the work place? They may have a clutch of A*s and a first class degree, but if they cannot meaningfully converse and communicate with male colleagues, they will be at a huge disadvantage."
Supporters of girls' schools argue that students achieve high standards, and are more likely to take subjects traditionally seen as "male" - such as physics and maths, but Cairns states that research in both the UK and abroad has "cast serious doubt" on the argument that girls do better academically when they are not close to boys.
"The real reason some all-girls schools have a strong track record in traditionally "masculine" subjects, such as physics, is that they're very selective institutions," he suggested. "Bright girls are more likely to study physics than those of average ability. Whether they are sharing classes with boys is largely irrelevant."
Another factor that to the headmaster is of importance is the environment that is created when you have a class of both sexes.
"There is something, I feel, much more common to schools that educate both boys and girls and that something is kindness," Cairns explains. "Boys in single-sex school tend to create their own artificial hierarchies where only those in the 1st XV rugby team are truly valued while girls-only schools sometimes suffer a degree of emotional intensity that can lead to bullying. Contrast that with a co-educational world where girls admire the boys who dance, sing or act, and so, therefore, do the boys. Contrast that too with a mixed environment where the emotional intensity of all girls is diluted by the boys. In other words, there is a place for everyone and an environment where girls and boys can be themselves."
What is YOUR opinion on this? Are your children attending mixed or gender-based schools? And what experiences did YOU have with your own education? Join in the conversation with us on Twitter at @Herfamilydotie
(Feature image via
Flickr.com)
