EDUCATION CO-ED OR SINGLE SEX
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in GSA schools over 70 per cent more girls took A-level Maths, over 50 per cent more girls chose a science at A-level and over 90 per cent more girls took a physical science (Physics or Chemistry) at A-level. Boys in co-ed schools do not choose English because it is seen to be a girls’ subject. So the presence of the opposite sex is influencing subject choice. In co-educational schools, boys find it hard to compete
with girls in cultural activities such as music. An average musical boy at a boys’ school is much more likely to be in the orchestra than he would be at a co-educational school. It is sometimes argued that it is ‘unnatural’ to segregate
the sexes in education. In fact, there is nothing natural or normal about putting hundreds of adolescent girls and boys together, particularly in a boarding school. My colleagues in co-educational schools have to deal with a spectrum of disciplinary and emotional problems arising from their co-educational status and this is a distraction from the main purpose of a school. Teenagers can do without the pressures of living alongside members of the opposite sex at a time in their lives of physical change and emotional vulnerability. I am pleased to be the head of a boys’ school. And, unlike
the schools where boys have to sit opposite their girlfriend at breakfast every day, where they are competing for the attention of girls and thinking too much about their image, in a boys’ school, boys can still be boys.
Dr Chris Greenhalgh, Deputy
Head Teaching and Learning of Sevenoaks School in Kent, explains why a co-ed school prepares pupils for real life
T
26 FIRST ELEVEN SUMMER 2010
hree myths peddled by the single-sex lobby need to be dispelled. Firstly, that pupils perform better academically at single-sex schools. Secondly, that girls and boys enjoy different learning styles.
Thirdly, that cultural factors make single-sex environments more conducive to learning. In the UK, girls’ schools top the league tables, seeming
to give legitimacy to the theory that girls, at least, perform better academically in a single-sex environment. Statistics are regularly cited from exam results that appear to prove this. In 2006, however, the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) which represents the heads of over 250 of the leading independent schools in the UK, commissioned a study that looked at academic performance in single-sex and co-ed schools across the globe, including Australia, the US, Europe and the UK. The study – the most comprehensive of its kind – concluded that “half a century
of research has so far revealed no striking or consistent advantages for single-sex education.” Professor Alan Smithers, who led the study, said, “The
reason people think single-sex schools are better is because they do well in league tables. But [these schools] are generally independent, grammar or former grammar schools and they do well because of the ability and social background of the pupils... not because they are single sex.” A US Department of Education study in 2005 also
concluded there was “no evidence” to suggest pupils in single- sex schools perform better than those in a co-ed. While girls on average will always tend to achieve more highly than boys, they achieve just as highly in co-ed schools. Professor Smithers did find, though, that “40 per cent
of people who had a single-sex education wanted their own children to go to a co-ed school.” The second commonly held belief is that boys and girls
have different preferred learning styles. A 2005 study by the Department of Children, Schools and Families concluded that there was “little evidence to support the notion that the dominant learning style of boys differs from those of girls.” To identify exclusively girl-centred or boy-centred learning strategies is therefore meaningless. The study also concluded that ways of teaching that appeal to boys are equally girl- friendly, in that “they characterise quality teaching, and as such are just as suitable and desirable for girls as for boys.” Factors that have the biggest impact on learning – as
proved by Professor John Hattie in his analysis of 180,000 studies involving 50 million pupils worldwide – include
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