Why a Girls' School
Your daughter out values all your possessions and time commitments. Parents who choose to enrol their daughters in a girls’ school are signalling their strong support for academic satisfaction and personal confidence for their daughters. They recognise the importance of a safe learning environment that will allow their daughters to develop and achieve their academic goals. They acknowledge the importance of teaching staff who set high standards based on years of experience of what girls’ can achieve. They know the value of a well educated young woman in today’s society and that their daughters’ chances of being an educated young woman are most likely to be realised in a girls’ school.
Equally important is the confidence which comes from interacting with good role models, learning skills of leadership and sharing in a rich co-curricular life, with other girls.
Co-ed schools experiment with separate classes for boys and girls
Boys and girls are being taught in separate classes as growing numbers of co-educational schools show interest in segregating lessons.
They have found that both male and female pupils concentrate better and are less intimidated when taught core subjects without the distraction of the opposite sex.
Academics and state and independent head teachers will meet tomorrow at a conference in Cambridge devoted to the issue. Mike Younger, head of the education faculty at the University of Cambridge, will describe the renewed popularity of single-sex classes in mixed secondary schools.
He is expected to say that separating boys and girls is not a panacea for disruptive classrooms, but can help to raise academic standards in schools, under the right conditions. “The number of single-sex schools has decreased since the early 1970s in both state and independent sectors,” Mr Younger told The Times. “In the state sector \ some ideological resistance to single-sex teaching, a notion that comprehensive schools must be co-educational.”
A resurgence of interest in teaching girls without their male classmates had been prompted by the lower number who study maths and science after the age of 16, despite performing as well as or better than boys, he suggested.
He said: “Some schools enter girls for lower-tier, less demanding papers in technical and scientific subjects at GCSE, and thus narrow their subsequent choice, despite evidence of superior prior achievements by girls aged 14 and above.”
Boys can also benefit from single-sex classes because they sometimes allowed them to perform without worrying about their image in front of girls.
More recent research had found that male pupils concentrated better in single-sex classes. They were more likely to respond to questions without embarrassment and ridicule and to participate without showing off. The standard of their work had improved.
Research had uncovered positive reactions from students to being taught in same-sex groups. One boy said: “There’s more participation in the lesson and no one is shy or afraid to express an opinion — you know the other boys won’t laugh at you and you don’t lose face.”
A female student told researchers: “Girls are more hard-working and work better without the boys around. Girls want to do their best and this is an environment where they’re not afraid to show what their best is.”
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