Girls’ schools have been proven to counter the distinction between subjects previously regarded as “boys’ subjects” such as Maths and the Sciences, and “girls’ subjects” such as English and Foreign Languages. This dissolution of gender stereotyping gives girls a greater opportunity to take the subjects they wish to take, which in turn enables them to take the university courses they are best at.
It has also been proven that students behave much better in single-sex schools. In 2000, Benjamin Wright, the principal of the Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Seattle (USA) changed the class from co-ed to single-sex. He was concerned by the 30 discipline referrals he received a day – 80% of which were boys. In a change Wright describes as “overnight”, the number of discipline cases plummeted to just one or two a day.
Some people argue that single-sex education is unnatural, because life is co-educational. Others believe that working together and growing up in school together teaches students of both sexes how to interact with the opposite sex; and how to treat people in general.
These ideas are very simplistic, and clearly not very well thought out. Yes, at school the students are with people of the same sex, but they obviously spend more time out of school than in it, where they spend time with friends and siblings of the opposite sex. The correct way to interact with people of the opposite sex can also be learned out of school very easily; it is almost innate.
In an Australian Council for Educational Research study, lasting 6 years and ending in 2001, and involving 270,000 students, researchers found that both boys and girls taught in single-sex classrooms scored on average 15 to 22 percentile higher in exams than those taught in co-ed classrooms. They also found, behaviour was better in single-sex classes.
Benjamin Wright (previously mentioned) also found that the boys improved academically- they “shocked the state” when they jumped from the 10-30% listing (in the Washington Assessment of Student Learning) to 73%. The reading average also increased from 20% to 66%. They even outperformed the other boys in the state in terms of writing- they soared from a poor percentile of 20-something% to 53%!
An inner-city high school in Montreal, Canada, switched from co-ed to single-sex, and absences decreased from 20% to just 7%. The pass rate in the final exams increased from 65% to 80%.
The county high school in Mill Hill split into a boys’ wing and a girls’ wing in 1994, and since then, the percentage of pupils scoring high in GCSE examinations has risen from 40% to 79%. Dr. Alan Davidson, the principal in this school, agrees with Dr. Jo-Ann Deak in saying, “Men and women’s brains are different. It is crucial that we in education recognise that.”
I attended a single-sex (secondary) grammar school, and I must say that the atmosphere was beneficial to my learning. I did not have to fear seeming imperfect to girls in drama or any performances, and I was better behaved than I was in primary school. I almost absorbed information like a sponge absorbs water; learning was very easy when I in a class full of boys.
In conclusion, it is crystal clear that single-sex education is better than co-education, and it is well evidenced. Students in single-sex education benefit from the atmosphere, they are more will to behave well and to learn; they improve academically, and they develop into productive members of society, becoming more confident and active in leadership roles. It would be a slight on the part of the Government to keep this country’s education system mostly co-education, as it stifles children, so that they cannot become the best they can be.