AUGUST 2018 Girls-Only Education The GDST Perspective Dr Kevin Stannard CONTENTS Executive summary.......5 Introduction.......6 Key caveats.......10 Significant outcomes.......13 Factors underpinning girls-only education … 18 The trouble with girls … 37 Determinants of success in single-sex schooling … 39 Corollaries of success at school … 46 Conclusion: subversive schools … 50 References.......62 2 3 Executive Summary xcellent schools encourage and assist pupils to realise their potential, and are designed to equip them for success and fulfilment in the world beyond. Girls’ schools are founded on the principle that these aims are best achieved by educating girls separately. EThere is strong evidence that girls-only education leads to higher academic achievement, greater diversity of subject choice, and enhanced career progression. Girls, for a variety of reasons, learn differently Girls differ from boys not on any intellectual or cognitive Girls face pressures to conform to gender stereotypes – dimension, but in attributes and dispositions that have their greatest impact in childhood and adolescence, and which mean pressures which are stronger in the presence of boys that girls’ learning needs and preferences are typically different from those of boys. Girls need and deserve space in which to develop their Typically, girls prefer cooperative, discussion-led learning full potential, and to make informed and unconstrained environments; adapt better to coursework tasks and collaborative, choices about interests, subjects and careers project-based activities; respond to different forms of curriculum content, and have a greater propensity to disengage from co-ed In girls-only schools their needs and preferences can sports activities. be fully accommodated within a dedicated learning Girls often also adapt their behaviour in the presence of boys, to their own disadvantage – for instance in adopting supporting or environment moderating roles in discussion, avoiding risk-taking in inquiry, and in their choice of subjects for study. Successful girls’ schools are those in which a dedication Gender stereotyping and differences in expectations and self- to girls’ education is reflected in their physical design, image tend to affect girls’ behaviour, attitudes and choices, unless curriculum and co-curriculum offer, teaching and they are checked and challenged at school. Girls should have the learning approaches, and in their whole-school culture opportunity to be educated separately, not because they need protection, but because they deserve a level playing field. GDST schools serve to subvert, rather than support, This is not to suggest that all girls are different to all boys, or that all girls are the same. But typical attributes, behaviours and needs gender stereotypes and a priori assumptions, by differ. Single-sex settings allow teachers and schools to focus more offering an education designed for and dedicated to effectively on the needs of individual girls. the development and empowerment of successful, confident and adventurous girls. 4 5 GDST schools are able to offer an ideal learning environment dedicated to girls’ learning needs and preferences, and free of gender-stereotyping and distraction. In coeducational classrooms, boys tend to monopolise discussion, and take more domineering roles in group work and in practical exercises. There is pressure on girls to conform to prejudicial gender roles. Teachers tend to adopt styles and use content that seek to maximise boys’ engagement and regulate their behaviour. Girls are assumed to be less problematic: in particular, teachers tend to ignore the strong correlation between high motivation and high anxiety in many high-achieving girls. In girls-only environments, girls’ needs and preferences come to the fore. Teachers in all-girl classrooms can focus on working with, but also challenging, girls’ GDST schools are designed to maximise The key ingredients of propensities to seek security in structures and opportunities for girls to realise their potential. schedules. Teachers find that younger girls are They do this through: the learning environment in GDST particularly keen on explicit agendas (e.g. in ■■ the design of the schools themselves, including terms of learning objectives, and for young pupils schools can be summarised as: not just the classrooms but also other areas, a clear schedule for the day), and gain confidence including social spaces and informal learning from the rehearsal of past understanding at the areas, start of lessons, and explicit links to next steps at the end. But girls-only classrooms also provide ■■ the timetable (length of lessons and structure of A commitment to excellence the opportunity to push at rather than police the school day), as schools: the non- these boundaries – to challenge risk-aversion and ■■ curriculum content and classroom interaction, There is evidence that girls achieve more when encourage adventurousness, within an affirming negotiable starting point they are given their own dedicated space in which environment. ■■ the pedagogical practice of teachers, Design of purpose-built to develop. In single-sex schools, girls: In co-ed settings girls often adopt roles that ■■ subject choice and co-curricular opportunities, ■■ are less likely to conform to a priori gender reflect others’ views of them, and which tend to ■■ girls-only sports and fitness activities, and learning spaces with girls in stereotypes, narrow their choices, both academic and non- mind academic. Girls at GDST schools are empowered ■■ a whole-school culture conducive to girls’ ■■ are less constrained in their choice of subjects, education. to reject gender stereotyping, for example in Every curriculum and co- ■■ perform better in examinations, sports, subject and (later) career choices. Girls Single-sex education actually serves a subversive in single-sex settings show a much greater curriculum opportunity ■■ have more opportunities to show leadership, purpose: GDST schools seek to challenge propensity to choose what are otherwise seen traditional gender stereotypes, give girls space to available to girls as of right ■■ show a greater propensity to take risks and as ‘masculine’ subjects – like maths, physics and develop a strong sense of themselves and their innovate, and (later) engineering. value, and nurture the confidence to make their Teaching and learning ■■ are more successful in the job market. In coeducational contexts, girls are more own choices, free of any sense that the script has focused on girls’ learning likely to participate, but less likely to assume been written for them. As day schools, they offer a These effects do not follow inevitably from the girls-only space to complement the rest of a girl’s needs and preferences separation of the sexes in education. Single- leadership roles, in extra-curricular groups and activities. In GDST schools, girls show less life-world – which by all accounts does not exclude sex education, to be successful, must be more boys. A whole-school culture that than an organisational device – it needs to be reticence in adopting leadership roles, and underpinned by a set of principles, and articulated respond well to the opportunity to explore GDST all-through day schools provide a learning respects, nurtures, challenges in a set of practices, whereby girls are nurtured, a wider range of possible ‘niches’ within the environment specifically designed and dedicated and empowers girls. challenged and empowered. school community. to the development of confident, courageous, composed and committed girls. 6 7 Introduction: Education, Excellence and Empowerment or parents choosing schools, single- The choice is not necessarily between single- sex education is not always at the top sex and mixed schools: some coeducational of the agenda, and for parents who schools now offer single-sex classes at particular themselves most likely attended mixed stages (in a so-called ‘diamond’ pattern) and/or schools, the concept of single-sex in particular subjects (usually science, technology Fschooling might appear rather exotic (Lee and and mathematics). But there is evidence that Marks, 1992). At every stage, the key criteria are the effectiveness of single-sex education is academic excellence, pastoral care, co-curricular considerably diminished when it is introduced opportunities and prospects for progression. But within an otherwise coeducational context. dedication to the development of girls is a key to The argument developed here is that: the success of GDST schools in delivering absolute excellence across all of these criteria. Parent ■■ Girls, for a variety of reasons, learn differently, surveys in GDST schools confirm that while parents ■■ Girls face pressures to conform to gender do not necessarily consider single-sex the main stereotypes – pressures which are stronger in factor in choosing the school, they increasingly the presence of boys, value it once their daughters have enrolled. ■■ Girls need and deserve space in which to develop their full potential and to make growing assumption that girls the school system offering activities and academic opportunities free informed but unconstrained choices about now favours girls. Research reviewed in this paper of constraints imposed by gender-stereotyping. interests, subjects and careers, suggests that this is far from self-evident. For GDST schools, excellence in education means all of these things. ■■ In girls-only schools their needs and There is a common misapprehension that