The education of young women was too important to leave to chance back in 1884 when St Swithun’s was founded, and that remains the case today. We are experts in the education of young women and we know that at 18 they have the skills, character and initiative to choose their own path regardless of what others might say. That isn’t always the case at 16.
We want our students to flourish and to enjoy positive relationships with classmates. Research consistently reveals that this is more likely in a single-sex environment. Bullying, sexual harassment and being pressurised into behaving in a certain way to conform with gender stereotyping are all far less likely in a girls’ school.
Indeed, two recent reports from the United Kingdom found that the vast majority of girls are sexually harassed and bullied at school, and that one-quarter of girls at co-ed schools have experienced unwanted physical touching of a sexual nature while at school (Ofsted, 2021; National Education Union and UK Feminista, 2017).
A 2016 British Parliament inquiry found that girls in co-ed secondary schools are the victims of implicit bias by teachers who steer girls away from ‘hard’ subjects like advanced maths, physics and computer science (Commons Select Committee [United Kingdom], 2016, September 13).
‘Research from around the world provides strong evidence that girls-only education leads to higher academic achievement, higher confidence levels, greater participation in STEM, and enhanced career aspirations. In the absence of boys, activities and academic opportunities are free of gender-stereotyping. Girls have more grit, greater self-esteem and feel empowered to achieve their full potential.’
(Johnson & Gastic, 2014, p.128).
In addition, girls at single-sex schools are not only more likely to be gender nonconforming than girls at co-ed schools (p.134), but also “significantly less likely to be bullied” (p.133) for preferring ‘masculine’ sports (including football, baseball and basketball) over ‘feminine’ sports and activities (including softball, cheerleading, choir and art classes) (p.129).
In fact, say the authors, “single-sex schools emerge as a protective factor for female gender nonconforming girls” (p.126).
A US study found that less than 1% of female students in singlesex schools experience bullying, compared with 21% of female students in co-ed schools.
Furthermore, in a girls’ school, girls are intentionally “equipped with the knowledge and skills required to overcome social and cultural gender biases and in doing so actively break the stereotypical norms that define women in Thesesociety”. outcomes
have been confirmed by a 2021 scoping review of the past twenty years of research on single-sex education which has found that single-sex schools and classes have the “potential to enable the challenging or disrupting of some gender norms, by both girls and boys” and that there is “promising” evidence that singlesex education is better than co-educational models at “creating conditions for equity”.
Source: www.agsa.org.au/why-a-girls-school-the-research
“I have yet to heara man ask for advice on how to combine marriageand a career.”
Gloria Steinem