[Magdalen] BSA

[Roger Stokes]

On 28/07/2015 18:18, Jay Weigel wrote:
> I don't think everything in the world has to be co-ed. There are both boys
> and girls (and men and women, I'm sure also) who would prefer to be in
> single-sex groups at least some of the time. There are studies that show
> that girls who are educated in all-girl high schools, for instance, are
> likely to have more self-confidence and be higher achievers, and also
> studies that show benefits to separating boys and girls for instruction in
> middle school years, when hormones make for a lot of distraction. But the
> minute anything like that is suggested, the "equality" freaks bust a blood
> vessel.

That is called the diamond approach to education.  Locally we have a 
coiple of private schools that I have heard in the past few days have 
adopted that approach.  They are co-ed up to Year 6 (age 11), then 
single sex for the next five years.  They have finished their provision 
at that age, the end of compulsory education, but are now planning a 
co-ed provision beyond that to the end of normal school at age 18.  All 
of this will be on a new site to facilitate organization.

As a male who was in single-sex education from age 7 through to 
university I believe this is a sensible approach.  The girls can 
humanise the boys and help them develop a more sensible relationship 
with the other gender once the turbulence of adolescence is passed. I 
certainly miss being with females in a peer asexual context when I was 
growing up.

Roger