Senior schools: single-sex or co-education?

Mediaeval libraries, buildings by Vanbrugh, world-class concert halls and theatres, martyrs’ relics, priceless artwork, winter ski resorts, or even a famous adventurer’s lifeboat – throughout my career, I have visited fantastic boarding schools here in the UK, as well as around the world, and in each case, I have been astonished by the beauty, opportunity and stimulation that boarding schools can offer. Such facilities doubtlessly enhance, but the questions I ask as an inspector are ‘So what? What is the outcome for pupils?’. 

One of the great strengths of a boarding school education has always been the range of experiences on offer to children and young people lucky enough to board. 

I am not a single-sex zealot. That might seem odd coming from the Warden of Radley College, one of the great bastions of boys-only boarding, but it’s true. I get a little fed up with evangelical statements, backed up by supposedly incontrovertible statistics, that girls do better in this environment, boys in that. We all know that we can find the statistics we want. What really matters is whether a school is good or not: there are mediocre single-sex schools and excellent co-educational schools and I know which of these I would recommend. And what matters next, once you have defined and verified ‘good’ – different criteria can apply – is whether your child will be happy: if they are, they are much more likely to succeed.

Almost all independent schools proudly assert that they offer a ‘bespoke’ education. As the Principal of a girls’ boarding and day school, I am often asked what this means in practice.

Times have changed across society – very much for the better – when it comes to talking about mental health issues. No serious employer, the Services included, is without a programme to encourage employees to be open about their experiences, and there are many great examples of individuals dealing successfully with challenges that would once have made working life almost impossible.

UK plc has a major skills shortage. Engineering UK’s 2017 report The State of Engineering estimates an annual shortage of 20,000 skilled engineers, while other estimates range between 25,000 and 60,000. Given that engineering contributes 26 per cent of UK GDP nationally, this is a significant problem. More than 60 per cent of engineering employers say that a failure to recruit skilled staff is a barrier to business.  

Evidence from international studies, supported in part by research in the UK, has found that just a few key elements affect pupils’ attitudes to physics. It is up to us, the teaching profession, to ignite and develop a passion for physics in today’s learners. 

Progress is one of those words we see a lot in education – you’ll read it in your son or daughter’s reports, on school websites and in inspection reports, and there are even league tables for some schools based on average academic progress in selected GCSEs. But is this the only type of progress, and is it reasonable to attempt to measure this concept?