School ends gender divide experiment

Oct 22 2007 by Abbie Wightwick, Western Mail

AN experiment in teaching boys and girls separately at a Welsh secondary school has shown it does not improve results.

The findings come shortly after statistics showed Welsh girls outperform male counterparts at school, with some experts advocating single-sex classes.

But Frank Cicotti, the head teacher of Pembroke School which did the latest experiment, said that although boys and girls learned differently there were better ways to engage both than segregation.

This summer’s A-level and GCSE results in Wales saw girls do better once again. Teacher assessments at the age of 14 released last week also showed girls in Wales did better at that age in all subjects except PE.

Mr Cicotti’s school bucks the trend. He decided to try separating the sexes because boys – rather than girls – did better.

“The governors evaluated the project in summer 2006. They decided to continue one successful girls’ group, but not to extend the full trial for a further year.

“In the project [which started in 2005], half of 12-year-olds were taught in single-sex groups and the other half in mixed groups.

“Their results were compared two years later. It showed there were no real differences between the groups. Although all-girl classes were better behaved, they didn’t get significantly better marks in the end.

“All-boy classes needed different teaching techniques. One teacher said, ‘The boys were a nightmare at first, but different materials and constant praise made them a pleasure to teach’.

“Despite more interruptions in the classroom, boys in single-sex classes did just as well overall as boys in mixed groups.

“Since the pilot ended, girls’ results have improved at GCSE and they now do better than boys, as in other schools.”

Mr Cicotti said teaching them separately was not a good preparation for life and that the different needs of both was an age-old issue.

“I think it’s healthier to be taught together, at least for a good proportion of the school week.

“Other techniques in class have been more successful than separation. We now have better sub-division of lessons so there are shorter activities with tighter timescales. That benefits boys.

“We found boys hogged all the best places to sit and the teachers’ attention. Teachers need to ensure questions are directed at girls as well as boys and that they are encouraged to speak.

“Magnetic Resonance Image scans show boys and girls have differently wired brains. Girls are better communicators. Boys have shorter attention spans. Teaching them together might be difficult but you need to strike a balance between the two.”

He said the problem was one schools had grappled with for centuries. An extract from the 1898 inspection of the school’s predecessor, the Pembroke Dock County School noted that, “In the work of the school as a whole, a great deal of enthusiasm manifested itself. It was, however, easier to secure close attention from the girls than from the boys.”

Professor Margaret Farrell from the University of Glamorgan, has been researching why girls do better at school. She said they outperformed boys from the start of school to first degree level.

“Girls are outperforming at all levels with the exception of first class degrees, so right from key stage one tests and right through schools they do better.

“In maths and in science, boys do seem to hold their own better. There is some evidence the reading advantage girls appear to have in key stage one has a cumulative effect as pupils progress.”

As a professor of public policy and management she believes teaching boys and girls together is better than segregating them.

Private schools say teaching split works for them

By contrast to Pembroke School’s experiment findings, heads of single-sex private schools say boys and girls do learn better apart until sixth form.

The Haberdashers’ schools in Monmouth teach boys and girls apart until the age of 16, although they do mix outside the classroom.

Dr Steven Connors, head teacher of Monmouth School, said his pupils’ results were as good, or better, than those achieved by girls.

“Boys like the excitement of new ideas, they enjoy physicality and thrive on competition. They develop at a different pace and in different ways from girls,” he said.

Brenda Despontin, head teacher of Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girls, said girls could lose concentration when they learned with boys.

It was also important for them to realise that women could succeed in subjects often viewed as male such as science and maths. Girls in co-educational schools sometimes dropped these subjects because they were in a minority in the class, she said.