ballerina he met when she was just 17 years old. In recent years much research on this subject has often been contradictory rather than conclusive.  In 2006 the Economic and Social Research Council funded a project that showed that single-sex education made almost no difference to exam results but that pupils who attended such schools are more likely to study subjects not associated with their gender.  More girls studied maths, computer science, chemistry or physics while more boys took art, music, drama and modern languages. The number of single-sex state schools has fallen from nearly 2,500 to just over 400 in 40 years and 40% of people who had a single-sex education wanted their children to go to a co-educational school.

The pattern of secondary education provision in Birmingham is complicated by the retention of a certain number of selective Grammar Schools and a few Independent Schools.  Most of these are single-sex and out-perform the vast majority of mixed Comprehensive schools in league tables of exam results because of the ability and social background of their pupils.  The history and traditions of these schools has a greater impact than their single-sex nature.  Some parents want single-sex schools for cultural or religious reasons and not necessarily for educational objectives.

There have been a number of experiments in Comprehensive Schools in single-sex teaching in order, primarily, to boost boys’ performance and improve exam results. Girls out-perform boys at virtually every subject.  The argument goes that the boys soften their competitive edge and become more collaborative if they do not have to impress the girls who, in turn, drop their shyness and are prepared to take more risks as, for example, in embracing more sports.  In addition these experiments have usually been introduced because of gender imbalance in terms of numbers of boys and girls or as a reaction to indiscipline in certain classes and have not been maintained.  

The separation of boys and girls for some subjects has become increasingly popular with little or no supporting evidence that such a strategy actually improves performance in the long term.  Of much more value has been the setting by ability of groups of pupils of both sexes in the majority of subjects.

It is quite common to come across studies that report little or no differences between single-sex and co-educational schools in matters such as teenage pregnancy, school performance, different treatment by teachers, parental and teacher satisfaction and bullying in school. Mixed schools tend to get more out of boys and girls who are in the lower ability bands than high fliers. In response to parental concerns about their daughters being distracted by boys, Alan Smithers, Professor of Education at Buckinghamshire University, in a 2006 study, maintains that it makes no difference to their educational attainment.  If there are no clear differences between these educational systems, headteachers and parents can choose whatever system best suits them but as Councillor Graham Chapman pointed out in Nottingham after a huge consultation on the issue, “Arguments are often lopsided: parents tend to want girls to go to single-sex schools but boys to go to mixed ones.  It is a difficult circle to square.”