Who Speaks for Boys’ Schools in England?
By Leonard Sax MD PhD
The headline in the Times read, “Girls get better results at single-sex state schools.”
Every newspaper covered the story earlier this year when the Good Schools Guide released the
results of a national review of data from state schools, gathered from about three-quarters of a
million girls: 71,286 girls from non-selective girls’ schools, and 647,691 girls from comparable nonselective coed schools. These researchers used a sophisticated method called “Contextual Value Added”
to determine how much a girl would typically gain from attending one type of school compared with how
much the same girl might gain from attending another type of school. Specifically looking at the gains
made by girls between 11 and 16 years of age, they found that 11-year-old girls who go to a girls’ school
achieve gains about six times greater than those girls who attend a comparable coed school. They found
that girls who attend all-girls state comprehensives do significantly better than girls of
comparable ability who attend comparable mixed comprehensives. “Away from the distraction
of boys and free to shine in science and maths, girls race ahead of those who learn alongside
boys in secondary school,” according to the article in the Times.1
I wrote to the authors of the report, requesting the complete data set on which the report
was based. They replied promptly and courteously, furnishing all the data I requested. I sent a
second e-mail, asking them whether they had any plans to conduct a similar survey of boys’
schools. To this second e-mail I received no reply.
In my visits to schools around England, I have found one notion to be very widespread
among parents: “Single-sex education is good for girls, but not for boys.” This belief is, I
believe, one factor underlying the continuing attrition amongst boys’ schools throughout England
and Wales. Because a growing number of parents now prefer girls’ schools for their daughters
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whilst preferring mixed schools for their sons, mixed independent schools today often have a
student body which is out of balance, with boys comprising 60% or more of the students at
mixed schools. Sheila Cooper, executive of the Girls’ Schools Association, told me in April
2009 that some mixed schools in England are actually offering reduced fees to girls, solely on
the basis of the applicant’s being female, in an effort to achieve something closer to a 50/50
gender balance.
The political situation of boys’ schools throughout England today is quite different from
the situation for girls’ schools. Most girls’ schools, even amongst the leading girls’ schools, are
less than two centuries old. Girls’ schools can boast that they are providing opportunity and
empowerment to girls, who historically have had less educational opportunity than boys. So
girls’ schools are generally on the better side of the political correctness divide.
Boys’ schools enjoy no such advantage. On the contrary, I have found that some parents
in England regard the very idea of a school just for boys as a relic of a bygone era. Men hold
most of the positions of power in British politics and finance, even today. So what is the
rationale for an all-boys school in the 21st century? That’s what some parents in England have
asked me. Boys don’t need to be “empowered,” as men already have most of the power.
Furthermore, these parents add, the real world is mixed. Men and women have to work together.
Schooling should prepare students for the real world. So schooling, particularly for boys, ought
to be mixed, isn’t that so?
To answer these questions, let’s begin by asking another: what’s going on with English
boys today? The Department for Children, Schools and Families has expressed some concern on
this point. In a recent report, they found that boys in the UK “are achieving less well than girls
across all areas of learning and that more girls are working securely within the early learning
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goals than boys. These early gender differences in achievement reflect a pattern that can
continue into Key Stage 4. An analysis of GCSE results indicates that white British boys
comprise nearly half of all achievers, with boys generally outnumbering girls by 20%.”2
These gender differences in achievement at Foundation Stage have consequences later
on. Researchers at the London School of Economics asked this question: Who earned five or
more A* - C grades at GCSE in English schools between 1975 and 2005? Their results are
shown in the graph below:3
As you can see, there was no discernible gender gap on this parameter as recently as 1975. From
1980 through 2005, the gender gap in achievement steadily grew. To be sure, the average boy in
2005 was doing better compared with the average boy in 1985; but he wasn’t keeping pace with
his sister.
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The government’s own data provides the answer to a related question: Who earned two
or more A levels or equivalent in the UK from 1990 through 2005? Their results are shown
below:4
Once again we see little in the way of a gender gap as recently as 1990/1991, but a large gender
gap emerging by 2004/2005.
The gender gap in motivation is now having significant impact on university enrolments
throughout the UK. The Higher Education Statistics Agency recently reported that more than
55% of new matriculants at British universities now are women. British men are now
substantially more likely than British women are to drop out of university, failing to earn any
qualification. As a result, young women who have earned a 4-year university degree in the UK
now outnumber young men who have earned a comparable qualification by roughly 3 to 2.5
The end result in many cases is young men living at home with their parents. According
to a recent report from the Office of National Statistics, among young adults in the UK 20 to 34
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years of age, 29% of men live with their parents, compared with just 18% of women still living
with their parents. In other words, among young British adults living with their parents, young
men now outnumber young women by roughly 3 to 2.6
Why are young men today less motivated than their sisters? Why do so many boys today
now regard academic achievement as something that girls – but not boys – care about? Why are
a growing proportion of young men content to live off their parents? These are the questions
which I seek to answer in my second book Boys Adrift: the five factors driving the growing
epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men (Perseus Books, hardcover edition
2007; expanded softcover edition, 2009). Certainly part of the answer to the question is that the
culture of the English-speaking world has changed over the past 30 years. Three decades ago,
most young men saw nothing unmasculine about doing well in school. But today, as Helen
Turner of North London Collegiate observed, “Girls have an interest in doing well, but the peer
pressure for boys [today] is about not being considered swottish.”7
You, dear reader, are a member of the Harrow community (or so I assume, because you
are reading this publication). So you may well be wondering what I am talking about. Boys at
Harrow are typically highly motivated. They see nothing unmasculine about academic
achievement.
In the eight years I have spent exploring this question, I have now visited more than three
hundred schools and communities, mostly in North America, but also in England, Scotland,
Germany, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. I have consistently found that boys’ schools have
the capacity to create an alternative counter-culture, a counter-culture which affirms the value
and worth of academic achievement and scholarship. At schools such as Harrow, Eton, and
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Winchester, boys are proud to be scholars. At the leading boys’ schools, it is common to find
that the top footballer is also an outstanding poet or musician. I have found that to be less
common at mixed schools. At mixed schools, it is more common to find boys who regard caring
about earning full marks as something that girls do. At mixed schools, it is more common for
the leading scholar to be a girl, whilst the boy who is the top footballer is less likely also to be a
top scholar.
Over the past forty years, there has been a relentless attrition amongst single-sex schools
in the UK. As that article in the Times observed, 40 years ago there were roughly 2,500 singlesex schools in the state sector.8 Today there are barely 400 single-sex maintained schools. The
rolls in the independent sector have seen a similar decline, steeper amongst boys’ schools than
amongst girls’ schools. This attrition has been especially severe among the middle rank of boys’
schools. The most selective English boys’ schools – Eton, Harrow, Winchester – are unlikely
ever to have a dearth of applicants. These schools enjoy an international renown. But the
middle rank, schools such as Rugby, have to be mindful of market pressures. (Rugby was a
boys’ school from its founding in 1567 until 1995, when it became co-educational.) These are
the schools which adopt the mixed format, seldom on pedagogical grounds, more often merely
because their parents have come to believe that “single-sex education is good for girls, but not
for boys.”
Simply putting boys in one building, and the girls in another, accomplishes very little.
The all-boys format creates the opportunity for the teacher, and the school’s leadership, to create
a “subversive counter-culture”* in which it’s cool to be smart. The teachers at Eton, Harrow,
Winchester and other leading boys’ schools know how to take advantage of the opportunity; they
*
This phrase “subversive counter-culture” was first used in this sense, to the best of my knowledge, by Brad
Adams, executive director of the International Boys’ Schools Coalition.
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know how to create that counter-culture. Indeed, in my book Boys Adrift I share many of the
strategies which I have learned at boys’ schools around the world.
If you merely put a boy in a classroom of boys, led by a teacher with no experience in
that format, the result is often disappointing. Indeed the outcome can sometimes be positively
dangerous. A group of teenage boys, without strong leadership from an experienced teacher, can
soon degenerate into the warring factions of Lord of the Flies. The result is bullying and
buggery (which is often simply the most vicious form of bullying). No wonder that so many
parents believe that single-sex schools are good for girls, not so good for boys.
England needs a revival of boys’ schools, for at least two reasons: First, in order to
reverse the growing trend toward apathy and under-achievement amongst English boys, a trend
documented by the government’s own data. Second, because girls’ schools cannot prosper
without strong boys’ schools. When a boys’ school abandons its traditional format to become a
mixed school, the pressure on its traditional “sister school” to become a mixed school can be
quite severe.
Let’s return to the questions which I raised earlier. Some English parents say that men
hold most positions of power even today, therefore boys have no need of boys’ schools.
Certainly some boys in England – particularly boys of South Asian or East Asian origin – are
doing well. But increasingly we find that boys born in England to English parents are coming to
regard academic achievement as unmasculine. Strong boys’ schools in the state sector as well as
the independent sector offer the best way to counter the anti-intellectual pressures of 21st-century
laddish culture.
What about the other common objection? “The real world is mixed; school should
prepare students for the real world; therefore school should be mixed.” In fact, this objection is
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based on a false assumption, the assumption that the mixed school resembles the real world more
so than the single-sex school. In fact, the mixed school is a very peculiar world, and most unlike
the real world: at many mixed schools, the questions of greatest interest are: which girl is the
prettiest? Which boy is in the most trouble? Who has the best social networking page? At the
single-sex school, the focus can be on who you are rather than on how you look; the focus can be
on essentials rather than on superficials. (For more scholarly evidence supporting this assertion,
please see chapter 10 from my first book Why Gender Matters and chapters 2 and 8 from my
second book Boys Adrift.)
Outside of the top rank of boys’ schools, outside of Eton, Harrow, Winchester and the
like, it is a sad fact that boys’ schools in England are today in retreat and in decline. In order for
boys’ schools in England to enjoy a revival, they must have a strong and articulate advocate.
Which brings us to the question: Who speaks for boys’ schools in England?
The answer at this moment is: no one does. Certainly the Headmasters Conference
(HMC) does not. Although most independent boys’ schools in England belong to the HMC, the
member schools of the HMC are today predominantly mixed schools. The HMC has neither the
ability nor the inclination to make the case for a revival of boys’ schools.
Under the leadership of Sheila Cooper, the Girls’ Schools Association has done a
marvellous job of making the case for girls’ schools throughout England. But making the case
for boys’ schools is not Sheila Cooper’s portfolio, nor should it be.
There is a fine organisation known as the International Boys’ Schools Coalition, the
IBSC (www.theibsc.org). Brad Adams, executive director of the IBSC, helped arrange a visit for
me in January 2008 to boys’ schools throughout England and Scotland. It’s a very worthwhile
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group. But they are headquartered in North America and most of their member schools are in
North America (along with a number of schools in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa).
A predominantly North American organisation cannot speak to parents in England, Scotland, and
Wales about the best way to educate a British boy.
The best agent to make the case for boys’ schools throughout Britain would be the
leading boys’ schools in England themselves.† The leadership at Eton, Harrow, and Winchester
know how to teach boys. They know how to create a culture within the boys’ school in which
it’s cool to be smart, a culture in which the same boy can be both a scholar and an athlete. I
respectfully call upon the leading boys’ schools in England to create a British Boys’ Schools
Alliance. The charge to this new Alliance would be twofold: 1) to educate the British public
about the benefits of all-boys schools; 2) to educate British teachers and school administrators
about best practice for the all-boys classroom, not only with regard to teaching English literature
or maths, but also with regard to creating a school environment in which bullying is not tolerated
and in which scholarship and athletics are equally prized.
If girls’ schools in England have an association to speak for them, why should not the
boys’ schools have theirs?
Leonard Sax MD PhD spent 22 years practicing medicine in the United States before
retiring in 2008 to devote himself full-time to visiting and speaking at schools worldwide, writing
his books and articles, and being a better father and husband. Visit him at his web site,
www.leonardsax.com.
†
I am aware of a number of leading boys’ schools in Wales and in Scotland; indeed I had the privilege of visiting
Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh last year. Nevertheless, I find that even Scottish and Welsh educators agree that
the leading British boys’ schools are in England.
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References
1
Joanna Sugden, “Girls get better results at single-sex state schools,” Times (of London), March 18 2009, online at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article5927472.ece.
2
Confident, capable, and creative: supporting boys’ achievements – guidance for practitioners in the Early Years
Foundation Stage, DCSF, full text available online at
http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/primary/publications/foundation_stage/supporting_achievements
3
This graph is taken from the paper by Stephen Machin and Sandra McNally, published in 2006 by the Centre for
Economic Performance at the LSE, under the title “Gender and Student Achievement in English Schools,” full text
available online at http://cee.lse.ac.uk/cee%20dps/ceedp58.pdf.
4
Statistics.gov.uk, Archive, “Girls outperform boys,” online at
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1653. This exact image is downloaded from
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/images/charts/1653a.gif.
5
The document is titled “HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENT ENROLMENTS AND QUALIFICATIONS OBTAINED AT
HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2007/08.” The full text is
available at http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1356&Itemid=161.
6
Laura Dixon, The Times, 16 April 2009, “Nearly a third of young men now live with their parents, ONS figures
reveal”, online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6098582.ece.
7
Quoted in the article “Are girls really cleverer than boys?” At the School Gates, online at
http://www.attheschoolgates.co.uk/boys-vs-girls.html.
8
Joanna Sugden, “Girls get better results at single-sex state schools,” Times (of London), March 18 2009, online at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article5927472.ece.