Single-sex teaching in a co-educational comprehensive school in England: an evaluation based upon students' performance and classroom interactions
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Gender
The aims of the study
So far, there has been little hard evidence to establish whether single-sex groupings are effective over time. This research was undertaken as an attempt to discover the long-term effects and outcomes of single-sex groupings on educational achievements of both boys and girls in one school in Essex.
Boys and girls at the school have always been taught in single-sex groups in years 7-9, and placed in single sex tutorial groups. English and mathematics and - since the introduction of Balanced Science courses - science have been segregated in years 10 and 11. The only mixed sex groupings are in the foundation subjects and PSCE in years 10 and 11, and these, as the authors note, are for the "largely pragmatic" reasons of wishing to retain both grouping by ability and student choice at GCSE.
The school has not initiated single-sex teaching recently in the hope of raising the achievement levels of boys. For historical reasons, it has been operating single-sex classes in most subjects, perhaps uniquely, since its formation thirty years ago. The authors note:
throughout the 1980s and 1990s there has been little apparent discussion of changing the single-sex mode of organisation. Indeed there has been a conviction that single-sex groupings have supported students' learning and have met an educational need.
This history made it possible for the authors to evaluate the achievement levels of boys and girls in this environment over a long period.
