Preparatory Schools Boarding: Gender

Figure 1.--British oarding schools were almopst all single-gender schools until well after World War II. Today the trend is for school education, although there still are many single gender schools. It was mostly the boys' schools that shifted to coeducation. This shiftedoccurred in both the prep schools and the senior schools. The girl's schools have been more resolute avout retaining their all girl approach.  
 
The first boarding schools were established for boys and for centuries only boys boarded. The education of girls was not gicen any real attention until the 19th century and even mostly in the late-19th century. Even when educating girls began to gain some attention, parents did not believe that boarding was appropriate for girls. Most parents wanted to keep their daughters safely at home. This attitude was still prevalnt in the 19th century when prep schools began to appear. The first prep schools were boys schools. Girl's prep schools followed in the late 19th century. All of the early prep schools were single gender schools. More girls prep schools were founded after the turn of the 20th century and coed schools also appeared. Many more boys were sent to these boarding prep and public schools than girls. This appears to have been a common phenomenon in other coutries around the world. More boys attend boarding schools and they tend to board for longer periods. Interestingly proprtionally more girls attend boarding schools in Britain than any other country. (Here there may be a few exceptions like Cuba.) A very substantial portion of the children attending public schools are now girls. The proportion of girl attending preparatory schools is not as high, primarily because many girls leave for their public schools at age 11 rather than 13 like the boys.



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