Figure 1.-- The single gender and coed separation is somewhat more complicated than it might seem at first glance. Earlier the fact that parents gave more attention to boys' education than that of girls was a factor. This convention has since virtually disappeared. |
The single gender and coed separation is somewhat more complicated than it might seem at first glance. Earlier the fact that parents gave more attention to boys' education than that of girls was a factor. This convention has since virtually disappeared. Several single gender schools accept both genders in the pre-prep. We note a few boys' schools accepted girls who were the children of staff members. Some schools also accepted a few girls from neighboring farm families. I'm not sure if the same also occurred at girls' schools. Here a factor is the gender ratio. Some boys' schools have a relatively small number of girls, especially when they first converted to coeducation. Another factor is that girls often leave for their senior school at age 11, or 2 years before the boys. Thus some schools have relatively balancecd forms until the last 2 years when there are far fewer girls. This greatly complicated the operation of coed prep schools. This creates problems for the school because it means that it is difficult to fully utilize facilities. And it complicates class manafement in the upper forms. It often means that the class sizes are smaller for the older than younger children.
