The benefits of BOYS-ONLY boarding John Moule Warden, Radley College I am not a single-sex zealot. That
or that boarding is outdated. And heaven
might seem odd coming from the
forbid that one might think single-sex and
Warden of Radley College, one of the
boarding might be the right option. Surely
great bastions of boys-only boarding,
not? Won’t the boys – in my school’s case –
but it’s true. I get a little fed up with
turn out to be emotionally deprived, socially
evangelical statements, backed
inept and some sort of boorish rugby
up by supposedly incontrovertible
thugs?
statistics, that girls do better in this environment, boys in that. We all
So I become an advocate for the sort of
know we can find the statistics we
school I happen to lead. Fortunately, this is
want. What really matters is whether
not difficult for me.
a school is good or not: there are excellent co-educational schools
KEY BENEFITS
and I know which of these I would
In the classroom – my experience is that:
once you have defined and verified ‘good’ – different criteria can apply – is whether your child will be happy: if they are, they are much more likely to succeed. On exactly the same grounds, however, I am also irritated when people presume that somehow single-sex might be invalid as a form of education in the ‘modern world’
years of male under-achievement compared to their female peers is negated. Culture – ironically, in a boys’ school, boys are much more likely to play the violin or the flute, be happy singing, painting and acting and, importantly, they will be happy with their peers doing the same. I suggest a counter-tenor is much more likely to be admired in a single-sex school than in a co-
mediocre single-sex schools and
recommend. And what matters next,
• the very real danger in early teenage
• a competitive approach that might not work for girls can be used – as appropriate – much more easily to incentivise and drive boys forward in their learning
• the speed and level of emotional development is much more even and this allows more effective discussion
• materials can be tailored to boys including the texts and topics studied
educational one. Good single-sex education widens the definition of what is acceptably ‘male’. Spare time – I look out of my window and see countless boys throwing or kicking a ball around – playing. One of the great sadnesses of recent decades is accelerated ‘maturity’ and the loss of innocence. I would not be as bold as to say that an all-boys’ boarding school can eradicate this but it can temper it.
