All Girls Schools Manchester

Local resource for all girls schools in Manchester. Includes detailed information on local all-girls schools, including all-girls boarding schools, all-girls private schools and all-girls Catholic schools, that give access to single sex classes, as well as advice and content on single-gender education and co-education.
Varna Street Primary School
0161 223 3569
Varna Street
Manchester
St Brigid's RC Primary School
0161 223 5538
Grey Mare Lane
Manchester
Manchester Road Primary School
0161 370 3079
Manchester Road
Manchester
St Anne's RC Primary School
0161 370 8698
Clarendon Road
Manchester
CofE School of the Resurrection
0161 223 3163
Pilgrim Drive
Manchester
Old Hall Drive Primary School
0161 223 2805
Old Hall Drive
Manchester
St James' CofE Primary School Gorton
0161 223 2423
Stelling Street
Manchester
St Francis RC Primary School
0161 223 3457
Ellenbrook Close
Manchester
Ashbury Meadow Primary School
0161 219 6630
Rylance Street
Manchester
Ravensbury Community School
0161 223 0370
Tartan Street
Manchester
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Do girls do better in girls' schools?

Proof at last: girls do better in girls’ schools


Single sex or co-ed schooling

A study of Value Added scores by the Good Schools Guide proves what has always been a hunch: girls really do learn better in girls’ schools than in co-ed ones.
The research by The Good Schools Guide compared the Value Added results of 71,286 girls (with no recorded special needs) at girls’ state comprehensive schools to 647,691 similar girls at co-ed comprehensive schools.


Proof of the pudding is in the improved performance


The academic achievement profiles of the two groups were almost identical at the Key Stage 2 (age 11) starting point.  But between Key Stage 2 and GCSEs the Contextual Value Added scores (which measure pupils’ progress between Key Stage 2 and GCSEs, relative to what they might have been expected to achieve), show that girls in girls-only schools make more progress than girls in co-ed schools. 

Low achieving girls make biggest leap


The value added scores of girls at single sex schools were higher than their counterparts at co-ed schools among all ability groups – from highest achievers to lowest. The largest increase was among the girls who had performed worst at Key Stage 2: girls who had been low achievers at age 11 had made the biggest leap when they came to sit their GCSEs.

The old debate


The idea that girls fare better in a girls-only environment has been promoted by groups like the Girls’ School Association and the Girls' Day School Trust. The latter, a collection of 29 independent girls' high schools, says that at their schools take-up of science subjects at A level is twice the national average for girls.

Clarissa Farr, High Mistress of high achieving St Paul’s Girls’ School in London, points out in GSG, WAGs and HABs , written for The Good Schools Guide states,

“We educate them [girls] to see themselves as potential leaders in society, movers and shakers, politicians, thinkers and industrialists.”
The Good Schools Guide has long recognised the quality of many of Britain’s girls’ schools. The guide features over 1200 schools of which 250 are British girls-only schools in both the state and private sectors.

Nonetheless, co-education has steamrollered single-sex schooling over the past half century. The number of state of schools where boys or girls are educated separately has declined from 2,500 in the 1960s to about 400 today.

Supporters of co-ed education argue:

  • It provides a healthier environment mirroring the real world
  • There is less bullying when boys and girls learn alongside each other
  • Girls educated in co-ed schools handle university better
  • Girls learn to treat boys as friends and colleagues
  • Brothers and sisters can attend the same school
  • Test results show that girls hold their own academically since they are – quite frankly – brainier.


Those in favour of girls’ only schools sa...

Click here to read more from The Good Schools Guide

Where do girls do best?

Single sex or co-ed secondary school?

Do girls do better in all-girls or co-ed schools?

There’s been a lot of coverage, prompted by us, of that old chestnut: girls do better in all-girls schools. The value-added evidence looks promising, but is that a safe conclusion to draw?

Or, does the typical gender mix in co-ed independent schools - 60 boys to 40 girls  provide a rule of thumb for the natural split between girls who do best with girls and those who flourish in mixed company?



Measuring performance - examining Value Added (VA)


We have analysed the data that underlies the Key Stage 4 performance tables for English state schools (excluding grammar schools) for 2005, 2006 and 2007, which includes the Value Added between Key Stage 2 (five years earlier) and Key Stage 4 score for each pupil.

We have only used data from mainstream schools, and for girls who are not on the special needs register, as Contextual Value Added (as now published by the DCSF) is particularly affected by SEN status. Within these limits, 647,942 girls took exams in co-ed schools, and 71,286 (or just under 10% of all girls) took exams in girls’ schools.  Most of these girls have a Key Stage 2 score, which indicates how well they did at primary school, and a VA score which indicates how they have (relative to national averages) improved, or fallen back, over the first five years of secondary school.

To make our analysis comprehensible, we have allocated each pupil to one of ten deciles according to their Key Stage 2 score. Decile 1 contains the pupils whose KS2 scores fall within the top 10% nationally, and so on down the scale. KS2 scores are lumpy – many pupils have the same fine points score – so some smoothing has been required. For each such decile, we have calculated the average VA score, so that you can see how the Value Added achieved varies with the Key Stage 2 score. For girls in co-ed schools, the pattern is this: - pretty much the national average.

Value added results

The bad VA performance by lower-quartile pupils is another story. For girls in girls-only schools the equivalent data is: Strong value added for all girls, but most notably so for those whose KS2 scores were lower (see graph below).

Value added girls schools

 

Why do girls, especially those with low KS2 scores, appear to do better in girls schools?


There is a good, strong effect: but what is its cause? And why can't we safely assume girls will do better in girls schools?

Girls – and their parents – have to make a positive choice to go to a girls’ state school: the default option is almost always co-ed. So girls’ school girls are likely to be more motivated, with stronger parental support.

But the same applies to boys’ only schools – and you don’t see the same pattern of value added there. It seems to us that the safest conclusion to draw is that girls who choose girls’ schools tend to do well there – a good argument for offering them ...

Click here to read more from The Good Schools Guide

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