Victorian coeducation schools had better ATAR scores than single sex schools
Sending your child to a single-sex school may not be worth the money, an analysis has found. Here’s why.
Education
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Co-educational campuses dominate Victoria’s best schools, reflecting an ongoing decline in the number of sex-segregated schools.
Analysis by the Saturday Herald Sun shows the top 200 schools with the highest number of study scores over 45 includes 18 boys’ schools, 45 girls’ schools and 137 coeducational schools.
However, single-sex schools are over-represented among the leading providers, with the top five including two girls’ schools – Haileybury Girls’ College and Methodist Ladies College – and two boys’ schools – Haileybury and Melbourne High School.
The other school in the top five is Caulfield Grammar, which is coeducational.
The data doesn’t accurately reflect two other top-performing schools, Bialik College or Mount Scopus Memorial College, which are both coeducational.
This is because not all students give permission for their study scores to be included.
Bialik College has a median ATAR of 90.2 and a median study score of 37. It has been ranked as one of the state’s top five schools every year for the last 10 years.
Proponents of single-sex education have long argued that boys and girls thrive better in sex segregated schools.
Alliance of Girls’ Schools Australasia communications director Teva Smith said “research showed unequivocally that girls thrive in an all-girls environment — they do better academically, socially and emotionally,” she said.
“Co-ed schools replicate a world where women are not yet equal, where gender stereotypes are reinforced, and girls’ voices are often unheard.”
She said despite a number of boys’ schools becoming co-ed, arguably for financial considerations, girls’ schools continued to maintain their capacities and belief in single-sex education.
Deborah Barker, principal of St Kevin’s College, said educators of boys “celebrate their openness and welcome their energy, inquiry and competitive streak”.
“Quality boys’ education considers deeply the invitation to build community within a local and global context in a contemporary setting. As a result, boys schools develop strong, outward facing learning communities,” she said.
St Kevin’s had a median study score of 35 and a median ATAR of 85.85.
Analysis from the Australian Council of Educational Research suggests there will be no single-sex private schools by 2035 if the current trend towards coeducation continues.
The proportion of students attending single-sex schools fell from 31 per cent in 1985 to 24 per cent in 1995 and 12 per cent in 2015.
Bialik College principal Jeremy Stowe-Lindner said the non-selective coeducational school had
a “spectacular year”.
The school’s dux Tye Samuels, who received an ATAR of 99.85, considered himself the underdog all throughout his last year of school.
“There are some real geniuses in my year level. I initially didn’t think this was an attainable goal for me,” he said.
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