Manchester Clarion: "Wednesday"
Keep Single Sex Schools
Manchester city council has decided to use the Building Schools for The Future programme (BSF) as an opportunity to open up the debate on single sex schools verses co-educational schools. A consultation is currently taking place to assess whether the community wants to alter the single sex status of schools such as Whalley Range High School for Girls. I am opposed to this measure in support of many residents who have made representations to me from the local community. Whalley Range High School for Girls isn’t broke so why fix it. The school serves a large Asian population meeting both cultural and religious needs of the community. It offers choice to parents who desire to send their children to a successful state Girls School. Exam results have been improving year on year.
The consultation runs until the15th of July, please post your comments also visit www.manchester.gov.uk to have your say. This will make a difference.
2 comments:
Hello Blairista
This might happen in the short to medium term. But it doesn't happen in France to any great extent. And there are muslim countries with co-ed provision. The argument reminds me rather of that of Sir Gerald Kaufman who had the guts to say it to an SEA gathering a couple of years ago in Manchester Town Hall.
He claimed that if we didn't allow more and more faith schools in the state sector they would go independent and by definition (under current arrangements) under less influence from local accountables like councillors and MPs.
He also said that faith and single sex schools didn't do any harm.
On the first point we could change the rules - if we are to allow these invidious selective schools to continue - so that there is more regulation and audit of the independent sector.
On the second point. This is plain wrong. Faith and single sex schools immediately skew the intake of other schools to be gender imbalanced and less reflective of their community.
They also teach and reinforce difference and otherness rather than celebrating diversity. They change the ongoing networks of ALL the children and parents living in areas with both community and selective schools.
Finally, and this is not a joke, they lead to a huge amount of traffic as school miles leap up with lots of otherwise unnecessary journeys.
I write as someone who includes two church schools in the three I attended 5-18 (with the other informed by an Anglican ethos) and with teaching practice in three different non-denominational schools including a supposed selective school in Bolton which was pretty poor and a supposed community school in Marple which was excellent.
The mantra of "every school a good school" is excellent, I'm just not sure how some of the Blair remedies assist on that as far as adopting a Scandanavian model would, particularly for the least academic 30% who are most let down by our system. Manchester Labour deserves a mighty congratulations for adapting the academy model in such a way that it can contribute to fairness, quality and accountability.
Good to see all these blogs appearing. Northenden and Chorlton Park already up. Chorlton will follow shortly.
Best wishes
Chris P
Thanks for the welcome comments Chris. As you are aware this campaign was successful not only for maintaining the status quo for this particular school but extending the co-ed offer throughout Manchester. Cllr Jeff Smith did an excellent job considering representations from all our communities.
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