Modern-day benefits of all-girls education
Research suggests that graduates from all-girls education are more assertive and assured in mixed company than co-ed peers, more confident, and more politically engaged.
Real-world preparation
There are so many advantages to an all-girls education, some of them more important than ever. But the most important benefit is the way it supports girls to live life on their own terms. Research suggests that graduates from all-girls education are more assertive and assured in mixed company than co-ed peers, more confident, and more politically engaged. They know that their voices matter and will be heard: so that is how they live their lives.
Girls from girls’ schools are 230% more likely to study Physics A Level and 290% more likely to study Further Maths.
Freedom
What’s obvious in all great all-girls environments is the freedom students feel to be who they are. In the absence of the gendered gaze, girls flourish. What makes all-girls environments special is the way everyone acts as if they are at home. They are funny, creative, silly, brilliant, supportive. They are themselves.
It’s also well-established that girls choose their own paths more freely and are more likely to take risks and innovate in all-girls settings. Nothing is gendered. Ask an Abbey student whether some subjects or activities suit girls more than others and they are genuinely puzzled. Why on earth would they? Why shouldn’t anyone choose to do exactly what they want?
That isn’t the experience for everyone. Across the country, only around 13% of entries to A-level Physics are girls, yet they secure around 25% of the top grades. Girls from girls’ schools are 230% more likely to study Physics A Level and 290% more likely to study Further Maths. And it is not just academics: girls are five times more likely to play cricket and 30% more likely to play football in girls’ schools.
At The Abbey girls choose whatever they want, and are supported to fulfil their potential. There’s just more room to breathe and to live with freedom.
Girls’ GCSE attainment is 20% higher in girls’ schools than co-ed.
Outcomes
Girls do better in all-girls education. League tables, flawed as they are, tell this story loud and clear. Girls’ GCSE attainment is 20% higher in girls’ schools than co-ed. The simple truth is that all-girls schools help their students succeed. The old criticism of hot-housing is a mile off the mark. Girls’ schools are about enthusiasm, authenticity, and taking part. In that climate, girls excel.
Leadership
Schools offer so many student leadership positions. In all-girls environments, this makes female leadership the natural and expected way of things. And the style of that leadership is dynamic, collaborative and supportive. It’s the kind of leadership business and society need.
Lifelong support
Every alumna of The Abbey has access to our careers network – lifelong. It includes women in every industry and profession, all of them passionate about fair representation and mutual support. In all-girls schools, girls forge friendships that often last their whole lives. The experience our girls have at school will continue to bring them benefit far into their futures.
Justice
Girls continue to experience injustice in the co-educational system. Studies show that in co-ed, girls receive 30% less teacher attention than boys: it is assumed they will just get on with it. Girls are also under-represented in co-educational independent schools. Because the UK has the largest and most successful all-girls system in the world, girls in independent co-education make up only 45% of the cohort, leading to a further in-built skew towards boys.
Negative gender attitudes start from the earliest days of primary school. Over a third of primary school teachers report witnessing stereotyping on a weekly basis, and over a third of secondary school teachers witness misogyny among co-ed students every week. When the chair of a parliamentary sub-committee investigating attitudes to women and girls at school asked, in 2023, how many girls experienced harassment, the answer was stark: ‘every single one of them, and for most it had happened in school’.
This isn’t good enough. We all know that the world girls go into was not designed equally. It is changing, but not fast enough. We believe every girl deserves to experience an environment designed with their interests in mind, so that they expect, and help to shape, an environment that is fair for all. That’s what The Abbey is for.
Find out more
The Girls’ Schools Association, Girls’ Day School Trust, and International Coalition of Girls’ Schools all have more information on the research-backed benefits of all-girls education.
Girls’ leadership at The Abbey
At The Abbey, leadership is built on listening. Staff and student leaders aim to consult their peers and build consensus on the way ahead.
Everyone looking back at their own school days will have such clear memories of what worked well and what didn’t. Getting students involved in how school works is a wonderful experience for them. It empowers them to feel ownership over their own development. It also helps create the best and most fulfilling student experience.
At The Abbey, every form has a leader and representatives on councils looking at sustainability, diversity, food and more – a mix of the issues and the everyday experiences that shape how school feels. Student Council is led by the Head Girls and engages in a dialogue with the leadership of the school.
At the top of the Junior School and in the Sixth Form the majority of students have their own specific leadership roles. There are Head Girls and deputies, House captains and leaders in sport, drama, music and art – but there is such a wide range besides. Students get involved in organising alumna events, liaising with younger years and the Junior School, marketing, science, digital innovation – any aspect of school life that interests them and helps them gain experience.
