A recent analysis of GCSE results shows that girls are more likely to get better exam grades and stay in education at single-sex schools according to this report. In particular, girls who are struggling when they start secondary school make the most progress in all-girls schools. Whether that's down to girls working harder because they're not distracted by boys, or the fact that the type of parents who seek out single-sex education are more likely to be supportive is open to debate.

I go into schools regularly to do sixth form conferences and I've noticed that consistently girls in mixed schools are much less likely to speak in public; it's always the boys who volunteer. It's not that the girls have nothing to say, but they seem to lack the confidence to say it in front of others. Doing the same conferences at an all-girls school recently I was reminded how articulate, intelligent and confident teenage girls can be, and I'm frustrated that mixed schools don't seem to address the issues that silence the girls. I went to an all-girls school where I did ok academically, but feel I missed out on growing up alongside boys. (Having three sisters didn't help!) What can mixed schools do differently to create environments where girls can thrive to the same extent that they do at all-girls schools?

Vicky Tuck, head of Cheltenham Ladies College, claimed this week that girls' education is sacrificed in order to help struggling teenage boys. Speaking at the annual conference of the Girls' School Association, she said that girls are being used to improve their male classmates' education and are losing out on a focused women-only school life, according to this report. "What happens at boys' schools is there may be falling rolls, or their results may not be as good as they might like. They think they can solve that by widening the catchment and taking in girls. Girls are regarded as more diligent and they will pull up exam results and they assume the boys will respond and it will be a wake-up call for them."

The GSA website has interesting articles on why they believe girls are short-changed by the co-educational system, and how girls schools do things differently.

The September issue of Teachers magazine has an article on whether boys and girls learn differently and how teaching can address the balance. Headteacher Robin Bevan writes: 'I've taught 20,000 maths lessons in my career and I've lost count of the number of times the boys and girls conform to gender stereoypes. During a lesson, I'll ask for a show of hands to see who's confident about the task they're engaged in. Later, I invariably find girls who had said they are unsure, now doing excellent work, and boys who had expressed confidence, now doing the activity without displaying real understanding at all! I've spoken about this to colleagues, and most conclude that, though every child is different, there are striking patterns in the learning behaviours of boys and girls.' You can read the article online here with a rather groovy page-turning effect, including some ideas for working with the differences.