SE CHRONICLE 684

9 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

What does co-education bring to the atmosphere and culture of the School? One of the most obvious differences is in the mix of people who work in the School – where the balance between men and women on the teaching staff is approximately 60:40. That’s not yet where we would like it to be, but it is moving in the right direction and the balance is already much better than it tends to be in single sex schools. It’s also much closer to 50:50 among the Heads of Department and in the senior management team. The benefits for pupils are obvious – a wider range of role models, more life experience among the people working as teachers and leaders in the School. But pupils live their everyday lives at Teddies with each other more than with their teachers, and it’s in lessons, in activities and in unstructured time that the benefits of co-education are most obvious. Stereotypes are not perpetuated, excesses in behaviour are moderated, differences in personality and in approach are respected – all because children learn best from the example of their peers rather than the instruction of their teachers. And co education helps to make those peer groups structurally and rightly diverse. How do you plan to strengthen further the co-educational ethos at Teddies? That’s absolutely the plan, and we’re going to use this anniversary year as the platform on which to do it. Most obviously, we are going to bring the balance of boys and girls in the School much closer to 50:50. We are just about there already in the Sixth Form, where 47% of pupils are girls and 53% are boys, but overall in the School the balance is 59:41. We’re already seeing positive trends in admissions, and we are aiming to

Sixth Form girls at Teddies in the early 1980s

get close to 50:50 within the first five years of my time as Warden. But ethos is about much more than numbers. We’re looking to bring boys’ Houses and girls’ Houses together much more frequently, and we have plans for much more co-educational sport – helped by the introduction of football as an option for boys and girls in all year groups. We’re also looking to expand inter-house competitions in all sports, bringing boys and girls together. That happens very easily in the other areas of the co-curriculum – for example in music, drama, dance and art. In sport, we need to work a little harder at it, and that’s what we are going to do. The co-educational boarding model is relatively new at Teddies. Do you have plans to extend this further? The co-educational Houses have been hugely successful, and really popular with

prospective pupils and their families. Often pupils in the boys’ or girls’ Houses tell me how much they would like to be in a co educational House. I’m also often asked by pupils in Cooper Lodge, Apsley and Sing’s why we are not making all our Houses co ed, not just in the Sixth Form but from the Shell. The answer is that we will always want to offer children and their parents choice – so I can see perhaps one or two more Houses with boys and girls together in the Sixth Form during my time as Warden, but I think there will always be Houses only for boys and only for girls too. What are the specific benefits of co educational boarding? There are two obvious benefits – the first for the pupils in the Sixth Form and the second for the pupils in the younger year groups. The older girls and boys are getting the best possible preparation for their halls OLGA MURAVITSKAYA Co-education allows for shared experiences, both academically and practically. Many lessons encourage debates and in a co-educational setting they seem to be livelier and more balanced. I really value this aspect of Teddies and I don’t think I would have learned as much in a gender-segregated environment. In addition, the ability to hang out outside of lessons and have the option to join co-curricular activities with whoever you like further broadens our experiences.

PATRICK MAXWELL If school is a preparation for life, then it should represent what life will be like. This Teddies does very well, and the co-educational aspect is crucial to that. The Teddies community allows us to be more of who we are; few of the expectations, identities and cultures of single-sex environments survive.