Next year Knox Grammar – one of the state’s largest schools – will have educated boys at its upper north shore campus for a century.
In that time, the private school has expanded from a single Federation-era house to vast and manicured grounds spanning almost 10 hectares. But the school’s motto “virile agitur” – a Latin phrase that translates to “do the manly thing” – has stayed the same.
The number of single-sex private schools in NSW has declined over the past decade.Credit:Arsineh Houspian
Founded as a Presbyterian boys’ school with about two dozen students, it now has more than 3120 enrolments. Knox’s major expansion gathered pace in the early 2000s when it overhauled its boarding centre, “great hall”, 500-seat aquatic centre and the senior school.
But even under the weight of its all-boys history, principal Scott James acknowledges Knox “cannot be a standalone institution”, and “must provide opportunities for boys and girls to socialise and integrate”.
“Single-sex schools compared with co-educational schooling is an important educational conversation we have at Knox,” James said. “There is an abundance of research showing both pros and cons for each type of educational model.”
Establishing relationships with nearby girls’ private schools – Ravenswood, Pymble Ladies College and Abbotsleigh – has been key in allowing the school “to provide supervised activities that offer co-educational learning experiences”.
“We are now looking at shared study sessions with Abbotsleigh,” he said.
Winchester College in the UK is admitting girl students for the first time in its 640-year history.Credit:Getty
Eight years ago, The Armidale School famously became the first of the elite Athletic Association of Great Public Schools (GPS) to open their doors to girls. A former principal described the move as part of “an almost unstoppable wave”, after seeing a shift from single-sex to co-ed in all but the oldest schools in Britain.
Britain’s Winchester College, the 640-year-old alma mater of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, has now joined the pack. Girls can enrol at the $78,000-a-year Hampshire school in sixth form, and Queenwood’s principal Elizabeth Stone will become head of the school this year, the first woman to lead the college.
Across Sydney, the pressure for boys’ private schools to look to admit girls is rising, and parents and alumni are making their voices heard.
A push by tech billionaire Scott Farquhar for Cranbrook to go co-ed was heavily backed by a group of former students who said private boys’ schools foster attitudes and behaviours that are no longer acceptable in broader society.
While that school’s final decision to admit girls by 2026 was not achieved without pain, one school council member believes will be the first of many eastern suburbs schools that will eventually make the co-ed leap.
Scandal hasn’t helped the case for private boys’ schools. Prominent Sydney schools such as Knox, Trinity and The King’s School all featured in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Knox – which charges fees up to $37,600 – most recently hit headlines after 20 students were expelled or suspended after sharing racist and homophobic videos, messages and rantings on violent misogyny via an online chat group.
In the past year alone, Waverley College expelled six students over bullying that involved “assault and humiliation-type behaviours”, the incident sparking an external investigation and calls for a cultural audit at the school; while Cranbrook was forced to undertake a detailed internal review after reports of anti-Semitic bullying.
At Newington College, a possible shift to co-ed is also on the table, with the school putting the idea to its community last February. In a message to parents in November, the school’s chairman Tony McDonald said no decisions had been made.
“Council has delved into research and looked further at other schools both here and overseas,” McDonald said. “We have commissioned independent experts to distil strategic opportunities … and we are also deep in the process of interrogating foundational operational questions.”
The debate is unfolding against a backdrop of decline in single-sex schools: the number of private single-sex schools fell in the past decade even as the number of independent schools rose. There are now 68 private single-sex schools, down from 79 in 2012.
Data from the Association of Independent Schools NSW shows all-boys schools made up 7 per cent of the 511 private schools across the state last year.
In 2012, boys’ schools represented just over 9 per cent of the state’s 469 independent institutions. Girls’ schools lost ground at a slower pace, making up 6.3 per cent of the independent sector last year, down from 7.7 per cent a decade ago.
But James, now in his sixth year as Knox principal, is holding firm on the benefits of boys-only education. He believes learning styles for boys are different to girls, “they are more spatial and visual by nature”.
“I’m a strong supporter of the creative and performing arts and these non-traditional boys’ subjects are growing significantly at Knox. Without the social pressures of a coed environment, our students can explore the full range of their personalities and potential,” he said.
Debate on the issue is not confined to one school sector. NSW Labor has promised a co-educational school in every catchment if it wins government in March, while another proposal to merge Randwick Girls and Boys’ High is on the table. Sydney Catholic Schools, in particular, are driving a co-ed movement, with five of its schools making the move in the past decade.
There are 45 public single-sex high schools in Sydney, and 68 private single-sex schools across the state.
Professor Andrew Martin from UNSW’s School of Education believes more schools will move down the co-ed route as younger generations become parents themselves.
“Overall the academic differences are not huge,” he said, pointing to a 2014 meta-analysis that showed trivial differences between students in single-sex versus coed.
“All-boys schools that want to move to co-ed need to make a great case to open it up to girls. Bringing girls in isn’t a way to address problems that may occur in some schools.”
“For co-ed schools, the research supports positive social development for students, and the schools give students an opportunity to learn more about people and the world around them,” Martin says.
“There are potential landmines that the two systems need to guard against. In co-ed schools, research suggests that subject selection is more gender-stereotyped – for example, girls may not be as likely to select STEM subject as in a co-ed school.”
Single-sex schools must be vigilant against toxic masculinity, Martin said, as they can be fertile ground for sexist behaviours or attitudes.
At Marist Catholic College in North Sydney, the former all-boys school is in its third year of transitioning to co-ed. Parent and former student Daniel Dickson – whose father also went to the school – has a son, Bailey, in year 10.
Daniel Dickson sends his son Bailey to his alma mater, Marist Catholic College, and is pleased it is going co-ed.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
“I think it’s a wonderful thing Marist has gone co-ed. It’s great for boys and girls to be around each other in a structured, organised way because that’s the way life is,” he said. “The school going co-ed was a more natural moving-with-the-times thing, rather than forcing a conversation about the issue.”
Marist principal Anthony Boys said the school was in an area dominated by single-sex options, from North Sydney Boys and Girls, to Monte Sant’ Angelo, Loreto and St Aloysius.
“There was a real yearning and desire for Catholic families to have an affordable education and there wasn’t the option for girls,” he said. After three years of offering co-ed education, the school has almost equal numbers of boys and girls enrolling in year 7.
But Tim Bowden, principal at Summer Hill’s all-boys Trinity Grammar, said strong enrolment demand was a clear indication of “parental commitment” to boys’ schooling.
“I don’t often hear calls for girls’ schools to become co-educational,” he said. “The underlying premise seems to be that boys’ schools and boys are necessarily problematic, but that girls’ schools and girls are not. That is not a premise that I accept.”
“Having said that, there have been some highly publicised examples in recent years of unacceptable behaviour by boys from boys’ schools that have fuelled the discussion about boys’ schools. I think that schools like ours have had some very painful moments of revelation recently, but I am convinced that the remedy is not as simple as ‘add girls and mix’.”
Some commentators, including education consultant Paul O’Shannassy, have said the demand for some boys’ schools could be linked to prestige, opportunities or tradition, rather than purely about the single-sex option.
Bowden said that as schools plan for coming decades, he would be “very surprised” if the question of co-education wasn’t considered at some point.
“But we don’t operate with a continual ‘Will we? Won’t we?’ lack of clarity or indecision. We are a boys’ school, and unambiguously so,” he said.
Trinity has recently obtained government approval to grow numbers on the Summer Hill campus from 1500 to 2100 as part of its $127 million building upgrade.
Former headmaster of The King’s School, Tim Hawkes, believes there is still a place for boys’ schools: “That said, the statistics show an undeniable trend away from single-sex education.”
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