I READ with some amusement the article on single sex schools in the Voices youth section of the "Echo".

I went to a single sex Grammar School and it was not at all as represented by your columnist Emily Montgomery.

She says we had completely different lessons where girls did music, sewing and needlework and boys did Latin.

In my Grammar School and I believe in all Grammar Schools regardless of sex, Latin was taught, as into the 1960s, Latin was a requirement for university entry and was taught to both sexes in order for them to go to university.

Boys did music at school and we had a mixed choir with the boys school – but probably they did not do needlework and sewing.

However, I am very glad that I did do these subjects as I could make my own clothes and I can mend stuff and sew on buttons and take up hems in an age now when no one seems to have these skills.

All other subjects – languages and sciences were identical in both boys and girls' schools.

I lived in the country and there were no boys in my village who went to the grammar school, but I met boys on the seven-mile journey to school on the bus.

We went to youth clubs where we met boys and I had plenty of boyfriends.

None of my friends had problems engaging with the opposite sex, but when we did we seemed to be treated with more respect than girls today seem to be treated in co-ed schools.

Of course a lot of girls had brothers at home anyway and their fathers were usually around then so why anyone should think we were not used to co-existing with the opposite sex is beyond me.

The only places where girls might not have had much contact with boys was if they were at boarding schools.

Going to a single sex school meant that although we did our hair in the morning and turned up our skirts to minis for our journey to school we weren't thinking about how attractive or not we were to boys all day because they weren't there at school.

Consequently we probably paid more attention to our lessons and many girls went on to become very high flyers and were in no way inhibited by being at a girls' school.

Girls from 12-15 I imagine in a co-ed school would feel more embarrassed about their periods and sometimes having to leave a class because of stomach cramps, which in an all girls school would not be commented on.

Also the idea of transgender loos (although I realise they are still a rarity) makes me so glad that we had the haven of the loos to go to and collect ourselves if we were feeling unwell or unhappy.

If I had to go to school today, I would still choose to go to a single sex school.

I think it gave us the space to develop our personalities and learn without worrying about what boys thought about us or our appearance.

I think we were probably more prepared in some ways for the "outside" world and none of us were the snowflakes that we hear about today.

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