The views of the head of Didcot Girls’s School on the value of single-sex education are unequivocal.

The school is one of only two single-sex state schools in the county, the other, of course, being St Birinus, also in Didcot.

Rachael Warwick argued that the environment removed peer pressure and said that the girls’ school gave pupils the ‘space to grow up’ without the distractions of boys and pointed to a record year of GCSE results to back up her argument. She also said the fact that parents from as far away as Abingdon and Oxford send their children to Didcot pointed to a desire for single-sex education.

The girls, too, said that they felt a girl-focused education helped them to focus on increasing confidence and self-esteem.

Interestingly, Oxfordshire County Council’s school improvement cabinet member, Melinda Tilley, said she felt there was “probably” an argument that girls and boys performed better in single-sex environments.

And she said that she would consider looking into the subject see what the potential benefits were for both girls and boys. That research would prove illuminating.

We would be delighted to hear people’s views on the subject.