We don't girls here - Parents protest outside school

Post Reply New Topic

A barrister whose son attends a prestigious Sydney boys’ school set to go co-ed has labelled the reasoning offered to parents as “woke mumbo jumbo” at a protest held on the first day of class for 2024.
Newington College, a 160-year-old institution at Stanmore in the city’s inner west, announced in November it would start accepting girls into kindergarten and Year 5 from 2026.

The call has sparked anger within the community of old boys and parents, with a few dozen people marching to the Stanmore Rd entrance holding placards on Wednesday morning.
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/paren ... eda49fdfb1

A post on a change.org petition promoting the protest had remarked “there’s no need to be peaceful anymore”.“All we’ve been given is woke mumbo jumbo.”

Imagine wealthy folk getting violent over seeing little girls entering their prestigious school

Maybe I'm old school but I don't have an issue with all boys' schools or all girls' schools.

I'm not sure what the benefit is of single-sex education, but as long as they're tolerant and accepting of trans kids and multiculturalism / accommodations / IEPs, I don't see it as any different than having an all boys' / men's or all girls' / women's sports team which promotes diversity.

In the case of this school the instigators of the protest are the "old boys" association members. They have instigated current parents to protest

I was interested in the story because they invoked the word "Woke" over allowing girls to enrol in the school. The reason might have to do with the perception that boys schools tend to be breeding grounds for mysogyny.

Yeah, I get that. Obviously I'm not cool with misogyny or sexism. Where I live there are lots of private schools for all boys or girls, and even some private, gendered universities. The girls' schools are known for developing leadership and confidence in girls / women particularly in STEM and business. The boys' schools are generally seen as "old money", but knowing former students and faculty I've seen that they're actually quite progressive and don't tolerate misogyny. They teach women's history and women's studies as well as gender studies / sociology classes.

Maybe I've been spoiled.

I wouldn't tolerate the attitude of "we don't do girls here ...." or people being pinheads about it though. If the school wants to uphold a tradition of being gendered (for whatever reason) then they need to be accountable to teaching social responsibility and ethics, as well.

I don’t know that particular school, but in the U.S., at least, trends have been away from single sex schools towards coed ones for the simple reason that students increasingly prefer coed schools and a school can’t maintain its exclusive reputation if it doesn’t have enough excess applications to reject a hearty percentage. Simple matter of survival. Odds are that is exactly the case here, even if a parent wants to cause a ruckus using an inappropriately placed trigger word. But, as noted, I’m just guessing.

We can't have girls come in and give the boys cooties, can we?