UK: Independent schools: Girls' schools winning the private battle

Article here. Excerpt:

'It's well known that girls outperform boys in state schools, but it's less widely realised that the same phenomenon applies in the private sector, too. Of the 200 highest-ranked independent schools in the 2007 A-level league tables, three times as many were girls-only establishments (95) as boys-only (31), with the rest being co-eds.
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Vicky Tuck, head of Cheltenham Ladies' College and president of the Girls' Schools Association, agrees. "The modern-day exam system does favour girls," she says. "Girls are better suited to a style of working which requires diligence and consistency, rather than cramming everything into a three-hour exam."

According to Pat Langham, head of Wakefield Girls' School, the other crucial factor in girls' academic success is the absence of boys. "With no need to adopt any 'boy-friendly' educational initiatives, all our efforts are directed towards the girls," she says. "Girls-only schools are fine-tuned to accommodate the cognitive, social and developmental growth of teenage girls. The teaching is gender specific but without any gender stereotyping of subject choice, which means it's considered cool to be the best mathematician, physicist, musician or athlete.'