In the 1980s, many state schools and some private schools were switching from being single sex schools to taking male and female pupils. For many girls the idea of entering a long established boys grammar school was extremely daunting. Pauline D reflects on her memories of her first term in the sixth form of such a school situated on the Sussex Coast.

 

Having just moved from London to the south coast at the beginning of August with my parents and younger sister, I obviously had to look for a new school. Since I had just completed my year in the fifth form of a local grammar school I was looking for a place in the lower sixth of a similar school in my new town.

 

Binghams Grammar School had been and was still an all boys school, but in twelve months time it was being changed into one of the new separate sixth form colleges that were starting to be set up. Because they would then be taking both male and female students, they proposed to start taking a small number of girls into that year’s fifth and sixth forms as well as several boys from other schools.

 

It seemed a reasonable choice for me because then I could simply follow on at the same school for my second sixth form year and also because W******* Grammar School had very good Mathematics and Physics facilities which were my core subjects. Thus I became one of eight sixth form girls and about ten fifth year girls due to start that September.

 

The school authorities obviously had concerns over these changes because my parents and I were invited to at least two meetings at the school in the fortnight before I was due to start which also enabled me to meet several of the girls who would soon become fellow sixth form colleagues.