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A leading girls’ private school will let boys into classrooms within two years to allow families to be educated together.
Sir William Perkins’s School in Chertsey, Surrey, will go fully co-ed by 2030, starting with the phased admission of boys in Years 7 and 12 from September 2026.
The £20,420-a-year secondary school was founded in 1725 originally to cater for boys, but became one of the country’s first girls’ grammar schools when it reopened following a short closure in 1944. The school became fully independent in 1978.
Melanie Duke, chairman of governors at Sir William Perkins’s, said the decision followed increased demand from families to send siblings to the same school.
“We recognise that families increasingly want their children to be educated together,” she said. “In an area where single-sex schools dominate the independent sector, we are delighted to offer an outstanding alternative choice for both girls and boys.”
It is the latest in a series of top single-sex schools that have announced plans to start welcoming children of both sexes in recent years.
St John’s Beaumont, a boys’ school in Windsor, opened its doors to girls last September for the first time in 135 years. It said there was a growing appeal for parents with “increasingly busy lives” to put all their children in one school.
The Roman Catholic prep school also suggested there was a financial benefit to start welcoming girls. A letter to parents suggested that the cost of living crisis had “added to the challenge of investing in the school to maximise the opportunity for its pupils” and that going co-ed would “double the accessible market for pupils and [enhance] growth in numbers”.
King’s House School, in Richmond, in southwest London, will also start admitting girls from September while The Mall School, in nearby Twickenham, admitted girls to reception for the first time in 2023.
Mark Turner, King’s House head teacher, said it was “the right move for the school at this time for both education and pastoral reasons”.
The Good Schools Guide said it marked a growing trend among the sector, although one less common among girls’ schools.
‘Under pressure’
The group, which represents 1,300 schools across the UK, said it came as private schools were “under pressure to keep registrations healthy and get pupils through the gates at the moment”.
Melanie Sanderson, the managing editor of the Good Schools Guide, told The Telegraph that “complacency… is not an option for any school in the current economic climate”, especially with Labour’s proposals to start charging 20 per cent VAT on private schools if it wins the election.
“With further steep fee increases on the horizon no school can afford to give parents any reason not to choose it for their child or children. Now is the time to evolve and embrace positive change in order to thrive,” she said.
However, Ms Sanderson said there was also “strong resistance” to girls’ schools opening their doors to boys, and that those free from financial strain would likely choose to “stick to the playbook of girls benefiting academically from a single-sex environment”.
“Undoubtedly, there will be families delighted that their sons and daughters can now attend the same school, but with many having deliberately chosen a single-sex education for their daughter, it will be interesting to see how this news is received,” she told The Telegraph.
It comes as a number of historical boys’ schools have also made the decision to become co-ed recently. Westminster School, in central London, founded in 1560 by Elizabeth I, will go fully co-ed by 2028, having accepted girls in the sixth form for the past 50 years.
There are 92 fully single-sex private boys’ schools in the UK and 139 girls’ schools, according to the Independent Schools Council’s (ISC) 2023 census.
They account for 17 per cent of all private schools, down from 21 per cent a decade ago.
Sir William Perkins’s School, which has 580 female pupils, frequently ranks in the top 100 independent schools across the country. Situated in Chertsey near the Thames, the school is known for its rowing and counts British Olympic rower Hattie Taylor among its alumni.
Debbie Picton, the school’s headmistress, said its decision to admit boys was “the start of an exciting new chapter in the long history of our school”.
“We believe in championing the individual, building each child’s confidence and integrity and ensuring our students are world-ready whatever their ambitions,” she said. “We therefore look forward to all the opportunities this move will bring to enrich our school and local community for many generations to come.”