.png){kind=logo}
Single-Sex Advisories Reap Benefits in Middle School
As a research-informed school, St. Andrew’s and the Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning are constantly looking for ways to positively impact students in every facet of school life. This year, the Middle School has brought research into advisories.
Starting this year, advisor groups for sixth, seventh and eighth graders are single-sex.
Driven by research and taking inspiration from Breck School and Cranbrook School, the Middle School introduced this new approach that has already reaped benefits for both boys and girls.
Rodney Glasgow, Head of Middle School and Chief Diversity Officer, and Glenn Whitman, Dean of Studies at St. Andrew’s and Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, proposed the switch from co-ed to single-sex advisories after seeing how they impacted Breck and Cranbrook’s Middle School advisories.
Middle School leaders consulted research on single gender classroom environments before making the transition. In a future article for a forthcoming volume of Think Differently and Deeply, Kristin Cuddihy, English teacher and Middle School Dean of Students, and Savi Tuber, Middle School teacher and Diversity Coordinator, write that research consistently recognizes the social differences between genders during middle school years and the importance of taking those differences into account in the classroom setting.
Cuddihy and Tuber agree that students take advantage of the single-sex advisory to speak openly about topics they may hesitate to discuss with the opposite sex.
“When we do have discussions or check-ins, I think it allows them to feel more comfortable sharing and being themselves,” Tuber said of his all-boys advisory. “I do a weekly check in: I ask them to share one thing they’re thinking about, one thing causing stress, one thing they’re excited about. I’ve tried to do it in the past, but I don’t think the kids have been as comfortable in the past sharing, especially girls sharing with boys.”
Cuddihy said the seventh-grade girls advisory in particular exemplifies the strength of single-sex advisories in a co-ed environment.
“I think they see themselves as having more of a presence in the grade because they see themselves together all the time,” Cuddihy said. “Truly, that’s what we’re trying to encourage – a sense of sisterhood. It’s not necessarily a notion we would often discuss in a co-ed community, and now that opportunity exists.”
Molly Magner, Middle School math teacher and advisor, said she has seen this effect in her eighth-grade girls advisory.
“I’ve noticed they feel more comfortable and the social pressures are gone in a single gender advisory. I’ve seen friendships form that probably wouldn’t have in the past,” Magner said.
“It has made it easier and more comfortable to talk,” said Lacey Somwaru ’22
Somwaru and Ana Lucia Chalmers ’22, who are both in Magner’s advisory, agree that the all-girls advisory is more tranquil than a co-ed advisory, but said they would like more opportunities to interact with male classmates during advisory time, possibly through co-ed activities.
Charlie O’Keefe ’22 said the all-boys advisory has given him a chance to get to know his male classmates better, but said he appreciates St. Andrew’s co-ed environment because it keeps him open to new ideas, especially from his female peers.
“If you go to an all-boys school, you don’t have as many conversations with people of the opposite gender that are your age,” O’Keefe said. “It’s good to be friends with those people.”
Cuddihy and Tuber have conducted informal surveys with students to gather feedback on single-sex advisories. Looking ahead, they are planning gender-focused programming and projects to take place during advisory time.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School is a private, coeducational college preparatory day school for students in preschool (Age 2) through grade 12, located in Potomac, Maryland.