Your school years can be some of the best years of your life – and also, some of your absolute worst. Blossoming teen romances, seeing your friends every day, and not having to pay for food or rent were all brilliant things, but emotions, acne, and algebra? Not so much.
So how does the school experience differ for those of us who were educated solely with the same sex? In some ways, hardly at all, but there are so many things you’d only know if you went to an all-girls school.
1. Everyone from mixed schools in the area thought you were a snob, a slut, or a lesbian.
2. Your social skills around the opposite sex became rather skewed. It was either outrageous flirting, or cringe-tastic small talk. If any talk.
3. Hideous, hideous uniforms. Blazers, hats, kilts – as if keeping us away from the opposite sex wasn’t bad enough, making us look like mental Highlanders really wasn’t helpful.
4. Any male teacher under the age of 35 was considered a bona fide hottie.Even when he really wasn’t.
5. You dealt with top drama. Like, so much drama. And backstabbing. You’ve seen Orange is the New Black, right? Like that, but with less shower sex.
6. The mere glimpse of a boy at the end of the field sent half the year tens utterly insane.
7. School discos were a huge deal. The chance for inter-gender physical contact was both exhilarating and terrifying. And WHAT TO WEAR?!
8. You knew for a, ‘fact’ that all the girls at the other single-sex schools in the areas were massive slags.
9. There was always a rumour about that one girl doing something disgusting with a hairbrush.
10. And there was always a story about a mythical sixth former who had an affair with one of the teachers and got pregnant.
11. You played a lot of netball. And you had to wear those horrible bottle-green gym knickers.
12. You were a pro at skirt-rolling. “On the knee?” Dream on.
13. The small pool of dateable guys from the boys’ school down the road got passed around more than a bottle of shots at a party.
14. You were given endless talks about menstruation in your early years, and pregnancy in your later ones. “Hey guys, the tampon lady is here again.”
15. Sex education raised some pretty interesting questions. “But is the shaft hairy, miss?”
16. You were a source of wonder to others in your year if you’d already started your period.
17. And the nurse’s room was always filled with girls with crippling cramps.
18. You roped any available male teacher into the end-of-year talent show.Seriously, stop making Mr Williams sing that same, ‘Reproduction’ song fromGrease 2.
19. If you had an older sister that went to the same school, there was one teacher who always called you by her name.
20. Actual physical fights were rare. But when they happen, the entire school turns out.
21. It was perfectly acceptable to ask the entire room if anyone had a spare tampon. In later life? Not so much.
22. You always suspected that one particular teacher fancied you – male or female.
23. You learned that sex gossip is the best kind of gossip. What’s that? Katie lost her virginity? I MUST KNOW EVERYTHING.
24. Your period was a great excuse for getting out of PE – when you use it on a male teacher. On the female ones, you’d just get told that exercise would help, and sent on a lap of the running track.
25. The toilet was the best place to go for a good cry. In fact, there always seemed to be one cubicle that held a weeping girl, like some kind of Skins-meets-Hogwarts deal.
Written for Pretty 52.
Constant Spinner 
