It's time to shed the blinkers and look at boys' and girls' educational needs

I want to give a special emphasis here to arts education - particularly the performing arts. In drama, making music, and creative dance boys can develop those very qualities they are said to lack - awareness of feeling and its expression, imagination, communication skills and so on. And the self-esteem that these activities can build has a healthy influence on their everyday social relationships, career-making and - yes, even literacy learning.

Among some people of influence there is still a residual contempt for the arts in a boy's education. And some teachers will recall unpleasant experiences in drama and music classes in which boys have refused to take part, or even worse, disrupted the lessons completely and made the girls unhappy. But from many years as a specialist in teaching performing arts I can say that boys will readily and successfully participate if the context is right.

One of the keys is to separate the boys from the girls. Nowhere is this more starkly demonstrable than in singing. In co-ed schools I am used to recruiting three or four nervous boys among 30 or 40 girls, only to see most or all of the boys eventually drop out. In an all-boys school I have sometimes had to audition two thirds of the school because they all wanted in! Colleagues in other schools report similar experiences. Boys' learning style, their different approach to team-formation, the different qualities of the male ear and voice - whatever the reason, the boys as a group feel far more confident and develop their singing better when girls are absent.

Unfortunately, the Parliamentary Committee's report is at best equivocal about segregated classes and schools as a means of improving boys' education, and this probably reflects many of the opinions and findings submitted to the enquiry. The view is summarised by saying that "factors supporting success are more to do with teachers and how well students' needs are analysed and met than with separating the sexes". The experience of many excellent arts teachers contradicts this finding. It's a pity that segregation - whether partial, occasional or total - did not win a specific mention in the project summaries the way phonics and certain learning styles did.

Methodology for better literacy education, harnessing diverse learning styles, a more effective spread of emphasis across the curriculum, using both co-education and segregation of the sexes to best effect - these are crucial components in the formation of a better education system. Are we going to miss the chance to incorporate them in the national reforms?