A historic change is taking place at Abingdon School this September, as girls join the senior school for the first time.

From September 2026, girls will be welcomed into the First Year (Year 7) and Sixth Form (Year 12). The move has been planned as a gradual year by year transition. The school will become fully co-educational by 2030.  The Prep School has already begun its own move to co-education.

Abingdon is not alone in making this change. Single-sex education has been in decline over the past decade, falling from 25 per cent of independent schools in 2013 to 18 per cent in 2024. Most of this decline has been due to single-sex schools becoming coeducational. There are now more single-sex girls’ schools than boys’ schools (Ref 1). St Helen and St Katharine in Abingdon remains a single-sex girls’ school.

Ref 1: Civitas, Commission on the Future for Independent Schools.