Uk

Schools

In the United Kingdom the official term is mixed, and today most schools are mixed. A number of Quaker co-educational boarding schools were established before the 19th century. In England the first non-Quaker public mixed-sex boarding school was Bedales School, founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley and becoming mixed in 1898. The Scottish Dollar Academy claims to be the first mixed-sex boarding school in the UK (in 1818). Many previously single-sex schools have begun to accept both sexes in the past few decades; for example, Clifton College began to accept women in 1987.

Higher education institutions

The first United Kingdom university to allow ladies to enter on equal terms with gentlemen, and hence be admitted to academic degrees, was the University of London in 1878, with degrees being conferred upon the United Kingdom's first four female graduates in 1880. The first institution engaged in educating students, given the University of London's then role was an examining authority, to become fully co-educational was University College London in 1878. The University of Cambridge allowed women to take its examinations in 1881 but refused to confer degrees upon women until 1948. The University of Oxford allowed women to take its examinations in 1884 but refused to admit female graduands to the degrees if they passed the said oral examinations until 1920.
Given their dual role as both boarding house and educational establishment, individual colleges at Oxford and Cambridge remained segregated for much longer periods. The first Oxford college to house both men and women was the graduate-only Nuffield College in 1937, with the first five undergraduate colleges (including St Catherine's) becoming mixed in 1974. The first mixed Cambridge college was the graduate-only Darwin from its foundation in 1964. Churchill, Clare and King's colleges of Cambridge were the first previously all-male colleges to admit female undergraduates in 1972. Magdalene was the last all-male college to become mixed in 1988.

The last single-sex college in Oxford, St Hilda's, went mixed from Michaelmass term 2008; however Permanant Private Halls exist which are open only to men. Three colleges remain single sex at Cambridge: Murray Edwards (New Hall), Newnham and Lucy Cavendish.