1. NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH
Single-sex schools understand and teach to the developmental differences in boys and girls.
Recent neuroscience research on the development of the human brain has confirmed what most of us know instinctively: boys and girls learn differently. The most profound difference is not in their brain structure per se, but rather in the sequence in which the brain regions develop. The areas of the brain involved in language, spatial memory, motor coordination, and social interaction develop in a different order, time, and rate in girls than in boys. Rather than trying to fit all children into the same square hole at the same time, single-sex schools understand these differences and teach to their students' strengths, with the result that students feel more confident about their learning. Single-sex schools are able to focus their resources, choose their teachers, and design their programs to meet the educational and developmental needs of their students. Students in single-sex schools are more frequently learning in environments that support their particular learning style and among people who understand them.

2. AVOIDING THE PITFALLS OF PEER PRESSURE
Single-sex schools are able to avoid many of the pitfalls of "gender “intensification."
Research has shown that when girls and boys are together, they are more mindful of what the prevailing culture says is appropriate for their gender. As a result, coed environments often have the unintended consequence of intensifying gender roles. In single-sex environments, boys and girls do not feel these same stereotype pressures from their peers.

3. FREE TO BE
At single-sex schools, boys and girls are free to explore who they are without the pressure of traditional gender expectations.
At a boys’ school, boys are free to be themselves and not worry about what girls might think. They tend to moderate their competitive edge and learn crucial life skills in collaboration, while girls at an all-girls’ school tend to take more risks, enjoy competition, and pursue leadership roles. Single-sex learning environments encourage all children to be fearless, curious, caring and enthusiastic—in short, to be themselves.

4. GROWING UP BUT NOT TOO FAST
Single-sex schools enable children to remain children a little longer.
Children are exposed to enormous pressures from every quarter to become adults before they are ready. They grow up too quickly and are pushed into sexuality too quickly by our culture and its media. Research shows that children who are allowed to be children during their critical formative years become healthier,  more balanced and effective adults in maturity. In the safer environment of a single-sex school, boys are able to be boys and girls to be girls throughout childhood and early adolescence. They are playing and learning in
an environment mostly free of the social pressures and expectations that predominate in coed environments.

5. DEEPEST FRIENDSHIPS FOR LIFE
Single-sex schools foster a strong sense of camaraderie and esprit de corps among
students.
Students at single-sex schools often speak of the strong sense of brotherhood and sisterhood they feel with their schoolmates. These strong ties arise from the freedom students feel to fully explore and express who they are and their ability to develop friendships unencumbered by the social competition and pressures that
often exist in coed environments. These friendships often last a lifetime.

6. ROLE MODELS
At single-sex schools, students are exposed to a wide range of role models and life
possibilities. 
Because students at single-sex schools feel more comfortable to explore different avenues of self-expression, there tends to be a healthy diversity within the student body and a wide range of role models for younger students to follow. At boys' schools, you see artists, musicians, and engineers as well as athletes, and at girls' schools you see scientists, mathematicians, and athletes as well as dancers and artists. These differences not only flourish at single-sex schools, they are respected, with the result that students of all stripes feel that they are contributing to the school community.

7. ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
The proof is in the outcome: students at single-sex schools tend to be more academically
active, serious, and high performing.
A three-year study conducted by Stetson University of children’s academic performance at the Woodward Avenue Elementary School in Florida found that the children in single-sex classrooms outperformed those in the coed classrooms on the state’s comprehensive assessment test while all other variables were equal: boys in coed classes, 37% scored proficient; girls in coed classes, 59% scored proficient; girls in single-sex classes, 75% scored proficient; boys in single-sex classes, 86% scored proficient. In 2005, Stewart Elementary School in a low-income neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio, was reinvented as an all-girls’ school. In the last year that the school was coed, only 19 percent of the girls passed the state proficiency test. In the first year after the school adopted the single-sex format, 91 percent of the girls scored proficient. They retained the same class size, the same curriculum, same teachers, and the same students.

The case for boys:
A nationwide study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology confirmed what many earlier studies have suggested: at every age, boys in coed schools are less enthusiastic about school than girls. This finding holds true at urban as well as rural schools, and in affluent as well as lower-income communities.

The case for girls:
A 2009 study by Linda J. Sax, Ph.D. of UCLA, drawing on data from that university’s "Freshman Survey," found that women who attended single-sex schools earned higher SAT scores than their co-ed counterparts, spent 11 more hours per week on homework, had higher confidence in their mathematical ability and computer skills, and rated themselves higher than their co-ed counterparts in intellectual self-confidence, public speaking ability, and writing ability. Like their counterparts in all-boys schools, women who attended singlesex schools reported greater interest in graduate school, greater engagement in extracurricular activities, and greater involvement in political affairs, than did their co-ed counterparts.

* Sources: International Boys School Coalition, National Coalition of Schools for Girls, National Association for Single-Sex Public Education, and About.com

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Single-Sex School When You Were Only Considering Coed" pdf.