President of the Girls’ Schools Association, Caroline ...€¦ · GSA Annual Conference 2016 President of the Girls’ Schools Association, Caroline Jordan, addressed GSA members

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President’s Address

GSA Annual Conference 2016

President of the Girls’ Schools Association, Caroline Jordan, addressed GSA

members and invited guests at the Association’s annual conference in Oxford

on 21 November. The 2016 conference theme was ‘take on the world’. Mrs

Jordan’s speech is reproduced here in full.

INTRODUCTION

Good morning and a very warm welcome to Oxford and, in particular, to

Rhodes House, our base for the next two days. I hope that, amidst our busy

schedule, you have the chance to explore some of this beautiful city. It was

wonderful to see so many of you with your alumnae in the Natural History

Museum last night and we have more impressive places to share with you over

the next two days. I was born and educated in Oxford and have a special

affinity with the city, an affinity I am sure many of you will share. If you are

visiting for the first time, I do hope you are inspired to return.

CITIZENS OF THE WORLD

Looking back to when I started planning this conference more than 18 months

ago, the world seemed to be a very different place. The concept of ‘Taking on

the World’ was set in the context of an outward looking society within which

our schools blazed a trail for inclusivity, diversity and international reach.

Whatever your political leanings I doubt that many of you predicted both

Brexit in the UK and the Trump victory in the US. The challenge we now face is

to navigate the uncertainty and understand the potential impact on our pupils.

Already many of us are reporting a real fear amongst our overseas parents and

friends, mystified by a seemingly newly-xenophobic Britain that they don’t

recognise or understand. Whatever happens with our country’s plans for Brexit

I believe we must maintain – and indeed amplify - our global outlook. Theresa

May was wrong when she said ‘if you believe you are a citizen of the world,

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you are a citizen of nowhere.’ Confusing identity with nationality is a

dangerous path to tread. We have a wonderful mix of cultures and talents

from around the world in our schools and we must continue to celebrate this

and to prepare children for life as global citizens. After all, it will now fall to

them to fight for tolerance and understanding between nations and cultures

and we owe it to them to keep this at the top of our agendas in our schools. If

this was a priority for us 18 months ago it is an imperative for us today.

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

Conference is a time to share best practice and reflect on the past year and

what a year it has been. Green papers, about turns, new specifications, axed A

level subjects and more. The education landscape today is largely

unrecognisable from that of forty years ago when another Headington

headmistress, Peggy Dunn, was President of the Girls’ Schools Association. I

wonder what she would make of it. Education for girls has certainly changed

for the better since her time but there is still much work to do to make sure

young women enjoy complete equality of opportunity in education and

employment.

Politically, it has been a momentous year, not least because the world has

another woman at the helm of government (albeit one less than many of us

may have expected). We’ve come a long way since 1975 when ninety per cent

of Icelandic women staged a strike in protest at discrimination, eventually

leading to the world's first democratically elected woman president. Fast

forward just over 40 years and we are now in the unprecedented position of

having two of the world’s top five economies led by women, and more

democratically elected woman leaders than at any time in history.

It’s vital that we carry on doing all we can to give girls and women the

opportunity and inspiration to lead. It’s why the GSA’s professional

development programme nurtures up-and-coming teachers with leadership

potential. It’s why I’m delighted that our friends from across the pond - Ann

Klotz of the Heads Network and Martha Perry of the National Coalition of Girls’

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Schools – will give us the North American perspective on women in leadership

tomorrow afternoon. And it’s why I was heartened to hear Hillary Clinton, in

her concession speech, say to girls everywhere ‘never doubt that you are

valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the

world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.’

LANGUAGES

What better way than to give them the practical tools to communicate with

people in their own language? Now, more than ever, we need more students

studying more modern foreign languages and more teachers to teach them.

We know that students from independent schools are more likely to apply to

study languages at university. Our latest analysis of UCAS applications,

conducted jointly with HMC, shows that 3.8% of UCAS applications from GSA

and HMC students were to study European languages, Literature and related

courses, compared with 0.6% of all UCAS applications. As well as this, the

proportion of applications to study these subjects in combination with

another, such as Law with French, is even higher among independent school

applicants. Nevertheless, this is still a small percentage of overall university

applications.

Independent schools are doing much to share their expertise in languages with

the state sector. The Royal High School in Bath is just one example - they send

an outreach languages teacher to local state primary schools to teach French

and German - but we need more language teachers. That’s why I’m pleased to

report that GSA is involved in the first School Centred Initial Teacher Training

programme – or SCITT - that is open to independent schools, and that we are

working with the maintained sector on training more modern foreign language

teachers. GSA’s Chair of the Education Committee Sue Hincks - Head of Bolton

School Girls’ Division - is leading our involvement.

TEACHING & TEACHERS

This is a really exciting initiative for us. For the first time, Government is giving

us a concrete way to work in partnership with them on a SCITT that not only

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shares our expertise more widely but also gives us the option of recruiting

from trainees in the long term. This was always a stumbling block in the past.

Next month I am due to meet with the Minister of State for School Standards,

Nick Gibb, to discuss how GSA can contribute to the next SCITT initiative which

will focus on Physics.

This is good news. Those of us in the teaching profession have been telling

Government for some time that we are not attracting enough young people

into the profession. With headlines like ‘Teachers working beyond EU limits’

it’s hardly surprising that we struggle to retain those who do enter teaching.

Until now, it has been largely left to schools themselves to address this issue

and many schools, including GSA schools, have offered their own funded and

supported on-the-job training schemes. All this has begun to have an impact

but it is good to see Government bringing the independent and state sectors

together with these new SCITTS.

The choice of subjects – modern foreign languages and physics – is of course

highly significant. GSA schools clearly have much expertise to share when it

comes to teaching these subjects to girls. Girls from GSA schools are typically

twice as likely to study most language A Levels and two and a half times more

likely to study physics A Level than all UK girls. And among the science

undergraduates we produce is a growing cohort of engineers. A recent report

on gender pay equality concluded that the slow move to parity can only be

hastened by more girls going in to engineering. In other words, the work GSA

schools are doing is vital, from our involvement in the new physics SCITT, to

our testing and backing of The WISE Partnership’s People Like Me national

careers resource, and our See Women partnership with Siemens UK, inspiring

girls in our own and neighbouring state schools about what a job in

engineering actually means. If you haven’t yet been involved in See Women,

you can be – next year we will be seeking teachers and engineering alumnae

from each GSA region to attend a Siemens training session to learn how to

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deliver their showcase presentations to even more girls and keep

disseminating the message that girls and engineering have much to offer one

another.

While we are on the subject of equipping teachers and sharing our expertise, I

must mention the new online course in girls’ education. Girls’ Education:

teaching strategies that develop resilience, confidence and collaboration is a

new venture by the Girls’ Day School Trust, whose heads are represented here

today as members of GSA. Their new venture with FutureLearn, one of the

world’s biggest providers of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), has had

thousands of enrolments from teachers all over the world, all eager to acquire

the skills, knowledge and techniques that are particular to educating girls. The

course begins today. Having identified that, when it comes to hiring or

promoting people, employers base many of their decisions on character over

qualifications, the course aims to help address this imbalance and focuses on

approaches that develop and promote character traits in girls such as

independence, resilience, collaborative working, problem solving and

confidence.

GSA members are specialists in girls’ education but we are also always keen to

learn more and I urge you to take a look.

PREPARING FOR UNIVERSITY

You will also want to take a look at the results of the latest research jointly

commissioned by GSA and HMC. We will send you a copy once it is published

but, as you may have seen, we have already issued some advance extracts.

This research shows us that independently-educated students are happier than

former state school students with the preparation their schools gave them for

university. Seventy five per cent of final year undergraduates surveyed said

they thought their fee-charging school had prepared them well, academically,

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for university, compared to 53 per cent of those who were educated at state

schools.

Overall, it’s a positive picture - 64 per cent of total respondents claim to be

happy or very happy with the level of preparation their school gave them, and

it is clear that young people take their learning seriously; they want to learn

and they value their education. However, there are clearly still some significant

gaps in students’ preparation for university that we need to address.

Many independent schools are already helping to do this, not only within their

own schools but also through partnerships with state schools, providing

specialist and extra teaching as well as application and interview practice, at no

cost, to help state school pupils access the universities of their choice. Many of

you sitting in this room, I know, already do this and it continues to be vital

work. As Sir Peter Lampl from the Sutton Trust has highlighted, many of the

brightest state school students simply don't even apply to Oxbridge - working

in partnership with independent schools can help these students to realise that

Oxford and Cambridge are very real options for them.

As well as continuing this good practice, we also need to work more closely

with universities. Indeed, I hope that this survey is the first step to building

stronger bridges between schools and universities so we can prepare all our

young people – whatever school they start from – for higher education. Our

economy needs young people who are not only well-educated but also highly

motivated and it’s up to schools and universities to work together more closely

to make that transition from school to university as smooth and meaningful as

possible.

GLOBAL CONNECTION

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Our survey was of undergraduates at UK universities, but we are of course just

as concerned to prepare those students who choose to go to universities

outside the UK. Whether it’s for UK students progressing to universities

abroad, or for students in other countries looking to come to school in the UK,

we must keep reaching out to counter any potential adverse effects of Brexit

and to make sure parents and educators in other countries remain eager to

engage with us.

Earlier this year we did just that by participating in the first Global Forum on

Girls’ Education in New York City, along with the US-based National Coalition of

Girls’ School and other such associations around the world. I’m delighted to

say that we’re going to do it again in Washington DC in June 2018. I know that,

for those of us who travelled to the Forum back in February, it was an

exhilarating experience and a fantastic opportunity to share best

practice with a truly international peer group. I’m also looking forward to

hearing what Tim Oates has to share with us today about what the

international data tells us about the impact of culture on gender bias in subject

choice.

What better place for considering global perspectives than Rhodes House, with

its distinctly international focus and its tradition of attracting the finest minds

through the Rhodes Scholar programme. Tomorrow, one of those scholars will

join us - Professor Ngaire Woods is Professor of Global Economic Governance

here in Oxford and will speak about what leadership in the 21st Century means.

OVERSEAS SCHOOLS

Some of you may be thinking it’s all very well sharing our expertise with other

countries, but what about the teacher ‘brain drain’? Well, what about it? Do

we need to worry about the increasing numbers of teachers leaving the UK to

work abroad? Or the rise in British international schools? I believe every threat

is a potential opportunity and both British teachers and British-inspired schools

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overseas can be tremendous ambassadors for what is available in the UK. The

Chinese in particular are clamouring for all that a British education can offer.

And they’re not alone. As well as Russia, South America and Africa there are

new markets opening up in the Middle East and the children who come to our

schools from these areas add a positive dimension to our schools.

The vast majority of British overseas teachers return to the UK system with

new ideas and a broader perspective - any progressive school will recognise

this and actively manage and promote opportunities for them to return and

continue their careers in the UK. This can only be good news for our schools

and we’re going to hear more about this from Bernice McCabe, Tim Edge and

Emma McKendrick.

SPORT

I began by talking about the events of 2016. It will surely also be remembered

for the Rio Olympics and the extraordinary performances of athletes from the

UK and around the world. The disproportionate number of medallists and

competitors – not just in Team GB – to have been educated in British

independent schools has been well documented. This doesn’t embarrass me.

Far from it. I believe it is something we should be proud to celebrate. GSA

schools alone educated eight medallists, including silver medallist in rowing

Katie Greves who is a former Headington pupil. GSA alumnae brought back

three gold, four silver and one bronze medal, the latter won for gymnastics by

16 year old current pupil Amy Tinkler, who attends Durham High School for

Girls. In all, 14 former and current students of GSA schools represented Great

Britain, including gold-medal winning Paralympian Ellie Robinson.

Writing in the Independent, Tim Wigmore recently said that, with 10,000

school playing fields sold off between 1979 and 1997, the Olympics illustrated

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how ‘sport mirrors the iron grip that the most privileged have on the top of

society.’ I look at this a different way. How many of the medallists who

attended a state sector school were helped because of access to the facilities

or expertise which independent schools make available? Even a cursory scan of

the hundreds of independent-state school partnerships registered on the

Schools Together website indicates the scope of the work independent schools

are doing to share their facilities and deliver sports outreach. I have no doubt

that these partnerships will continue. As successive governments squeeze

state education budgets sport and other extra-curricular activities will continue

to be affected and both parents and schools are increasingly looking to the

independent sector to fill the gap. I know that many of us are embracing this,

not least St Gabriel’s School in Newbury, where a 13 year old partnership with

Park House School involves sharing a sports coordinator who manages both

schools’ participation in the County School Games and enables more primary

school sport to take place. The schools also jointly manage an athletics track.

GSA schools are fortunate to have the kind of facilities and expertise that

nurtures elite athletes but producing Olympic medallists is not why we invest

in sport. For every Olympian who goes through our schools there are

thousands of girls who find new hobbies to keep them fit and healthy, develop

their confidence and leadership skills and create new friendships. A recent

study by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood

concluded that schools have long undervalued physical education and that PE

needs a ‘radical shakeup’ and should be treated in the same way as core

academic subjects. Most GSA schools have been doing this for

years but we can always do more. It is clear to me that girls in single-sex

environments benefit hugely from being able to take part in, excel

at and most importantly enjoy physical activity in whatever form that takes.

Traditionally this has meant team sports but increasingly we have seen a move

towards individual pursuits, a drive towards wellbeing and health and an ever-

increasing range of activities. At my own school, we opened a new Dance and

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Fitness Centre last year. This was initially driven by the need to improve

training facilities for our elite rowers (although I remain extremely proud of the

fact that Katie Greves and 2012 London gold medallist Lily van den Broecke

learned their craft from a school shed at Headington). None of us could have

predicted the overwhelming response to dance classes. Just half a term since

opening, our Saturday Dance Academy had waiting lists for all ages.

In a recent poll of GSA sports directors, almost 59 per cent said that non-

competitive fitness activities now have equal status with competitive sport in

the school curriculum, though most were quick to point out that the two go

hand-in-hand and team sports continue to have much to offer girls in terms of

leadership skills, team and confidence building. Certainly we do see, time and

time again, how girls’ engagement in team sports is more apparent in girls’

schools than it is in co-ed schools. This is partly about access to facilities – even

the most progressive of our co-ed colleagues tend to schedule girls’ sports

once the boys are sorted – but in my experience it’s really an issue of

confidence and peer pressure. With no boys around to ‘impress’, I have always

found that girls are far more likely to enjoy running around for an hour at

lunchtime on the sports pitch than they might be in a co-ed environment. My

experience is backed up by numerous studies. One 2014 meta-analysis of 22

such studies found that the largest increases in girls’ participation in sport

happened in single-sex contexts. Interestingly, the authors noted that this

effect wasn’t confined to adolescent girls, who may be experiencing body

image concerns, but also took place in younger girls.1 (We all know this

already, but it is always good to see it confirmed by independent research).

GREEN PAPER

And so to education reform, the full nature of which, as we stand here in

November, is still unclear. Will 2016 be remembered as the year when the

education sector had to endure more proposals for radical, rapid and

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challenging transformation than any other? Or will the passage of time and a

wider lens reveal that education has always been subject to this kind of

disruptive change?

In the spring the ‘Education for All’ bill was announced; just five months later it

has been scrapped. Just a few weeks ago, Theresa May’s announcement on

grammar schools took many in the sector - and her own party - by surprise.

The Green Paper also suggests big changes for universities and independent

schools, insisting that they do more to support state sector schools. I cannot

see that this poses a significant threat to the vast majority of independent

schools. Our inter-school partnership work is already highly advanced and, in

fact, we welcome the opportunity to talk to Government about how we can

continue to work with our counterparts in the state sector. That said, I would

not like to see the imposition of any change which might jeopardise existing

partnership activity.

Whatever path we find ourselves on, it’s not a bad idea to plan for additional

demands on our resources so do pay attention to this afternoon’s session on

friend and finance-raising.

GRADE 9 / MENTAL HEALTH

Children’s mental health continues to make the headlines, and rightly so. It’s a

rising concern for girls and boys in all schools, whether state or independent,

co-ed or single sex. A recent study from the National Citizen Service showed

that over half of 15 to 17 year olds surveyed felt that school work had to come

before anything else. Just 39 per cent prioritised their own happiness over

grades. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt recently promised to tackle ‘big

problems’ and failings in NHS provision for children and young people with

mental health problems and singled out Child and Adolescent Mental Health

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Services as ‘the biggest single area of weakness in NHS provision at the

moment.’

We need to keep talking about this. The pressures on pupils today are

enormous and the statistics on mental health must not be swept under the

carpet. It worries me that the movement away from alphabetical grades at

GCSE to numerical grades, and particularly the controversial Grade 9, will place

even more pressure on young people. Indeed, it seems certain that it will do

just that, when you consider that the new Grade 9 will be awarded to only 20

per cent of those who would have achieved A* to A under the existing system.

It’s right that we have rigour. It’s not right that we make our children ill in the

process. I am worried for all those pupils with a tendency towards

perfectionism, many of whom we know to be girls. Many of us are spending

significant time introducing our highly aspirational parents to the reality that

only the brightest of the bright will achieve Grade 9 and helping them to

understand that the days of all bright pupils getting 10 A*s are over. Ten Grade

9s really will be exceptional.

Thankfully, girls’ schools have the luxury of being able to design their entire

pastoral and academic support around the needs of girls, so I know that we are

well placed to manage the impact of Grade 9 and encourage our pupils away

from ‘achievement at any cost.’ Let’s make sure we carry on helping them to

maintain a sensible balance between study, extra-curricular pursuits, family

time and time for themselves. It’s good to aim high but students must also be

realistic about results. That’s why initiatives such as Little Miss Perfect at

Oxford High School are so important, giving girls the strong message that it’s

okay not to be perfect all the time. Failure can be as valuable a learning

experience as success.

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Conversely, it is, of course, our ability to focus our pastoral support on the

specific needs of girls that plays a key role in helping girls achieve top grades,

particularly in subjects that might traditionally be considered more popular

among boys. We know that, compared with girls in other schools, the girls in

GSA schools are consistently more likely to study STEM subjects and those

difficult modern foreign languages and to achieve significantly higher results in

them. It’s also why 96 per cent of GSA students progress to university. A caring,

supportive environment goes hand in hand with good results and I fear this will

become ever more apparent as the pressure to achieve that elusive Grade 9

begins to grip GCSE students everywhere.

CONCLUSION

I have mentioned some of our guest speakers. They will all, I am sure, interest,

inspire and inform you and I know that you will return to your schools later this

week with much to share with both staff and students.

Before I introduce our first speaker, I would like to thank all sponsors,

advertisers and exhibitors at this year’s conference, and particularly our

headline sponsor, Schoolblazer. Thanks to their continuing support we are able

to bring you this vibrant, thought-provoking conference year after year.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, when we planned the global

theme of conference all those months ago it was about challenging boundaries

and inspiring our girls to have aspirations and hopes without limits or borders.

Today our message needs to be even bolder, as we try to help them find their

path in an increasingly combative world.

‘Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are

prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is

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education’. Wise words spoken by Franklin D Roosevelt more than half a

century ago. As educators of the next generation we have a huge responsibility

to guide them wisely and I hope this year’s conference informs and inspires

you in equal measure.

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1 Biddle, Braithwaite & Pearson, 2014, p. 129