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TRANSCRIPT
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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