March 2012 archive

Music makes the world go round …

The St Mary’s Calne Chamber Choir Tour to Florida was an amazing success, and every single one of the girls on the tour, including our Upper Sixth Form lead violinist, who played fantastic solos and accompaniments as part of the concerts, was heartily in agreement that this past week has been amazing. The girls certainly …

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Singing, sand and sisters in Florida

I have just spent a couple of days in Naples, Florida, as the first part of the fantastic St Mary’s Calne Chamber Choir tour of the State. You can follow them via their website – http://musicatstmaryscalne.wordpress.com/, and if you are in Florida in the next few days, come and hear them! Make an effort – …

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Let teachers be teachers

I offer my thanks to a former Headmistress of Ascham School in Sydney who pointed me in the direction of The New York Review of Books and a recent review by Diane Ravitch of a book by Pasi Sahlberg, ‘Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?’. Finland, of course, which …

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Learning at the heart of every school … but what to learn? That is the question.

The OECD published a report last week about leadership in schools across the world; entitled ‘Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century’, it had as its core intention an exploration of how headteachers and principals of schools are developed into effective leaders, and how, by sharing good practice, we can all learn …

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Research from the US on Girls: the stereotype threat

Meeting other Heads of Schools is always interesting and uplifting; meeting other Heads of Schools who are actively engaged in developing and promoting research on girls’ education is inspiring. So it was at the NAPSG conference in Seattle, where I had the good fortune to meet and spend time with Ann V Klotz, the super …

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The Daily Mail approach to feminism … no wonder we still have a long way to go

I try to avoid reading the ‘Reader Comments’ on the UK Daily Mail website, but sometimes I lapse and find myself trawling through several pages in the search of some positive and constructive insights to the matter under discussion – often in vain. Given that the articles I am usually reading pertain in some way …

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Mis-Guiding? Girlguiding UK and the manicure controversy

I felt rather conflicted when I read in yesterday’s newspapers about Girlguiding UK’s themed activity packs, designed to provide a focus to meetings. Of the 26 packs on offer to Guide leaders, designed for use by the Guides in their unit, a number appear to focus on physical appearance, style and fashion, with names such …

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Miss Representation: developing healthier attitudes to women and girls

I wrote a few weeks ago about the thought-provoking documentary, Miss Representation, which was shown at the Houses of Parliament recently and which is developing into a powerful voice in America today. When you visit the site, www.missrepresentation.org, you are given the opportunity to sign a pledge to ‘challenge the media’s limiting portrayal of women …

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Dame Joan Bakewell speaks out: teen magazines sexualise girls

Dame Joan Bakewell, the journalist and television presenter, who helped lead the sexual revolution of the Sixties, and who shocked the nation in 2001 when she presented the BBC TV series Taboo, spoke out earlier this week at the Bath Literature Festival about the effect that teenage magazines are having on young people – and …

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Microsoft, School Principals and the World of Work

The annual conference of the US National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls, which I attended last week in Seattle, took as its theme ‘Our new world of work: challenges and opportunities’, and proved to be an excellent forum in which to consider and debate the issues surrounding this topic. Ellen Stein, the Head …

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