May 15

Refreshing views on female appearance from Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton – or more specifically Hillary Clinton’s appearance … or more specifically still, Hillary Clinton’s appearance without make-up – was a focus of attention in last week’s Daily Mail, and it was refreshing to hear the US Secretary of State herself say that she had given up trying to look “immaculate” in public, and that she felt “relieved” not to have to put her lenses in and style her hair just to walk out of her front door. She was putting “comfort” and “practicality” first, and she was happy to do so.

Quite why this revelation necessitated a flurry of activity at CNN, who raced to capture her thoughts after pictures of her without makeup had surfaced in the press, is – on one level, at least – quite perplexing. Why on earth does it matter what a senior politician wears; surely substance speaks louder than superficial appearance? On another level, of course, the elevation of Mrs Clinton’s actions (or non-actions) to serious news status is entirely understandable (if rather depressing to those of us who fight hard to orientate discussion of women towards their achievements rather than how they look): our society is currently obsessed with superficiality, and has developed a distorted idea of how women in particular should present themselves, to the extent that this approach dominates the majority of media coverage of women in powerful positions. Rare is the article or news report which does not comment on appearance; and if it doesn’t, then it can pretty much be guaranteed that online commentators will fill this gap.

And so it was with Hillary Clinton and the “story” of her non-make-up. When you read the coverage and the comments, you would be forgiven for wondering whether the Secretary of State’s role was anything other than to model styling products, but, thankfully, in and amongst the remarks made, are strong and sensible comments about how we should just move on as a society and stop obsessing over women’s appearance. Mrs Clinton’s assured and relaxed performance on CNN was a powerful statement, too; here was a woman – one of the most powerful women in the world – who really couldn’t give two hoots about how she looked, but was instead far more interested in what she was doing to make the world work more effectively.

Quite right too. We could do far worse than to encourage our daughters to emulate her, and our sons to admire her.

 

May 12

Upside-down management and giving back to society: the message of John Timpson

At last week’s Boarding Schools Association conference in Bristol, I was privileged to hear one of the key-note speakers, John Timpson, Chairman of Timpson – best known as the ubiquitous shoe repairers. I had heard him speak many years ago at a similar conference; if anything, he struck me as having even more energy and fervour now, and his message was inspiring.

His message for organisations is about how to effect what he calls “upside-down management”, where the customer is at the core of the business, and everything must be done to support that customer. In schools, this is of direct relevance – it can be very easy for bureaucratic structures to grow up which make life easier for the running of the school, and yet do not make life easier for pupils or parents. One of the challenges we face in schools is to spot this when it happens, and then to find creative ways to do something about it.

John Timpson’s personal message – about how he has run his life – was, however, yet more compelling. Between them, he and his wife have fostered over 80 children during the past three decades, and the stories he shared with us were in parts heartbreaking, but ultimately uplifting. All sorts of disasters and difficulties hide around the corner in our world, and when they happen, children in families are often the most harshly affected. Children need love and stability in a family unit if they are to learn – at a very deep level – that these are the bedrock of all family lives, and if they are to have the chance to replicate these in their own families in due course. Foster families offer children a second chance when circumstances make it impossible for them to be cared for sufficiently well in their own families. When children learn what love is, society benefits and grows, and there is greater hope for the world. For John Timpson and his wife to have fostered over 80 children – and to have kept in touch with many of them – represents an enormous commitment on their part to the future of our world. They – and their firm – are active in raising money for charity too. I was full of admiration, and hold them up as an example.

It takes only a single step from each of us to start to make a difference in this world. We should remind ourselves of this each day. And do something about it.

 

May 08

Decoding Your 21st Century Daughter: An Anxious Parent’s Guide To Bringing Up Your Teenage Daughter.

As you may have seen in this Sunday’s Mail on Sunday – (which led to a follow up commentary in Melanie Phillips’ column in Monday’s Daily Mail, and interviews on Radio 5 Live Breakfast and BBC Radio London’s Vanessa Show on Monday, as well as an article in today’s Daily Mirror) – I have written a book based on my experiences as a Head of girls’ schools for the past 12+ years. I decided to call it ‘Decoding Your 21st Century Daughter’, as I have been struck most over the past decade by the significant differences that exist between the world in which our teenagers live now, and the world inhabited by their parents. Parenting has always been challenging – no-one is ever really prepared for parenthood! – but it has been brought home to me on innumerable occasions just how challenging the process is at this moment in our history. Never before has it been so hard, nor have the stakes been so high. If we don’t get it right with our teenagers, we will not solve the massive issues facing the world at this present time.

And it is especially hard for girls. Teenage girls today are bombarded with often conflicting messages about what they should do, how they should behave, and what is expected of them. They are part of an evolving social history, as our drive towards greater fairness and gender equality continues to unfold, but they are, too, just trying to be ‘them’, to find out who they are, and what they want to be, and we should never underestimate what is involved in this process.

Given this backdrop – and given my role in education, during which I have seen and helped guide the development of thousands of young people, particularly girls – I wanted to share the wisdom I have accumulated, which I share with parents at my school at every opportunity. It is important that we listen to others and learn from others; how else does the human race move on in its understanding? I wanted too to give some practical solutions, and to offer reassurance and guidance. Teenage years are such turbulent years that they can take even seasoned parents by surprise, let alone parents who are experiencing this for the first time.

I wrote most of the book over Christmas, and have been revising it since in the odd moments I get in between all the other glorious happenings of my life. The process was a demanding one, but a satisfying one; now, the future of the book lies in the hands of publishers. Watch this space!

May 06

What can we do to promote a culture of kindness in society?

If you read my comments in today’s Mail on Sunday – “Top headmistress says social networking and public rows between celebs are causing a generation of mean girls”, you will see that I am warning against the culture of nastiness that often pervades our online (and real-life) world. Why this is aimed more at women than at men – women’s appearance, women’s life choices, women’s relationships – is an unfortunate and depressing indictment of the state of our society today, in which there are still strong undercurrents of misogyny, sexism and chauvinism (witness the debate on girls’ schools which raged last week in the national press – see The Times and The Daily Telegraph, but also see my blog on the subject, which received hundreds of visits).

Depressing, yes, but there are positives. We must remind ourselves sometimes that we are still in a period of social transition, and that we have not yet, for instance, reached the 100 year anniversary of women (some women) gaining the vote in this country. Vast changes have happened in the past century in women’s education, women’s rights and gender equality in all aspects of our world. Yet changes of this nature take time to embed, and it takes imagination and determination to alter mindsets – both our own and those of others. This is happening – bastions of male privilege are dying out, and women’s mentoring schemes are blossoming, to give but a brief overview. There is much still to be done to address gender pay gaps, the dearth of women MPs, the number of women in senior positions … but we are moving in the right direction, and at least the legal and regulatory frameworks are in place (though not, as yet, in many countries in the developing world).

And many schools – and many parents – are playing their part. If you read beyond the headline in the Mail on Sunday, you will see that I emphasise that schools teach about “give and take”, which is one of the fundamental principles upon which societies are founded – tolerance of others, and the acceptance of difference, as well as kindness and generosity to others and the acknowledgement (put into practice) that we are bound to act not just for ourselves but for the good of those around us – locally, nationally and globally. This is how societies work; these principles will ensure our survival as a human race. Schools and families are crucial to the embedding of these values.

What makes it hard for schools and families is a powerful and pervasive backdrop in the world around them and their children that presents a culture that is at odds with the culture we need to move forward successfully. Societies work because they seek to overcome and guard against selfish impulses of individuals. We are all prone, of course, to bouts of selfishness, of regressing to our baser human nature; what makes it difficult for young people in particular as they grow up is if they see this sort of behaviour glorified by the false gods of our society – the rich and famous, the celebrities and those with a strong public presence in the media. When this is coupled with the features of the online world that have yet to be properly regulated – its capacity to bombard us with a stream of untempered messages, and its perceived anonymity – then we have a toxic mixture that is both seductive and overwhelming. No wonder it is hard for parents and teachers to get their messages across.

So … we have to continue to work hard to get this balance right. We need to recognise what messages are being sent to our young people, and we need to highlight the effect that this is happening. “Moral vacuum” is not too strong a phrase to use in many instances. And then we need to work with a passion to compensate for this, to make sure that our young people receive the strong messages they need to be able to make a positive difference in the world.

And we need to be doing this now. For one day we will discover that tomorrow will be too late.

 

May 05

The preciousness of life

I have just returned from the annual UK Boarding Schools Association Heads’ Conference in Bristol – conveniently close to home, although it was a delight to meet two of my new Australian fellow Heads, for whom it was not particularly close, but who had made the effort to come and connect. The opening speaker was Libby Purves, the broadcaster and writer, who has experienced boarding from a number of different perspectives, as parent and child, and whose book ‘Parenting the Boarder’ is an essential read for parents whose children are headed to the great world of boarding school.

At one point in her talk, which was – as you would expect – full of amusing and pithy anecdotes and thoughts on the life of teenagers in general, she mentioned Stephen Spender’s poem, ‘I Think Continually of Those who were Great’, and these words stuck with me:

What is precious is never to forget
The delight of the blood drawn from ancient springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth;
Never to deny its pleasure in the simple morning light,
Nor its grave evening demand for love;
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

In the midst of our busy lives we often forget to stop, look up and around, and to value the breadth, and above all depth, of our world and our existence in it. We can find ourselves so caught up in daily activity and so enmeshed in our ‘to do’ lists that we overlook some of the most precious parts of our life. This poem – these words – remind us to stop, take stock, and breathe in the air around us. As we move on in life, we should experience a flowering, a blossoming, an enrichening – not a smothering … but unless we are careful, this is exactly what happens.

So … a simple, mindful task today: stop and breathe. Feel the joy of life. And then teach this to others.

 

May 01

Is Susie Orbach right to be optimistic?

I have just been re-reading Susie Orbach’s article in the Guardian, published on 20th April, and I feel rather buoyed up by the experience. Writing about the Body Confidence Awards which took place in the House of Commons earlier that week, she drew attention, of course, to the grip which the ‘beauty’ industry has on society, and the effects that this has on girls and women in particular. She reminded us of this year’s survey by GirlGuiding UK, which revealed that 95% of teenage girls wanted to change some aspect of their appearance, and she was blunt in her summary of what has happened in our society: ‘We have moved from a position in which the joys of decoration have turned into a command of transformation and the production of a body that can fit.’

And yet there is hope on the horizon. One of the speakers at the debate held at St Mary’s Calne last Monday suggested that the greater popularity of the television programme ‘The Voice’ compared to ‘X Factor’ was down to the fact that the public was beginning to appreciate talent over appearance – in ‘The Voice’, as you will know, the judges make their decisions based only on what they can hear, and not what they can see. It may be too early to tell – ‘The Voice’ benefits, no doubt, from its novelty value, and we should not overlook the fact that sometimes the looks on the judges’ faces as they turn and look at the act they have rejected often seem to betray a regret that they had not chosen on sight. We still, after all, live in a world where people are continually astonished that Susan Boyle, who does not fit a conventional model of ‘beauty’, can actually sing so amazingly well.

But the seed is planted, and this seed is what Susie Orbach senses in her article. In the years since she wrote ‘Fat is a Feminist Issue’, very little has seemed to change for women in respect of the attention paid to their appearance; if anything, the attention has grown more intense and the judgements harsher. Could change now be around the corner? The Body Confidence Awards may be just what we need. As Susie Orbach puts it, ‘Of course awards ceremonies don’t change the world, but they highlight the importance of initiatives that would otherwise go unrecognised. They illuminate what’s possible. They insist that things can be different. They acknowledge that there is an answer to the distress and self-critical attitude that daughters, sisters, mothers, brothers and grandmothers carry. They challenge the priming and mining of women’s bodies as commodities to be exploited.’

Quite so. The debate is growing stronger and more audible. This is how perceptions are changed and the world evolves. Let us keep on talking.

PS Do read my letter in today’s Guardian as well – society, it would appear, is open to these ideas. Onwards …

Apr 28

Why should girls’ schools have to make their case? A riposte to Lord Lucas

If you read today’s Times or Telegraph, you will see headlines that suggest that girls’ schools are a dying breed: ‘Pull your socks up or you’ll die out, peer tells girls’ schools’; ‘Girls’ schools ‘going out of fashion’, expert warns’ – although the print edition of The Times has the rather more accurate headline “Girls’ schools give chauvinist peer a lesson in single-sex education”. Read the articles themselves and you will realise that they contain the opinions – and generally only the opinions – of Lord Ralph Lucas, peer and executive editor of the Good Schools’ Guide; if you read carefully, you may well be able to detect a base of underlying prejudice and – to put it mildly – chauvinism, which warrants further exploration and rebuttal. Lord Lucas visited St Mary’s Calne on Monday at our invitation, to meet girls from a number of girls’ schools and to adjudicate two debates, experience a presentation and participate in a discussion on ‘Girls’ Schools in the 21st Century’. Not a single person at that event was in any way convinced by his views; discerning readers of The Times and Telegraph should not be either.

All of us from time to time fall into the trap of thinking that newspapers provide us solely with facts and ‘truth’; in actual fact, however, newspapers are designed to stimulate thinking and to promote debate – all elements of a healthy society. All the journalists I have met have been smart, intelligent people who write well and often provocatively, challenging the reader to interpret what they see in front of them. Little space exists for lengthy balanced essays, and journalists have to make decisions about what to include in order to encourage reaction. This is why you won’t find in either of today’s articles a number of statistics that are publically available and that support the choice of parents to send their daughters to all girls’ schools:

  • In 2011, 22.3% of A Level exam entries from girls in Girls’ Schools Association (‘GSA’) schools were awarded the top A* grade, as compared with 18.3% from girls from co-educational independent schools.
  • 59.6% of A Level exam entries from GSA girls were awarded grade A or higher (ie A / A*) in 2011, as compared with 52.8% from girls from co-educational independent schools.
  • Compared to all girls nationally, in GSA schools over 70% more girls took A Level maths; over 50% more girls took a science at A Level; over 90% more girls took a physical science (physics or chemistry) at A Level; and over 80% more girls studied French, German or Spanish at A Level.
  • 95% of sixth formers in independent girls’ schools go on to higher education and 92.5% to university. This is the highest university transition rate in the independent schools sector.
  • Eight of the top 10 places in the 2011 Times A Level league table are GSA schools.

Moreover, Lord Lucas’s own Good Schools’ Guide website lists evidence, drawing on their own research, that shows that girls do better academically in all girls’ schools. Convincing stuff.

Single-sex education is in demand; figures about numbers of schools are spurious, as an analysis of the latest ISC census shows that of all the girls who attend Independent Schools Council accredited schools, almost 40% attend Girls’ Schools Association schools. Between the years of 7 and 11, 40-43% of all ISC schools teach those children in single-sex environments, even in Sixth Form. There is a strong argument here, too, for parental choice – girls’ schools should be part of a range of options for parents looking to educate their daughters; without them, the educational scene is a far less healthy place.

These arguments for all girls’ schools are supported by a strong social argument – that teenage years are a turbulent time, when girls and boys benefit from taking some time, as part of their co-education existence in this world of constant communication in which they are all busily engaged – to build relationships with their own gender, to understand themselves, to learn to like themselves and value themselves for who they are. Gigi Perry, Head Girl at St Mary’s, spoke fluently and articulately about this on Monday, as did a great girl from Burgess Hill who compared from her direct experience the greater freedom and opportunities available to girls in all girls’ schools. Gigi also commented astutely, after the event, about the inbuilt prejudices that she and her contemporaries had witnessed: ‘The general consensus was that given his level of influence, it was hypocritical (and unfair) to emphasise the need for girls schools to try harder to ‘break the glass ceiling’/challenge the stereotype, as it is something that can only be done if people in his position are on board to push the changes through as well.’

And this is the crux of it. Why should girls’ schools, more than any other type of school, have to prove a rationale for their existence? Would we ask the same of a co-ed school, for instance? Or would we just assume that they had no case to make? What does this actually say about the inbuilt prejudices that our society continues to hold about places of education for women? Girls’ schools are vibrant, warm exciting, aspirational seats of learning. They prepare girls exceptionally well for the fulfilling lives that lie ahead of them. Clearly – as can be deduced from both of today’s articles – girls’ schools still also need to help to prepare girls for a world in which they are still going to have to face the inbuilt prejudices about women of a society that is still in transition, still coming to terms with gender equality. The legislation may be in place, but there is still much that needs to be done to overcome ancient views of women, and girls need to be prepared to challenge these.

Lord Lucas confessed that he was impressed with the girls he met, and they were indeed  all extremely impressive in their forthrightness, their ability to see and understand the world, and their commitment to make the most of their lives and to make the world a better place. Take a moment to look at the photo in the Times – those fantastic girls are the future of the world. And they all come from a girls’ school.

Apr 25

The teacher taught – how I was inspired by my girls last week

Morning assemblies at St Mary’s Calne are often taken entirely by the girls, from seating the school to the notices at the end, with words of wisdom in the middle, and I experienced a particularly great and moving assembly on Saturday last week. The subject was Christy Brown, the celebrated author who was born with cerebral palsy in 1932, in the days before treatments and therapies were even thought possible, and who, as he learned how to communicate, detailed his feelings and thoughts in his literary works, and most notably in his autobiography, My Left Foot, which was turned into a critically acclaimed film starring Daniel Day-Lewis. I had heard of the book and the film, but had never found time to read or see them; that very evening, inspired by the girls, and thanks to a request I made to our wonderful school librarian, swiftly fulfilled, I was able to read the book.

I read it in one go. I had to sacrifice some sleep to do so, but it was a sacrifice worth making. The message of the book is both moving and inspirational: it takes you inside the trapped mind of the author, and explores his feelings, his moments of realisation that he was different, his determination to succeed in communicating, and his frustrations. His mother’s influence on his progress is palpable, and the reader cannot fail but to be full of admiration for her. It was an astonishing read.

I discovered as I read that the synopsis given by the girls in their presentation was spot on in its accuracy of the messages communicated by Christy Brown’s life and work. They went further, in fact, and pointed out that his life did not have a particularly happy ending, and thus they reflected the realities of our world, which does not always finish as fairytales do. They emphasised, though, the value of hard work – and it is always good to hear one’s own messages reflected back from those whom one seeks to inspire. What mattered to me, however, was the gift that they had given me. I was the teacher taught, the inspirer inspired, and I gained enormously from their presentation.

As a postscript, I spent Saturday afternoon listening to the Chamber Choir sing David Bednall’s Requiem in Keble College in Oxford, and this was another emotional performance, boosted by the presence of around 20 former girls, who rejoined the choir for this great occasion. As the sounds lifted to the heavens, the sun smiled down upon us. It was a magnificent day, a beautiful day, a day full of hope for the girls and the world in which they and we live. I felt supremely blessed.

Thank you so much for everything, girls!

Apr 23

Body Confidence winners! ‘Body Image in the Primary School’: clear, practical and straight to the point

Congratulations to Nicky Hutchinson and Chris Calland, speakers at the last November’s GSA conference, who won the award for Education at last week’s Body Confidence Awards for their book, ‘Body Image in the Primary School’. It is a great book, aimed at teachers in primary schools who have responsibility for personal and social development, and the main body of the text consists of practical lesson plans, but I would recommend it to every parent for the first three introductory chapters and the final resources section alone; besides, it can only help the cause of developing positive body image if parents can see, and support, what schools might be teaching their daughters and sons about how to develop resilience in this respect.

The pressures in our society on young people are shocking, and the authors of this book highlight clearly and concisely a range of research studies which indicate how these pressures have grown over the last century, and how this has led to a rise in eating disorders. Children as young as nine and ten – and younger – are showing a ‘disturbing level of anxiety about the about their weight and their physical appearance’ (p5) because of the sheer volume of messages they receive each day: ‘a young person today is thought to be exposed to more images of physical perfection in one day than a young woman one or two generations ago would have seen throughout her entire adolescence’ (p2). It is no wonder that the effect is overwhelming – and as educators and parents of young people, we should take this potential for psychological harm very seriously indeed.

The core of this book is the development of a ‘body image curriculum’ suitable for use in primary schools. Although the focus often of our concern as a society lies in teenage girls, in fact it stands to reason that the messages that girls – and increasingly boys – receive in their early, primary age years, form the basis of their teenage behaviour, and the sooner these are tackled, the better. This body image curriculum focuses on self-esteem, with lessons exploring the importance of being yourself, as well as examining pressures to look a certain way. Particularly excellent is the interspersing of these messages with the development of tools to enable children to recognise that images in the media are not always what they seem. The lesson plans are clear, imaginative, practical and eminently do-able, allowing the evolution of a creative narrative; it is perfectly obvious that the authors are real teachers.

Parents in search of advice should read Chapter 3, ‘The role of parents and carers’, which is a wake-up call to all parents. Our own thoughts and feelings about appearance and body image are transferred, often unconsciously, to our children, and we need to be very aware of the impact that this is having. As the book puts it, ‘Children who observe their mothers’ pursuit of thinness and dieting often internalise these same goals’ (p13). Parents need to exhibit positive attitudes about appearance, discuss openly with children the pressures placed on them by the media, and not be afraid to monitor their children’s access to technology.

Ultimately, we all want the best for our children, and their emotional health and well-being will come at the top of the list for most parents. The more we can do to support children in growing up able to manage the pressures around them about their appearance, the better.

‘Body Image in the Primary School’ is an excellent step along the way. It is also one of the clearest and most informative resource books I have read in a long time. Every primary school should have one – and the sooner, the better.

Apr 21

The Chimp Paradox

I am in the process of reading Dr Steve Peters’ book on mind management, ‘The Chimp Paradox’. It comes highly recommended, as Dr Peters is a consultant psychiatrist who has worked since 2001 with the British Cycling team and has obviously taken their achievements to great heights during this time. A ringing endorsement by Sir Chris Hoy is stamped on the front cover of my copy: ‘The mind programme that helped me win my Olympic Golds’.

Dr Peters’ model is for achieving success in life is based around an understanding of the human brain and how it works, and he focuses on three particular parts of the brain (or, as he describes it, three of the seven brains that make up what we usually describe as our brain – the frontal brain (which he calls the ‘Human’ brain), the parietal brain (which he calls the Computer), and the limbic brain, the primitive brain in side each of us, which he calls the ‘Chimp’ brain. It is this brain – the emotional machine within us – that can cause us to act in ways that we think we shouldn’t, and I was very struck when I read this key point he makes at an early point in the book (page 11, in fact): ‘You are not responsible for the nature of your Chimp, but you are responsible for managing it.’

He is absolutely right, of course – we need to take responsibility for our actions, and we cannot simply blame someone else, or our ‘natural instincts’, or any such aspect of our emotional being, when we do things which harm others. Nor is it our inalienable right to do whatever we choose, without respecting boundaries, when we are with and around others. It is up to us to manage ourselves. In fact, this concept transfers to society as well – as a social grouping, be it local, or national, or global, we cannot be responsible for the essence of our emotional natures, but we can and should be responsible for managing ourselves and others so that we can all function harmoniously. All too often we shy away from thinking along these lines, for fear that we will impinge on the liberty of our fellow human beings, when in fact we need to recognise that to enable others (and ourselves) to live and work together with ease and freedom, we must manage and work within boundaries.

The concept of society is a fascinating one. Undeniably, we are drawn together as human beings in social groups, and what differentiates us from chimpanzees is the wisdom to learn how to manage these groups. This is what we should be teaching in schools.

Back to Dr Peters’ book now …