Muddy Stilettos


<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/HHfinal-109.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-65399" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/HHfinal-109.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/HHfinal-109-600x400.jpg 600w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/HHfinal-109-787x525.jpg 787w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption>Heather Hanbury </figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-do-you-say-to-the-argument-that-girls-schools-are-irrelevant-in-a-co-ed-society">What do you say to the argument that girls’ schools are irrelevant in a co-ed society?</h2>



<p>I think they’re more relevant now than they’ve ever been. There’s a huge amount of evidence that indicates that when girls are educated in co-ed environments, they underperform and under-contribute compared to the boys, which is in contrast to how they perform and achieve in single-sex environments.</p>



<p>Research data shows that if girls are exposed to high-achieving boys in the classroom, they’re apt to set their own educational goals lower so that they&#8217;re not so ‘exposed’ in front of the boys &#8211; but if they’re in classrooms with high-achieving females, they’re more likely to compete and pursue their educational goals and be more ambitious. They’re keen to do better, they don&#8217;t mind taking risks and following their own interests.</p>



<p>We know, for example, that the percentage of girls selecting A-level Sciences and Maths is much higher in single-sex schools than it is in co-ed schools, where both boys and girls feel more pressured to stick to traditional stereotypical A-level choices. Also, what many parents aren’t aware of is data that shows that in a co-ed class even the best teachers end up interacting more with the boys – between 10-30% more attention is paid to boys than girls in a co-ed classroom, particularly in science and maths.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Choosing a school has to be more than straight academics these days though, right?</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-School-Alevel-Chemistry-pennybirdandcamera-50486.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-65442" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-School-Alevel-Chemistry-pennybirdandcamera-50486.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-School-Alevel-Chemistry-pennybirdandcamera-50486-600x400.jpg 600w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-School-Alevel-Chemistry-pennybirdandcamera-50486-787x525.jpg 787w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p>In a girls’ school, what the girls learn is not just academic. They learn that they&#8217;re in charge, they’re listened to, they’re respected, and they have to be leaders right the way through the school &#8211; from head girl to form captain, to club leader. They see themselves as decision-makers and instigators of new and interesting things. And what this means is they leave school and go out into the world expecting to be listened to and feeling as though they have every right to become leaders and innovators rather than ‘knowing their place’. If they don&#8217;t learn this at school it&#8217;s going to be very late to learn it in the real world.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What are the qualities that you try to instil in the girls in your school?</h2>



<p>We enable them to be risk-takers and have a go at things even where they fear they might fail or not win – to live with that and learn to be resilient to it and pick themselves up and carry on to the next challenge. Boys perhaps could do with a bit of this as well, but I think girls need it more; an encouragement away from perfectionism, away from the view that if they aren&#8217;t first and ‘perfect’ they’re not good enough. One of my sayings at school is that the search for perfection is the enemy of achievement. If you spend too much time trying to<br>make one thing perfect, what are all the other things you could’ve been doing that didn&#8217;t get done because you were too busy perfecting something from 70 per cent to 80 per cent, when 70 per cent would have been enough?</p>



<p>We also want our girls to believe that they can be authentically themselves. They don&#8217;t have to act like a man to be successful; they can be quietly confident &#8211; or maybe not-so-quietly confident &#8211; in their own abilities. I talk about my pupils being ‘appropriately proud of real achievement’ – this is the opposite of arrogance, it’s recognising things you&#8217;re good at and being confident and proud of them and also having a sense of perspective – it’s not the end of the world if you get a B in your exam, or don’t hit 10 out of 10 in your French vocab test.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Do you think that parents help or hinder this sense of perspective that girls need so much?</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-Junior-School-Teepee-0W6A2498.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-65444" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-Junior-School-Teepee-0W6A2498.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-Junior-School-Teepee-0W6A2498-600x400.jpg 600w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-Junior-School-Teepee-0W6A2498-787x525.jpg 787w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p>Many parents today are dedicated to their children’s happiness and joy and are there to helicopter over them, both boys and girls, to make sure that nothing possibly goes wrong. In many ways this undermines the children because they begin to think that they can&#8217;t cope unless their parents step in and fix things, but they need to learn that they have the confidence, or can build the confidence, to fix it for themselves. I&#8217;ve come across examples in the past where parents would turn up at university interviews and expect to be able to go in and talk to the tutor, or phone their children&#8217;s prospective employer to make sure that they&#8217;re going to be properly looked after for their learning difficulties, or their sensitivity to this, that, or the other. It’s laughable, but it&#8217;s true!</p>



<p>Not huge numbers of parents would go to that extreme, but it is remarkable how many parents really struggle to cope with the idea that their children are going to fail sometimes. They all buy into this idea about how learning to fail is part of learning, and it&#8217;s all really valuable, but as soon as their daughter isn&#8217;t chosen for the first team, or doesn&#8217;t get a good part in the play, all of a sudden, it&#8217;s not a good thing to fail after all. All it does is undermine the children&#8217;s own sense of their ability to take control of and manage their own lives, to make their own mistakes and sort them out for themselves.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">If parents are considering a girls’ school, what should they be looking for or asking if they go for an open day?</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-Juniors-football-0W6A3667.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-65443" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-Juniors-football-0W6A3667.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-Juniors-football-0W6A3667-600x400.jpg 600w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-Juniors-football-0W6A3667-787x525.jpg 787w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p>I know this is going sound weird, but I&#8217;m struggling to answer that question, because every good school in the land will give you the same answer to the important questions about how they manage a child lacking confidence or one that’s particularly talented, a child who is being bullied or indeed is the bully, a child who is underperforming or working too hard. I can&#8217;t overemphasise the need to visit the school and see it on an ordinary school day. Open days are lovely and they&#8217;re very entertaining but they&#8217;re not the real school. It’s about<br>seeing the normal routine Monday morning, or visiting near the end of the term when everybody&#8217;s a bit tired but you notice that the girls are still all engaged in lessons and having good interactions with each other and with their teacher, that there&#8217;s lots of action and that there isn’t a pervading silence &#8211; schools shouldn&#8217;t be silent places. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">One of the big criticisms of single sex schools is that the girls and boys never learn to mix naturally. Discuss!</h2>



<p>It&#8217;s a bit of a red herring to suggest that the girls don&#8217;t know what to do with boys. It might have been the case in some schools 30 years ago where you never clapped eyes on a boy if you were in an all-girls’ school but it’s really not like that anymore. There are plenty of boys out there, and social media has made it so easy for pupils from different schools and areas to mix. These days most girls’ schools have very good relationships with the local boys’ schools. At Lady Eleanor Holles School, where I’m the head teacher, we have a boys’ school literally next door and we share a coach service with them, so they know each other right from the earliest of years, and we do lots of activities together that increase as they go up the age groups. It’s a perfect combination &#8211; a lot of interaction with boys, but they don&#8217;t have to have boys in their classrooms. The girls are in an environment which is entirely dedicated and where we are experts in getting the best out of them.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Where do you see girls’ schools 10 years from now?</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-School-Betsey.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-65445" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-School-Betsey.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-School-Betsey-600x400.jpg 600w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LEH-School-Betsey-787x525.jpg 787w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p>I&#8217;ve been a head at girls’ schools for the last 15 years &#8211; nine years at Lady Eleanor Holles and six years before that at Wimbledon High and I’ve definitely seen girls’ schools have a resurgence in recent years – we’re certainly seeing our numbers go up. In the past there was a tendency for parents to see girls’ schools as caring but in an unchallenging way. Girls’ schools have shifted their emphasis completely – we’re challenging and exciting and building the confidence in young women to be outgoing, to be trailblazers and real changemakers in the world. Not to just do whatever makes them comfortable, but to push them out of their comfort zone. It’s not about keeping wings clipped &#8211; these days it’s all about enabling the girls to fly.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Win five pairs of designer Natural Grace leggings worth £475!</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="997" height="1000" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-09.02.08-997x1000.png" alt="" class="wp-image-65539" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-09.02.08-997x1000.png 997w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-09.02.08-598x600.png 598w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-09.02.08-300x300.png 300w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-09.02.08-523x525.png 523w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-09.02.08.png 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 997px) 100vw, 997px" /></figure>



<p>We&#8217;ve joined forces with the Girls&#8217; Schools Association to give away FIVE pairs of swish designer leggings from athletics brand <a href="https://www.naturalgraceldn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Natural Grace</a>, co-owned by GSA alumni and track athlete Grace Osborne. <a href="https://muddystilettos.co.uk/reader-treats/feel-fit-win-5-pairs-of-designer-natural-grace-leggings-worth-475/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Enter here</a>! </p>



<p><em>Heather Hanbury is President of the <a href="https://gsa.uk.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Girls’ Schools Association</a>, which represents the heads of a diverse range of UK girls’ day and boarding schools, including some of the top-performing schools in the UK.</em></p>


Are girls’ schools more important than ever?

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