To celebrate its 150th anniversary, the GSA has published Triumph Like a Girl – an anthology for hope. The book celebrates the achievements of women and girls in education, and from its youngest contributors through to retired teachers and ‘old girls’, each submission is a love letter to learning, opportunity and womanhood.
The GSA started life as the Association of Headmistresses – an organisation founded in 1874 by Dorothea Beale and Frances Buss, with the intention of improving access to education for girls. This is acknowledged in the anthology by Richard Bettsworth, ASCL director of public affairs, who writes in a letter to them: ‘Your quietly measured determination to give equal access to schooling was the starting point of our association’s history.’
‘We all owe so much to the founders and benefactors of girls’ schools, knowing that we stand on the shoulders of those pioneers who came before us. And with this knowledge comes a responsibility; to pave the way for those who follow us. There is still work to do.’
Speaking about her contribution to the book, and her new role with the GSA, Alex says that this work ‘to do’ could take another century to achieve if urgent action is not taken.
‘As of 2024, there are just 26 countries where women serve as the head of state or government,’ she explains. ‘At the current rate, gender equality at the highest level will not be reached for another 130 years – just shy of the GSA’s 300th anniversary. It’s up to us to ensure progress doesn’t take this long.’
Alex says her role as GSA president and as a headteacher is very much about promoting the benefits of choosing a girls’ school education - ‘to champion, to role model, to empower, to encourage’, and to ensure that girls continue have equal opportunities both in school and the workplace.
‘It’s about letting them know there is no such thing as a glass ceiling during their education and giving them the skills that translate from school to what comes beyond,’ she says.
Sasha, a pupil at Manchester High School for Girls cites Virgina Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Woolf’s assertion that a woman must have ‘money and a room of her own if she is to write’, and aligns this with single sex education:
‘There is a historical injustice of women being forced to squeeze into uncomfortable and disproportionate spaces, both literal and metaphorical,’ Sasha writes. ‘And although these spaces have often been comforting, open-minded, and nourishing, they have still always been far too small... the pupils of today’s girls’ schools are no longer in need of a few measly square metres in which to write fiction – or indeed to achieve any of their ambitions. Women’s education provides us with theatres in which to perform, laboratories to experiment in, closets to hide in, gardens to work in – rooms, houses, mansions, castles in which to fulfil ourselves.’
Dame Rosemary Squire, alumna of Nottingham Girls’ High School, writes with a similar sentiment in her contribution, explaining how life-changing it was for her to join an all-girls school after attending a co-ed primary: ‘With no boys around, I felt heard for the first time,’ she writes. ‘Here, there was room for listening carefully and for discussion rather than argument. Free from concerns about what boys might think or say, I had the space to work out who I really was.’
‘I hope that in the future the entire world would be equal no matter your gender. I really wish that when I am old and have grey in my hair the girls’ schools will be thriving. Also, I hope that women will dominate business and have high up positions in the world,’ Minerva concludes.
It is exactly this sort of support, encouragement and opportunity that GSA president Alex believes is key to children thriving and excelling in their educational setting. And although she comes from a STEM background herself – she read chemistry at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and was previously head of science at St Mary’s School, Ascot – she firmly believes that a successful and fulfilling education must come down to what a girl wants to study.
‘I'm absolutely a scientist, but science isn't for everyone. I'm always very clear, however much you read about STEM and girls, if it's not for you, don't pick it,’ she explains. ‘The thing that's really important is that sense of individuality and being who you want to be. And there will be girls who choose humanities, there will be girls who choose languages, and there will be those who choose science. And the important thing is the fact that they feel empowered to choose.’
It was that very sense of having those options that inspired Flossie, a pupil at The Ladies’ College Guernsey, to pen her piece for Triumph Like a Girl:
‘As women we have had to fight for rights that were simply given to men. But we are diverse, we are intelligent, we are brave, strong, creative, unique, talented – in heels, may I add. Or trainers or flats or flip flops or even tap shoes if that’s what you like,’ she writes. ‘We have the choice. We are the engineers, the artists, writers, scientists, activists, musicians, athletes, teachers, politicians, mathematicians, architects, mothers.’
‘It is not an easy world for our young people at the moment,’ she says. ‘They've got social media, they've got mobile phones, they've got all of these influences around them, and the question for us is, how do we help them navigate through this bombardment?’
The answer, she says, is for girls’ schools to continue to provide the ‘structure and the scaffolding’ that supports them through their years in education and continues to serve them into adulthood.
‘We know how good we are in terms of providing that really safe and supportive environment for the pastoral care of our young people,’ she says. ‘And we have such a strong base in terms of our research-based approach - we know that girls participate in sport for longer in girls' schools. We know there is a bigger uptake of maths and physics, and we know our girls feel really confident talking about equality and calling out sexism.’
‘We've got a fantastic platform as the GSA to really advocate for them, and to champion all those benefits.’
Find out more:
The Girls’ Schools Association is a membership association made up of heads from a diverse range of independent and state girls’ schools including many of the top performing schools in the UK. Together they educate more than 90,000 girls in the UK, and internationally, gsa.uk.com
James Allen’s Girls’ School, jags.org.uk
