Aug 22

Universities – have they lost their way?

An article in yesterday’s Sunday Times argued convincingly that a university degree was no longer the route to secure employment that it has previously been, and indeed is still reputed to be. When asked in a poll by ICM for Santander, only 20% of employers said that they would be more likely to consider a recent graduate for a job rather than a school leaver with 3 years’ experience. This ties in with the research conducted by the 1994 group of leading universities earlier this year; although they sought gamely to show that a university degree was still worth the effort, the fact that stood out was that a full 3 years after graduating, 1 in 5 university leavers still does not have a graduate-level job.

Why on earth is this the case? We have some world-class universities in the UK, and a degree from a UK university should be the route to recognition and career success. The fact that this is increasingly not the case suggests that something has gone very badly awry with the system. Moreover, outstanding candidates with excellent grades, destined for further academic study, should be able to find a place at university, and not be left in the margins. Where has it all gone wrong?

The core, of the problem, of course, is our under-investment as a nation in a wide range of training and employment opportunities to suit all 18 year olds, which has been disguised by an apparently noble desire to raise aspirations of our teenagers. The academic route – which of course starts with GCSE and A Level – has steadily been built up over the past few decades to be seen as the only route to social mobility, and has become the focus for school leavers, to the exclusion of other opportunities; conveniently so, as there are few other opportunities. Where are the apprenticeships and training courses? And why – although we know that professions and trades are essential to our economy – are we not investing in them?

This notion that value lies only in a university education has been promoted by generations of politicians, and Michael Gove declared last year that he will not abandon Labour’s target of 50% of school leavers going to university. This would be admirable if schools were preparing students to be high level academic thinkers – the engineers and scientists that the country needs – but in practice, as the number of ‘soft’ subjects at A Level has grown, so too has the range and number of ‘soft’ subjects at university, to accommodate the needs of the school leavers themselves, who have nowhere else to turn if they wish to develop themselves professionally.

The existence in Clearing last Thursday of university degrees in ‘Watersports’, most of which have now been allocated to aspiring students, says it all. Universities have been dumbing down, rather than schools sharpening up, or the country broadening out its expectations of what we want from our young people. Where, now, is a plumber when you need one? And are we really doing all our young people a favour by insisting that the only route to success is via a course at university?

Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial deserve their positions at the top of university world league tables, and many other universities come close. Many do not. As school leavers are shoehorned into universities, an inevitable consequence is that resources are spread more thinly, and we are beginning to see now that places are simply not available for our best students, who should be taking their academic study to the next level. This must, in part at least, be due to a diversion away from strong academic subjects.

We have got the balance wrong; universities are losing their way. Let’s use the debate on tuition fees to work out the real value of a university course and help set it right.

PS The Sunday Times article mentions that 5 St Mary’s Calne girls have been left without places as a result of the rush for university this year. These girls will be just fine; one or two of them will in fact most probably gain their first choice places once their papers have been re-graded, and for the others, we are working with them to ensure that they do not sell themselves short by taking just any course at just any university. If this means taking a gap year – in which they can build up valuable work and life experience anyway – then this is what they will do. The time and effort that we spend making certain that our leavers find the best direction for them as individuals is a model from which universities might learn.

Aug 20

Sex and power: 70 years until equality?

Amongst all the high emotions and press coverage of the A Levels and university entrance last week, a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission slipped right under the radar. This report, entitled ‘Sex and Power’, looked at the number of women in power or influence in Britain in 2010-11, and compared it with previous years, looking at trends and predicting as a result the trajectories of female involvement in 27 key occupations over the next few decades.

The figures were worrying: although 17 of the 27 categories showed an increase in women at the top compared to 2007-8, these increases were small, and still did not come close to being at the same level of representation as men. In 10 of the categories, there had actually been a drop compared to 2007-2008, and given that these groups included members of Cabinet, health service executives and public appointments, all of which are roles which seek to represent fairly the wider population (including the 51% of women this contains), then we are right to be concerned.

The report stressed the (sometimes depressingly) slow progress that is happening in the field of gender equality. It estimated that with current trends, it will take 30 years to achieve equality between men and women holding positions as senior police officers, 45 years for the same to happen with the senior judiciary, and 70 years to achieve an equal number of women MPs and women directors in the FTSE 100.

70 years is a long time – 3 generations, almost, into an unforeseeable future. Look at how much the world has changed in the last 70 years, since 1941 – change almost beyond belief. With memories of our history still very vivid in our collective memories, however, we can acknowledge and understand why there are still inequalities in our society: we are still very much a society in transition towards greater fairness and gender understanding. Yet today, in 2011, in our world, we have the structures – the laws, the shared public understanding – very firmly in place for absolute equality and fairness, so why is change taking so long?

The Report is quite clear on this point: ‘Outdated working patterns and inflexible organisations continue to be major barriers to women’s participation in positions of authority.’ This is the bottom line – we are not evolving our working patterns fast enough, despite the fact that the technology and the examples of good practice both exist to do so. We need to continue to seek actively to address this, making it possible for women and men to work in a fluid environment that enables them to respond effectively and with ease to all the demands on their time, not the least of which is the important role that they have in bringing up the next generation and parenting them well.

The A Level results and the success of girls that it highlighted remind us that as a society we invest enormous amounts in the education of our young women. They are ready and more than able to contribute to the improvement of the world, and we are foolish if we continue to make it difficult for them to do so. Let’s not waste their talents.

Aug 18

Let’s celebrate A Level achievement!

Today brings news of many fantastic A Level grades, and I congratulate all the Leavers of 2011 from St Mary’s Calne. Nearly 40% of all their grades were A*s, half of them achieved an amazing full marks in one of their papers, and 1 in 5 of them is off to Oxbridge. An ENORMOUS well done to them all!

In some circles, of course, the same story as ever is doing the rounds, namely that the rise in A and A* grades must mean that exams are getting easier, that marking is less secure, and that – by extension – young people today have a much easier ride than their counterparts a decade or more ago. I do not dispute that there were some serious errors on the part of the exam boards in some of the papers this year, but this should not detract from the accomplishments of the candidates. And of course exams are different today, but this does not necessarily make them easier. I would defy anyone who took A Level French 30 years ago, for example, to achieve highly on the equivalent exam today, which at its highest levels requires near native fluency.

I can assure you that my girls most certainly deserve their grades. They have been extremely well taught, by amazing teachers; they have developed a mature focus on success; and they have fully understood that A Levels are not an end in themselves, but a means to enter Higher Education and prepare for a future career. They have worked hard, with dedication and commitment, and have also devoted considerable time to broadening their experience of life, through sports, Gold Duke of Edinburgh, music, drama, and leadership.

Moreover, these young women have learned to negotiate the pressures of the world adeptly; the pressures on young women to appear and act in certain ways are at times overwhelming, and the greatest advance any young woman can make in this respect is to recognise the pressure for what it is and decide to be true to herself. They are primed and ready to go – to universities, to gap years and then beyond, on to careers and fulfilling lives. They have graduated not just from school but from their teenage years, and they have earned a distinction.

We should not undermine their achievement, nor the achievement of any of our other young people who are receiving their results today. Now is not the time to engage in debate about curriculum failures; it is a time to reward personal endeavour.

I congratulate them all.

Aug 17

Loneliness and social networking

A survey in Yours Magazine, quoted in Monday’s Telegraph, made for sad reading. Teenagers, it said, as are lonely as the elderly because they spend more of their time on social networking websites such as Facebook than they do going out to meet real people and develop real friendships. The survey found that 6 out of 10 teenagers find it difficult to find and make friends, despite having an average of 243 ‘Friends’ on Facebook, and that they experience loneliness as a result.

This survey highlights one of the central dangers of social networking – namely that, if it is allowed to run unchecked, it can be extremely isolating, and result in fewer enriching relationships rather than more, as the medium promises. It is easy to see how anyone – let alone a teenager, who is still in the process of discovering him or herself, and working out how to relate to others – can mistake the casualness of interaction online, and the immediacy of response, for real friendship; in actual fact, although it is possible to keep up with information online, it stands to reason that it is much, much harder to maintain or develop relationships. Where are the non-verbal clues to what someone is really thinking and feeling? Where is the empathy communicated in a smile or a hug or a touch?

Facebook most certainly has its place, and at its best can enable instant communication in a way which allows people to make good use of their time to keep in touch with people with whom they would otherwise fall out of contact. But it should never replace actual ‘in person’ communication, and we need to help protect young people in particular against its excesses. This is especially the case in regard to the disconnect it can create between real and online worlds which can so easily develop: it is very easy to withdraw to an artificial world which seems in our control, at the click of a button. Teenagehood is a time for exploration and development, and an absolutely central part of this is the development of how to deal with, and live with, other people. Let’s make sure we get the message out, loud and clear, that no matter how challenging this is, it has to be done in real life, face-to-face.

Aug 15

Proud to be a Headmistress: Moira Buffini’s ‘Dinner’ at the Edinburgh Fringe

The very last show I watched at the Edinburgh Fringe before heading back south for exam results week was a show for which I had especially extended my stay in Edinburgh by a day. It was the Fringe debut of a group consisting essentially of 2011 leavers from St Mary’s Calne, presenting an adapted version of Moira Buffini’s dark comedy thriller, Dinner, and it was more than worth prolonging my holiday for. In fact, there are some moments which make being a Headmistress entirely worthwhile, and this was one of them.

The performance went extremely well, and the 23 strong audience – a great number for a first show at 11am on a Sunday morning, with practically no prior publicity – was very appreciative. If there had been a reviewer there, I reckon the show would have received a 4+ star write-up. Lily Wakeley, who played Paige, and who was one of the driving forces behind the production initially, was stunning in her role, but enormous praise must go to all of the cast for the way in which they embraced challenging themes and equally challenging characters and dialogue, drawing out the very black humour while forcing us to confront some uncomfortable truths about ourselves. The acting was superb.

They were brilliant … and I was so, so proud of them. For the most part, I have seen these girls grow from pre-teenagers through the turbulent years of teenagehood, to become poised, grounded and intelligent young women, and it is a privilege to have helped guide them along the way. They are mature, insightful, confident without being over-confident, and absolutely attuned to the world. They have strong friendships, evident in the way in which they worked together for this production. They have a strong social conscience – when they performed the play earlier in the year in Calne, they raised almost £1,000 for the Alzheimer’s Society – and they plan to make a positive mark on the world.

Girls’ schools make a difference to girls and young women; they enthuse, embolden, encourage and empower. No further proof is needed than the young women themselves, several thousand of whom across the country have graduated this summer and are ready to embark on university, gap year and career. It makes me so proud to do what I do. Watch out, world!

Aug 13

Technodelic Comedy Show: astonishing creativity and human resilience

Probably the most extraordinary show we saw at the Edinburgh Fringe this year was an incredibly fast-moving extravaganza of electronic music, video projection and light, with a futuristic feel, and an interaction between dancers and projected images that was timed absolutely to perfection. It was billed as a Comedy Show, and there was a light heartedness about it, but essentially this was an amazingly clever production in which heart pounding techno music combined with split-second timing to provide a series of sets in which electronic images were captured by living performers and manipulated in front of our eyes. A spectacular set which pried right into the life of one of the performers made a pointed comment about the intrusiveness of the online world: a timely reminder for us all.

It was a world premiere, but news was spreading fast; by the end of the week we spent in Edinburgh, it was selling out and had repeated standing ovations. It took my breath away, certainly, to see such clever, rapid movement between reality and illusion, and the concept was so novel as well as so perfectly executed that the room almost vibrated with the sense of something completely new and invented. We had never seen anything like it.

It was clear that the troupe, SIRO-A – 6 young Japanese men – had devoted enormous energy to the development of the show, and their hard work, dedication and energy sparked for all to see in the performance itself. The real story, however, lay behind this fantastical production, for these young men were all from Sendai, the Japanese city closest to the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March this year. They had sent off their application to the Fringe on the day the earthquake and tsunami struck, and despite the fact that their rehearsal studio was wrecked in the subsequent traumatic events, they made a commitment to come and show the world that they were a strong nation and would survive. Quoted in The Scotsman, the assistant producer said: ‘This is their message to the world, that this is the energy of Japan that is still alive’.

Alive it most certainly is – alive, vibrant and explosively real. It was an amazing experience to listen to and watch their performance, and humbling to acknowledge the strength, courage and resilience that underpinned it.

I know what I will be speaking about in one of my first assemblies of the new school term!

Aug 11

Edinburgh Fringe: not a supermodel in sight. A celebration of normal people.

On Tuesday I had a conversation with a journalist ahead of the A Level results which come out next week, and we ended up talking about the sexualised imagery of girls and women in our society, which is a subject that I feel very strongly about, and which I have spoken out about several times over the past few months, including on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. My main issue is that we are so uncritical about the images that surround us that we have almost sleepwalked into a situation where sexualised images have become the norm. As a society, we are subscribing uncritically to a perceived idealised image of women which is both unrealistic and, because of its prevalence and pervasiveness, actually dangerous to the mental health of our young girls and women, creating as it does a distorted picture of the world, accompanied by a huge pressure to conform.

Immediately after our conversation, and because I was thinking again about body shape and size, I was suddenly struck by something wonderful. In Edinburgh at Fringe time, there are crowds of people wherever you go. The Scotsman at the beginning of the week estimated that 2.74 million people will attend the shows of the Festival over its four week period. I would certainly count in the thousands the number of people I have seen in the streets and in venues over the past week. And yet I cannot think of a single one – not a single one! – who conforms to the idealised picture of female ‘beauty’ that is perpetuated by advertising and the media. Not a single person who could be said even remotely to resemble the kind of shape and size so frequently portrayed as ‘ideal’.

All shapes and sizes are here – all different, all unique: tall, short, wide, thin – all carrying their bodies in different ways, with different gaits, different hair, different clothes – different everything. All unique human beings with their unique characters, who are happy, relaxed and enjoying the Fringe. The point is that they are normal – beautifully quirky, individual and just normal. There is not a supermodel in sight. And that is the reality of our glorious life. Let’s celebrate normality.

Aug 09

Riots in the UK – what parents need to do to stop the violence

There were appalling scenes of violence again last night in London and other cities around the UK for the third night in a row. And there is no excuse at all for this violence – for all that Ken Livingstone tried to blame the violence on anger generated by government cuts, it is obvious to all who witnessed it that this was just criminal behaviour on the part of young men, some of them still essentially children in their early or pre-teens. Theresa May is right – this is pure criminality: no amount of anger about lack of fairness or opportunity in life justifies stealing and damage to the property of others. And if these young people do feel hard done by in life, they should go to East Africa, where they would be lucky to reach adulthood. People who are really suffering and in poverty do not have mobile phones from which they can organise flash mobs to loot and pillage. This is totally unacceptable copycat crime.

What makes these young people think that it is ok to take what isn’t theirs, to injure and destroy? What messages have they received in their lives that encourage them to feel that it is permissible to behave outside the bounds of rules and laws that are in place to help ease the workings of society? No system is perfect, and we have to keep working hard – oh, so hard – to find ways to engage all of our young people positively and fruitfully in society, for their long term wellbeing and happiness as well as the effective working of society – but we also have to be firm and strong in saying and showing that this kind of behaviour is entirely wrong. For this to happen, we must as an absolute priority make sure that we work together in schools and communities to support parents to learn how to parent and how to make sure their children have the boundaries they need to function in the world.

When boundaries are not enforced from an early age – and I mean by parents, schools and other adults in the community, and not the police, who should be the last resort to ensure law and order – then lawlessness is bound to ensue. It is never too late to start – parents, adults, members of the community all need to be clear and unequivocal in the messages they are giving out. Let’s not lose the moral high ground and express ourselves physically or verbally in anger and aggression – what message does this send out? – but let us ensure that we are crystal clear in our response, both in words and action.

If this violence doesn’t stop soon – now – then more livelihoods are going to be destroyed, more homes are going to be lost, families are going to suffer, and the chances are extremely high that people are going to be seriously injured and even killed. Parents – stop your children going out tonight. Families and communities – stand up and say ‘enough’. Citizens – follow the example of the people of Birmingham and help clean up your cities to show that togetherness and goodness will prevail. Speak out and stop this now.

Aug 08

‘An Education’: Carey Mulligan and girls’ schools

A parent of a girl at my school said to me a few weeks ago that the Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-winning 2009 film ‘An Education’, starring Carey Mulligan, should be compulsory viewing for all teenage girls, and now that I have (finally) seen it, I entirely agree. The film takes us on the journey of a highly intelligent girl, destined for Oxford, who feels that there is more to life than ‘dead’ study, and is seduced into a seemingly richer, more life-affirming existence, only to discover – the hard way – that it is little more than smoke and mirrors, and there is value to hard work after all.

The message is of course the right one – keep working hard, beware the easy path etc … just the sort of thing of which you would expect a Headmistress to approve. But what interested me too was the attitude towards girls and women which the film reflected, and which was entirely believable as a historical portrayal. Jenny’s father was determined that she should go to Oxford … but only, it emerges, so that she can marry a better match; Jenny’s mother, an understated role which reflects her subservience in the family hierarchy, reveals in one ascerbic comment to her husband that ‘she did have a life before she was married’; and the girls’ school which Jenny attends is portrayed as dry, repressed and hide-bound by rules – so much so that the Headmistress, played by the redoubtable Emma Thompson – refuses to give Jenny a second chance.

Carey Mulligan herself attended a girls’ school, and it was the making of her. She is quoted elsewhere as saying: “I had wanted to act for a really long time, but other schools I had been to did not have such good drama departments. Everyone was so encouraging. You could do anything you wanted to, although you had to take it seriously.’ This is what I personally recognise in girls’ schools today – this sense of limitless possibility and total encouragement of the individual. They are incredible places – and I make no secret of my enthusiasm.

Still, it is interesting how much prejudice remains about girls’ schools – how much people still imagine them to be ‘dry’ or ‘repressed’. To what extent is this a sign of the dying embers of the inherent sexism that has marked our education system over the centuries, with the education of boys and sons valued much more highly than that of girls and daughters? There is a very high likelihood that it is. What we must remember is not to take such prejudices at face value, and challenge them when we encounter them. Girls’ schools are amazing, and I am very proud indeed of mine.

Aug 04

The risk of not taking risks

A quietly uplifting article about Forest Schools appeared in the pages of this week’s Wednesday’s Times. If you can’t read it online, then do at least look at this website about the phenomenon of Forest Schools – this model of outdoor schools, relatively common in Scandinavia, is being adopted by a number of schools in this country, and is definitely a ‘good news’ story.

Whilst a part of us may feel a little nervous about the prospects of allowing our children to explore the outside environment unhindered by too many rules or constraints, the upsides of freedom and the development of self-regulation undoubtedly outweigh the downsides. And how exciting for the children – to be able to roam around and just explore and have fun! I am certain that enough rules must be in place to make it safe enough – otherwise I doubt that Sandfield Natural Play Centre would have been awarded an ‘outstanding’ rating by Ofsted – but the real attraction is that this is in fact a riskier environment than our children have grown used to.

The real risk, of course, in a world which we endeavour to make as ‘risk-free’ as possible for our children, is that they do not learn how to deal with risk at all. And if this world in which we live is anything, it is risky, and we need to prepare our young people for this, so that they learn how to deal with this risk safely. Catherine Prisk, head of Play England, was quoted in The Times as saying: ‘If a child is given only a safe environment to play in, they will create their own risks. If they are presented with something more risky, they take more care.’, and this struck home as an obvious truth: the more that we have had the chance to get to know ourselves as adults, the better the judgements we take – it makes perfect sense, therefore, that the more that children are exposed to situations where they have to develop independent judgements and learn to know their capacities, the more balanced and wise they are going to become.

I suspect that the university of the outdoors beckons!