MyDaughter blog 
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The dangers of sleep deprivation
Monday 20 May 2013
Categories: Health, Parenting, Technology & the Internet
A recent survey carried out by Boston College in the USA has reported that sleep deprivation ranks alongside the lack of basic nutrition as one of the causes of poor performance in school. Perhaps ironically, while poor nutrition is associated with less affluent and under-developed countries, sleep-deprived children are more likely to be found in wealthy, developed nations. USA tops the sleep deprivation table. 73% of 9 and 10 year olds and 80% of 13 and 14 year olds in USA are...
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Inspirational body confidence campaign by teenagers in York
Thursday 16 May 2013
Categories: Growing up, Health, Media Influence, Role Models, Self-esteem
I was delighted to hear a group of 13 and 14 year old girls on Radio 4 Woman’s Hour recently, speaking about their campaign to challenge the use of “stick-thin models” on billboards and in shop windows.
The girls were articulate and spoke with passion and conviction: “we want more girls to challenge these fake pictures and the prejudices they feed. It’s not fair or right to pressure girls, especially at a vulnerable age, to look a certain way and change how we look….. this is...
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Blow your own trumpet!
Thursday 9 May 2013
Categories: Girls' schools, Self-esteem, Teenagers
Last year Wimbledon High School GDST caused something of a stir when they ran their own ‘Failure Week’, encouraging the girls to think about the positive aspects of failure and how much can be gained from taking a risk and learning from the experience, rather than simply trying to avoid failure at all costs. I thought it was a powerful and valuable message to emphasise, and wrote another MyDaughter blog about it at the time: Embracing failure
This year WHS has devised another special...
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Changes to GCSEs 'will disadvantage girls'
Friday 26 April 2013
Categories: Education, Girls' schools, Politics, School curriculum
It is well-meaning, but ultimately unhelpful in my opinion to suggest that a return to a single terminal exam at GCSE will disadvantage girls because they allegedly lack the confidence to perform well when the stakes are high. To lump together all girls as timid creatures is to do all children a disservice as it perpetuates unhelpful stereotypes about girls and boys. It is time for us to see all our pupils as individuals who have different strengths and weaknesses and likes and dislikes...
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The key to a successful education? Family...
Tuesday 9 April 2013
Categories: Education, Girls' schools, Parenting
The Daily Mail recently printed an article with the headline Family, not area, is key to a child’s education . They reported on a study of attainment carried out by the London School of Economics, which concluded that a family’s attitude to a child’s education is the key to success, and is far more important than where the child lives, or how much money the family has.
I have long believed that one of the reasons independent schools are so successful is that parental buy-in is...
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Failure...a key educational experience
Wednesday 3 April 2013
Categories: Education, Letting go, Parenting, Role Models
As a teenager one of my favourite reads was Stephen Pile’s The Book of Heroic Failures, which distilled failure into humour and thus made it fit for human consumption. Failure may be funny when served with a side order of schadenfreude, but in the real world, it really isn’t all that popular at all.
Perhaps it has always been this way, perhaps I’m just noticing it more, or perhaps it’s a product of the easy A-grade culture, but I am increasingly conscious that parents don’t like their...
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Bullying - what is really going on?
Sunday 31 March 2013
Categories: Girls' schools, Politics, Self-esteem
I am fascinated, as many Headteachers must be, by the allegations of bullying within the Department for Education. The irony cannot be lost on anyone that the very institution which requires us to be on top of all such issues, seems to be falling foul of them itself.
The word itself, ‘bullying’, is hugely emotive and the onus placed upon schools to both spot and tackle this crime is, quite rightly, very heavy. We are required to have published policies, to record incidents and to manage...
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Teenage pressures - how to support your daughter
Thursday 28 March 2013
Categories: Growing up, Parenting, Sexual Relationships, Teenagers
The Telegraph recently reported on a survey conducted by the global children’s charity Plan UK which found that one in five adults believe that the pressure to become sexually active is the biggest problem facing girls at secondary school.
Do you agree? If so, and if you are the parent of a teenage girl, what can you do to help her cope with this pressure and not to engage in sexual activity with the wrong person and at the wrong time?During my years as the head of a girls’ school,...
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The secret of success...and how to help our children get there.
Monday 18 March 2013
Categories: Girls' schools, Growing up, Parenting, Self-esteem
‘Why Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character’ is a best-selling book in the US which has now been published in the UK. Hilary Wilce recently reviewed this in The Guardian, and summed up the book’s message as “Character matters. In fact it matters more than anything else when it comes to doing well in school – and life”.
This is not exactly a new message, but its author, Paul Tough, and Wilce clearly feel that it is a message which needs exploring...
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How brilliant and hard it is to be a woman in the 21st century
Monday 4 March 2013
Categories: Careers, Girls' schools, Media Influence, Role Models
I have always rather liked the quote from Madeleine Albright “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women“. These words came into my mind again last week as I caught up on the media spat that has briefly flared over the novelist Hilary Mantel’s comments about the Duchess of Cambridge. I will declare an interest in this matter from the outset: I think Hilary Mantel is a great writer and believe that ‘Wolf Hall’ will stand as one of the finest novels of the 21st...