Blog posts for ‘Media Influence’ 
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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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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...
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Perhaps it is society not schools which fails boys
Wednesday 9 January 2013
Categories: Education, Higher Education, Media Influence, Politics
David Willetts, the universities minister, spoke earlier this week about how few white working-class boys go on to study at university. He called this “the culmination of a decades-old trend in our education system which seems to make it harder for boys and men to face down the obstacles in the way of learning … That is a challenge for all policymakers and all parties.“
Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, which represents 24 of the country’s most selective...
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Time to look beyond the mirror
Thursday 15 November 2012
Categories: Media Influence, Role Models, Self-esteem
1st November marked the start of Positive Image Month and the launch of a brilliant new campaign – to encourage each and every one of us to donate an hour to help someone else realise that it is who they are who matters, not what they look like. This isn’t an anti-beauty or anti-fashion campaign – it is just, quite simply, the start of an amazing movement to help us all recapture what really matters in life and to remember that it is not all about what we look like, but what we do and...
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Don't believe everything you read...
Tuesday 6 November 2012
Categories: Education, Media Influence, Politics
Whenever I read a media report on a topic where I am genuinely informed, I am always struck by how far from the mark it lands. General assumptions, amateur speculation and, at worse, factual inaccuracies occur. It makes me worry that I may be totally misled in areas where I am not in a privileged position in terms of my own knowledge.
However, I do suspect that education and the profession of teaching in particular, are coming in for an exceptionally raw deal at the moment. In the last...
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International Day of the Girl
Thursday 11 October 2012
Categories: Girls' schools, Growing up, Literacy, Media Influence, Personal Safety, Teenagers
Today, Thursday 11th October 2012, is the very first International Day of the Girl, and it is most definitely worth celebrating.
How this came about was in part because of extensive lobbying of the United Nations by Plan UK (part of Plan International), the charity which we have been supporting in school over the past 2 years, and it makes complete sense to have a day that focuses solely on girls across the world. Although it is easy for us to forget this, girls across the world face...
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Not so much a problem but an opportunity!
Friday 5 October 2012
Categories: Careers, Girls' schools, Media Influence, Role Models, Science
Here’s a way for your daughter to get ahead – study Physics. Then she’ll be one of a precious few women with the specialist knowledge and understanding of this fascinating world. In a very few years, there will be employers begging to employ female scientists and physicists.
Why? Because research shows just how few are taking up the subject – in half of the UK’s state co-ed schools not a single girl took A Level physics in 2011. Mind you, the picture is very different in...
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Who does your daughter look up to?
Monday 24 September 2012
Categories: Careers, Media Influence, Role Models
I was very pleased on Thursday night of this week to take part in an ITV Tonight programme about role models for girls and young women, hosted by Penny Marshall: Who does your daughter look up to?. This programme looked at the lack of role models for women, and the evidence that suggests that this absence is damaging aspirations for girls. It was an excellent and thought-provoking programme, and this issue is one of the most important challenges facing girls and young women today if they...
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Olympic legacy
Thursday 9 August 2012
Categories: Extra curricular, Health, Media Influence, Role Models
I have a dream, a personal vision of what our wonderful Olympics’ legacy should be.
When Seb Coe and his team pitched for the Olympics he painted a picture of winning London bid which would be inspirational for our youth so that its legacy would be a generation of sport-loving, healthy girls and boys, and adults too.
I loved how the fabulous opening ceremony put youth centre stage. I believe Tessa Jowell’s suggestion that every primary school should have a specialist P.E. teacher is...
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Subway or the wrong way?
Friday 20 July 2012
Categories: Education, Health, Media Influence
Is a school in Greater Manchester taking a thoroughly modern and sensible approach to providing its students with appealing grub? It is in talks with Subway, the fast food sandwich chain, about opening a franchise for its sixth form. If a deal is reached sixth formers at Parrs Wood High School will have a wider choice of food on site and can make informed choices about eating healthily. Subway’s slogan is “Eat fresh” and the firm have signed the Government’s Responsibility Deal which...