This week, Deputy Head – Student Engagement and Welfare, Mr Gracie reflects on the implementation of the Girls on Board approach at BGS, exploring the dynamics of girl friendships, fostering empathy and supporting students’ personal growth and development within the school community.
I’m writing this on a Wednesday which, of course, means I am wearing my pink chinos…
“On Wednesdays we wear pink” is a brilliant line from the movie Mean Girls1 which is the opening reference in lesson 1 for the Girls on Board2 approach. We have been teaching this to Years 3-9 in recent weeks and Year 10 will be having their training after half term. Girls on Board seeks to build shared understanding and language to navigate complex girl friendships. It feels like a really helpful tool for ongoing support of students as we grow together as a community and experience the inevitable changes in friendships and relationships that will happen. I have to say that I have found it helpful to hear from students in these lessons what their experiences are like and their very honest reflections are creating healthy learnings for us as a community.
It strikes me that having language to understand someone else’s experience is really helpful for depersonalising conflict and being able to separate behaviour from a person. This is not new thinking for schools, we do this in schools all the time. The relationship between adults and students must always be built on unconditional positive regard for them as a person, even when we might have to challenge behaviours that we notice sometimes. This positioning of warmth as the adults in young people’s lives is what allows them to maintain hope for the future even when they face struggles, failures; we need to be the encouragement and guides. Tom Bennett reminds us “successful schools… see every student as a vehicle for success”3. This core belief that our students are our future is one of things that has really struck me about the BGS community. During Girls on Board lessons students have started to consider what the thoughts and feelings behind different behaviours in friendships are so that they can think more critically and develop empathy for others. Instead of assuming someone else’s behaviour is who they are, they are encouraged to observe the behaviour and consider what that person’s perspectives or reasons for behaving that way might be.
Developing the tools to use this awareness of others is not easy, it takes many different approaches. Girls on Board is part one part of our toolbox for supporting our students’ development. Some recent Lower Sixth PSHE teaching left me feeling very hopeful that there are already strong empathic foundations in place. The students were impressive in their awareness of how to support someone else who is grieving. They understood how to find the space where we are there for people so they are not left isolated; but equally they understood it was important that they avoided cheap and unhelpful solutions that make ourselves feel good. Clearly their journey through the PSHE curriculum, combined with their own experiences throughout school have shaped some really mature thinking. The description from Brenee Brown about what empathy looks like is helpful as a reminder. She tells us that ‘rarely can a response make something better, what makes something better is connection’4. This chimes with the Girls on Board approach which is centred on listening, seeking to understand and encouraging reflection and students acting for themselves. I feel encouraged that their experiences in the future will lead to developing empathy and better outcomes for their lives even if it feels things aren’t automatically ‘solved’.
Part of Girls on Board is also helping students to realise that there is a range of adult responses and that sometimes they need to help us understand what they need. I can definitely identify as both a dad and teacher with times I ‘Overreacted’ and ‘Under Reacted’ but I hope there may also have been times when I got it ‘Just about Right’. Lesson 1 in the Girls on Board programme uses a super excerpt from the popular TV series Outnumbered where the students are meant to identify with the girl trying to explain a complicated falling out to her dad. I am sure I am not the only adult who has watched it and thought the experience of the parent feels rather close to home5. Alongside awareness of different parent responses, it also suggests that there is communication needed to help us as adults understand what girls need. This nudge to use your voice to express your needs is a great step on the journey to being a confident advocate for themselves and others. After all, we want them to soar.
I think the ongoing challenge to find the ‘right’ response and the duality of thinking the very best of every student whilst also encouraging them to always aim to be ‘more’ is why I love being a teacher so much and why I really enjoy working at BGS. The students here are easy to get behind and believe in. One of the experiences many of them are having at the moment is undertaking public exams. As this is published our superb IB Diploma cohort will just be finishing, our GCSE students are well into their second week of exam hall experience and the A Level students have just started their first big exams. In discussing their exam journey with students it is heartening to observe how many of them can face self doubt and fear but still know that their ongoing processes will see them right and that they turn up on the day of exams ready to give their best. Their level of self awareness in being able to communicate how they feel openly and what they need to help them get over the line with their exams is an excellent trait that will serve them really well moving forward.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBbOAVSBvpE ↩︎
- https://www.girlsonboard.co.uk/ ↩︎
- https://my.chartered.college/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/How-School-Leaders-can-create-a-school-culture-to-optimise-behaviour.pdf ↩︎
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw ↩︎
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1MHj5L1fG8 ↩︎
From the Headmistress 