Not only Mean Girls go to girls' schools

Last time I admitted to somebody I attended an all-girls Catholic French School, he had a very interesting reaction, saying: “oh! Now I see why you’re the only person I know who can eat a Dorito and keep his fingers clean at all times”. To his surprise, none member of the staff of my school ever taught me how to devour any kind of junk food. However, I was advised to always maintain a polished high ponytail, I was lectured on my French accent and I was finally brainwashed to love playing the piano. 

Scene from Mean Girls, the American teen comedy came out in 2004 and stigmatized all mean girls around the world. 

Psychologists of the universities of Glasgow looked at the educational achievement levels of 1.5 million teenagers from around the world, using the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data. The findings, which are published in the journal Intelligence last week, show that girls perform better than boys in mathematics, reading and science literacy in 70 per cent of every country. The United Kingdom and United States had no significant difference in educational achievement between the two sexes, according to the study. Although, it worths noticing that kids with classmates of the same sex seemed to absorb the knowledge in a more efficient way.

After 15 years of experience in a single-sex school, I believe I have formed a complete opinion on the matter; which, as you can imagine, varied throughout the years.

“Who needs boys?” wonders 8 year old Lydia, student at Ralios Girls’ School in Athens, Greece.  And my younger self would totally agree with her, at this time, when you only want to hang out with people of the same interests and stay away from hyperactive boyish behaviors.

Things change completely as you grow up. You start finding unnatural the fact that you are not able to hang out with people of the contrary sex. You find even weirder that your parents decided to exclude you from being in a mixed classroom and sometimes you might get upset with them.

Regardless your point of view, your mommy knew better when she decided to take you to a fancy girls school with a big yard where you can practice lacrosse and take Public Speaking as an extracurricular activity. To my knowledge, a girls’ school is much more than that.

St James' Independent Schools in London are three private schools for children aged from 4 to 18. The Junior and Senior Girls' Schools are in Hammersmith and Fulham but the Senior Boys' School is in Ashford, Surrey. The Senior Girls’ School has a reputation of years of teaching preppy girls how to study, behave and make good connections with fellow classy girls of a wealthy family background. 

“Parents trust us to help with their children’s impressive progress towards adulthood; that’s the most fulfilling thing about directing a girls’ school”, says Sarah Labram.  Sarah wasn’t easy to be found. After three weeks of unanswered phone calls and late replies in my continuous emails, we managed to organize an interview, at the senior girls school in Hammersmith. By first looking at her in her floral shirt and her Manolo Blahnik kitten heels, I couldn’t help but thinking she must have attended the school herself. However, what she had to say about the school’s objectives made me reexamine the image I had about her as a headmistress of the Senior Girls School.

St James Schools were founded in 1975, since then they have accepted a lot of criticism by other experts of the education department. “This never stopped us from developing a distinctive philosophical approach to education, which our girls represent inside and outside of the school. Our strong foundation was never questioned and never became the reason of a decrease in our enrolments”, she claims.

The teachers in St James tend to use gender-specified teaching techniques that help them not only achieve a high academic potential but also to look after the girls’ emotional well-being.

I had the chance to take a walk among the students who happened to have a break, while I was leaving the premises, after our meeting with Sarah. I was really taken aback by how warm was the environment at the corridors.

The netball team had just finished practice and was cheering for the blue team’s victory. I felt nothing but a sense of unity and interdependence, while looking at the girls complimenting each other for their good game. A scene from the Mean Girls was exactly what I was expecting to come across in such type of school, which was far from the reality.

By Yorva Tsiakara