“In June 2023 I travelled back to the United States to participate in the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. A city which in 2009 had as its tourist information slogan ‘At least we’re not Detroit!’. Cleveland itself is an incredible monolith to the glories of a bygone age or, as people stateside call it, the rust-belt. Once the home of giant corporations and trusts producing the iron, steel and oil which built America, it now feels rather like Bricksburg from The Lego Movie. It was in this slightly surreal setting that thousands of delegates descended on the Cleveland Hilton and International Convention Centre for what must be one of the most uplifting gatherings ever held in this sterile and echoey forum. Girls educators from across the world, all committed to supporting and empowering the particular needs of girls when educated together in one setting. All with the same desire to continue the work of our feminist forebears who recognised that to ensure a world can be “made by girls” we, as teachers and leaders, have to counteract cultural narratives which still suggest otherwise. I wish I could transport you there, the passion was contagious.

There were so many incredible moments in the conference. Keynote speeches from Carol Gilligan, the eminent Harvard professor, whose work on feminism, rebellion and the patriarchy has held within it the consistent theme of listening to girls’ voices. Manoush Zomorodi, a regular TED contributor whose book ‘Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self’, advocated for how we should not be afraid of boredom, putting down electronic distractions to unleash our inner creativity. All of which encompassed the theme of the conference RE think, RE charge and RE engage. A mantra for the post-pandemic return to normality; but one where we try to capture some of what we learnt from the chastening experience and to listen particularly to the voices of girls for whom this was an extremely formative life experience; and to empower others to regain voices lost in the isolation of the virtual learning world.

We are so fortunate as a school to belong to the GDST which provides this collective network and expertise on a national level and sent a significant number of delegates to the conference – including two from Norwich High as I was joined by Mrs Rebecca Musson, Head of Year 10 and Teacher of History & Politics at Norwich High. The GDST also presented their powerful Girls’ Futures Report which itself focused on listening to girls across the UK to better understand where they saw themselves fitting into a future world and how we (the GDST) might support them to achieve this. It reveals how girls want to reframe notions of leadership from male-inspired archetypes to leading in community through collaboration and without having to make a choice between wellbeing and work.

Excitingly this year I was not only soaking up numerous conference sessions from other speakers and networking with other educators. I was presenting my own Global Action Research Project as part of the Global Action Research Collaborative or GARC for short. For the last 20 months a group of researchers from across the world have been trained in action research, and have carried out action research projects. Successful projects were presented at the conference and I was honoured to be given a platform to reveal the results of my research at Norwich High where we have been working on embedding our unique “ACTIVE” approach to learning. Using class interventions, adapted lessons, data, interviews, surveys and diagnostics with a Year 7 class, I was able to explain how a focus on student approach rather than their final attainment had encouraged girls to be braver, to develop a range of skills, to work as learners in community rather than competition to ‘know themselves’ not just as people but as learners. How this had challenged me in how I taught and fed back to the class and how this had seemingly arrested the toxic perfectionism and self-criticism to which girls are particularly prey to when receiving feedback and encouraged growth-focused self-reflection. Of all the data I collected and analysed, when I came to present it was the students’ voices talking about their experiences captured on audio and video recordings which were most powerful. My presentation became their platform to talk about themselves as learners.

When the presentation was over I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Mrs. Musson and I did what all good historians do and headed to the auspicious Lake View cemetery to celebrate with a visit to the tombs of Elliot Ness and President Garfield and the site of the filming of some key scenes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Later that day toasts were raised with my research team who hailed from Australia, Bermuda, the US and the UK. We wouldn’t be seeing each other on the regular Zoom calls anymore, but our personal and professional connections will absolutely endure.

On reflection I think Cleveland wasn’t such a bad place to have a conference. As a city it has no “buzz”, except when sports are in town or lots of girls educators! But when it’s quiet you have the space to RE charge, RE think and RE engage and quietness also provides the space to listen. A skill we all use less often than we should in a busy world of competing voices; but in Cleveland the call to arms was very simple: to move forward we must listen carefully to the authentic voices of our girls.”