Girls who attend single-sex schools are less likely to tolerate sexual harassment, leading head teacher claims

Girls who attend single-sex schools are less likely to tolerate sexual harassment, the president of the Girls’ School Association (GSA) has said.

There is no risk of becoming “normalised” to such behaviour from a young age at a female-only school, according to Charlotte Avery, who is headmistress of St Mary’s School in Cambridge.

She also said that alumnae of girls’ schools are more confidence, so are better positioned to “call out” sexual harassment when they see it.

Speaking at the GSA's annual conference in Manchester, Mrs Avery said that at female-only schools “that there isn’t any sense of it [sexual harassment] being normalised, because they don’t see it, because it is simply not there”.

Mrs Avery went on: “I always say to the girls ‘you are in a privileged space now, you have the opportunity to learn, to really understand who you are and what difference you want to make'.

“I do think that because we are in a space where girls feel that maybe they can be more open, because it is a girls’ space, they feel that they can say a little bit more. I think they feel that they can trust each other.”

She said that when alumnae from single-sex schools go out into the workplace they “have the confidence to be able to call it out”.

They are also imbued with an “optimistic view” that they have the “power” to question norms in the workplace. “I think that the confidence that girls get from girls’ schools is particular and we are proud of that,” she said.

Ms Avery said that other schools should follow the example set by St Paul’s Girls’ school in how it dealt with a string of historic sex allegations from former pupils.

The school’s drama department asked alumnae to contribute towards a “real life” Edinburgh fringe festival play on the subject, which led to two former pupils, known as “Old Paulinas” making allegations about historic sexual abuse they were subjected to.

Sarah Fletcher, high mistress at the £24,000-a-year school, wrote to alumnae last week to tell them that she has asked the Local Authority Designated Officer to carry out an independent safeguarding inspection at the school, following the claims.

Ms Avery praised the high mistress' approach, and said that reporting the alleged abuse to the relevant authorities is “exactly” what other schools should be doing.