"Diamond Schools"

The debate about single-sex versus co-education is never likely to be one that is finally resolved. Young people behave differently when in single-sex and mixed company and from this stems the different character and atmospheres that one finds in single-sex and co-educational schools. There are clear advantages of both approaches. On the one hand, single-sex teaching seems to provide greater focus and allow young people the freedom to grow up at their own rate. On the other, there is fundamentally something unnatural about segregating the sexes throughout the period of schooling, when school is meant to be a preparation for life. "Diamond schools" are an innovative solution to the conundrum and have a very positive contribution to make to this debate.

A “diamond” structure combines both single-sex and co-educational teaching. Typically, boys and girls are taught together until the age of 11, separately from 11-16, before coming back together again in a joint Sixth Form.

"Diamond schools" are often the product of the merger of a boys' and a girls' school, thus it is usual that at KS3 and KS4 girls and boys can be taught separately on different sites. It is a common feature that boys and girls combine outside the classroom in activities for academic trips and visits and in some co-curricular activities, such as choirs, orchestras and the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. Thus boys and girls are able to maintain an appropriate level of social contact that means that it is possible to develop friendships with those of the opposite sex.

The diamond structure has further additional benefits too.

"Diamond schools" are very convenient for parents as effectively they provide a "one-stop" drop for the school run - children of both sexes from nursery to sixth form can be dropped off together, or, indeed, share in a common busing system.

The main advantage, however, is that "Diamond schools" are able to retain many of the positive characteristics of small schools - each part is often of a size that will allow each pupil to know everyone in the school; whilst enjoying the benefits of an infrastructure and economies of scale of a much larger school.

"Diamond schools" in the UK Independent sector include:

• Berkhamsted School
• Brentwood School
• Erskine Stewart's Melville Schools
• Forest School
• King's School, Macclesfield
• The Grammar School at Leeds
• Stamford Endowed Schools

This blogpost was published as an article written for the GSA MyDaughter website

Protecting and Supervising Young Teens on the Internet

Protecting our children goes with the territory of being a parent. We warn and train them from a young age about the dangers of the fireplace, crossing the road and encountering strangers. When it comes to the internet these principles still apply, even if sometimes we feel that we are not qualified to do so.

It is perhaps too easy for us to install a "net nanny" program on our home PC and assume that that we have fulfilled our parenting responsibilities in this area. If we are to ensure that our children using the Internet wisely and safely, we ourselves need to know our way around the Internet. It is important that we share and talk about their online experiences with our children. Just as with crossing the road, we cannot be there all the time, but it is worthwhile spending sometime going through the basics together with them.

Young people often come across as being highly competent on computers, but my experience is that they have a blindspot when it comes to protecting their privacy on the Internet, so don’t be afraid to ask the awkward questions.

Research has found that the more often "significant adults" talk to young people about their experiences online (and occasionally monitor what they are doing), the less likely a young person is to engage in risky behaviour (defined as disclosing personal information, meeting up offline with someone they met online, or sharing photos with strangers). The young people who did not have the adult intervention were four times more likely to agree to meet up with someone they met online.

As parents, we may have some control over the other people our children encounter in "real space", but we cannot regulate whom our children meet in digital space. However, we can help them to make better decisions about their own safety when online.

Some tips on supervising young teenagers:

• Keep the computer in a public place, preferably with the screen facing into the room, so that it can be seen when wandering by.

• Laptops combined with WIFI mean that it is almost impossible for parents to have any handle on what their child is doing on the Internet. Many parents consider that laptops are most suited to the older teenager.
• Beware that mobile phones with Internet capability are likely to provide unfiltered access to the Internet.

• Set clear rules for Internet use.

• Insist that your children do not share personal information such as their full name, address, phone numbers, full date of birth or passwords with people they meet online.

• Don’t just rely on the “net-nanny”.
• As any School Network Manager will tell you, young people are expert at evading “net-nanny” programs and pass information between themselves on how to do this. [This usually entails going to a site which is listed as safe, which then redirects the user to the desired, banned site].

• The browsing history of a computer keeps a record of the sites that have been visited by a particular user.
• A deleted browsing history is likely to tell you as much as an undeleted one.
• Be aware that most Internet browsers, now allow for “Private Browsing” sessions where no browsing history is recorded.
• If your daughter types ‘POS’ when on a social-networking site or on MSN, it means ‘Parent Over Shoulder’. Draw your own conclusions!
  

Supervision of Social-networking sites:

• Teenagers are unlikely to want you as a “friend” on a social-networking site, but some parents make it a condition of being on Facebook when their children are starting out. It will give you the opportunity to keep an eye on who your child is friends with.
• Parents who have a social networking site profile are much better placed to help their daughter protect her privacy. Parents need to keep up to date with how the privacy settings work and to talk these through with their child.
  

For more on internet safety: see Microsoft's staysafe.org which outlines "10 things you can teach kids to improve their Web safety" and also has some excellent age-related tips:

• Up to age 10
• 11-14 years old
• 15-18 years old

The EU Insafe Website also has some useful information on a range of Internet Safety issues.

This blogpost was based on an article written for the GSA MyDaughter website

Mobile Phones and Parenting

When is the right time for my child to have a mobile phone?

• Mobile phones play a key role in ensuring pupil safety travelling to and from school. Young people need phones to be able to communicate with parents to arrange pick-ups or to keep them informed when the buses and trains are running late. They afford a degree of protection to the lone traveller and thus give reassurance to parents. Once your child is involved in after-school clubs, particularly ones that involve pick-ups after it has got dark, it makes sense for her to have a cheap, basic phone for emergencies.

• There is no doubt that parents come under considerable pressure from their children who argue, in time-honoured fashion, that “everyone else has got one”. As with other areas, such as parties, curfews and alcohol, parents need to establish good lines of communication with other parents, so that they are not all played off against each other.

What about 3G mobile phones with Internet capability?

• The problem with phones that have internet connectivity is that young people immediately have unrestricted internet access. On the positive side this will enable them to look up useful information and to support their learning. However, it also means that they will be able to get onto social networking sites, such as Facebook.

• Mobile devices with Internet capability [either through dialling up or through Wifi] are here to stay – indeed they are going to be ubiquitous. We will not be able to restrict what our chidlren are doing with them, so we need to ensure that they are cybersafe and need to educate them to use them wisely. Parents need to consider if their child has sufficient maturity to make positive use of a phone with internet capability, whilst avoiding the inherent dangers and temptations.

Do pupils use them too much?

• Young people love chatting – they always have. Many of those of us who are now parents sat for hours on the family phone chatting to our friends. Today young people just have more ways to chat: talking face to face, texting, on their mobiles, on MSN, on Facebook and so on. The most significant difference is that, rather than chatting in the relatively public place at the bottom of the stairs, it is all much more private – away from parental eyes and ears. What is interesting is that young people communicate much more now by the written word than ever before.

A few final thoughts:

• The best way for parents to retain a degree of control over their child’s use of their mobile phone is to limit the amount of credit that he/she has on his/her phone. A package that has unlimited number of texts, may appear attractive from a financial perspective, but it does give a green light to your child to spend an enormous amount of time texting.

• Pay-as-you-go contracts are best for young teens. Ultimately they give you greater control over your child’s use of the phone. If the phone is in your name and you top up with small amounts at the time, you will monitor how much your child is using the phone and also be able to have regular conversations about his/her phone use.

This blogpost was based on an article written for the GSA MyDaughter website

Understanding Facebook

For many parents and teachers the world of Facebook is an alien place: it certainly operates under a different set of rules. This article is an attempt to unpack two of the dynamics of social networking sites:

Making Friends

When we [parents and teachers] meet someone new, say at a drinks or dinner party, we trade snippets of personal information about ourselves as part of the "friends-making process". Where we work, where we went on holiday, our favourite film and what music we listen to - such is the stuff of social small-talk. As we get to know someone better, we share more personal information about ourselves and, over time, the transition is made from casual acquaintance to friendship.

Friend-making is at the heart of sites like Facebook. When young people “make friends” on social networking sites they operate in a totally different way - cocktail party conventions do not apply here. The whole process is truncated into a millisecond as they disclose their life story in a single mouse click, disgorging enormous amounts of personal information to relative strangers.

The dynamic in the world of social networking seems to be that the more information that you give out the more “friends” you will have. Openness here is virtue, a lack of disclosure is met with suspicion. Thus there is a contractual basis to the way in which young people use social networking sites they trade personal information for popularity – this is a key driver behind these sites.


“Famous for …….”

Social networking sites enable young people to emulate their role models. We live in the Age of the Celebrity. The famous live their lives in the eye of the media – the gossip pages of glossy magazines and fan websites share minute details of teenagers’ role models. Reality TV progammes such as Big Brother have fuelled this craze with celebrities’ most intimate moments being broadcast to the world for public scrutiny.

So why should we surprised that young people want to be any different? Unprepared to wait for Warhol’s “fifteen minutes of fame”, Facebook enables anyone to behave like celebrities and to put themselves permanently in the public eye. Young people are able to share their thoughts with their friends and to update the world on even the most banal aspects of their daily lives. For some, Facebook is their diary, for others is a vehicle for a “second life”: an opportunity to present themselves to world as they would like to be seen.

Ultimately Facebook harnesses the timeless need of young people to spend time together [our generation did it on the phone] and satisfies a basic twenty-first century need to receive public recognition from ones peers.

This blogpost was based on an article written for the GSA MyDaughter website

Schools and Parents

The Girls' School Association [GSA] today launched a new website aimed at parents of girls, MyDaughter.co.uk. What is remarkable and interesting about this site is that it is not just a showcase and marketing portal for Independent Girls' schools, but it sets out to help parents with parenting.

The site has a section on Raising Your Daughter, which tackles issues such as sexual relationships, drugs and alcohol, food and diet, self-esteem and bullying. The section on Educating Your Daughter also includes "Tips for Parents" for each of the key stages of a girl's education. [I have quoted the tips for parents of 11-16 girls at the end of this piece for your further interest.]

I believe that it is a very encouraging sign that schools are willing to step forward and offer advice to parents. Whereas society once looked to the church to give a moral lead, it now looks to schools. We see this in media all of the time: heads of top independent schools get more coverage than the members of synod by a factor of ten to one. Note the success of Vicky Tuck's column in the Daily Telegraph or Martin Stephen or Anthony Seldon's various pronouncements. Heads, houseparents and teachers, especially those working in boarding schools which are responsible for young people 24/7, have accumulated considerable knowledge, experience and expertise in bringing up young people.

Parents increasingly need support and schools are well placed to give this. Heads and teachers have a professional distance - "it is always easier when it is someone else's child". They routinely deal with situations detached from the emotional involvement that can cloud judgement. Schools don't have all the answers, but schools do have an idea of what is a normative experience and are likely to have more experience of the exceptional. Parents should always know the child better than the school and, at the end of the day, parents don't have to take the advice being offered.

Teenagers are very adept at playing parents off against each other: "Everyone else is going to the party", "Everyone else's parents are letting them sleep over" etc. Schools can provide the structures and networks whereby parents can communicate effectively, they can set up forums whereby parents can discuss parenting issues with each other and with the school.

The MyDaughter website brings together the collective wisdom and experience of an important part of the Independent Schools sector and is an outstanding resource for parents of girls - let us hope that the boys don't miss out too much in the meantime!

Tips for Parents of 11-16 girls

By now she should be doing her homework away from distractions, in a space of her own. She will probably tell you that playing music helps her concentrate – and it might be true! Continue to encourage her to discuss her work with you; give plenty of praise and ask loads of questions

Make sure you know her friends’ names, they are very important to her and to her happiness. Don’t offer opinions on them unless asked. She will learn about herself by sampling a range of friends, some of whom you may not be comfortable with. The most important thing is to keep your lines of communication open and if you try to direct or control her friendships she may start to shut you out.

Don’t try to be your daughter’s best friend. She should have lots of friends but she only has one mother. Aim to be the best mother you can be. This includes setting and holding boundaries. Children feel secure when they know there are limits. No matter how hard she pushes she won’t stop loving you just because you say “No”. In fact she will feel safer and better loved, however much she huffs and slams doors!

When she is choosing her GCSE subjects listen to her, get her to talk to her teachers, offer your opinion but remember that she is the one who will be studying these subjects, not you.

Form realistic expectations of her academic potential by talking to her teachers. Remember that academic success is only one way of succeeding. Many “successful” members of society did not shine at school. Resourcefulness, creativity and perseverance, for example, are key qualities that are not directly measured by our academic system.

The best way of protecting your daughter against the perils of eating disorders and substance abuse is to build her self esteem. Value her for who she is rather than what she does. Help her see that there are more important things than appearance, possessions and clothes. Give her values that will sustain her through difficult times.

"Diamond Schools"

The debate about single-sex versus co-education is never likely to be one that is finally resolved. Young people behave differently when in single-sex and mixed company and from this stems the different character and atmospheres that one finds in single-sex and co-educational schools. There are clear advantages of both approaches. On the one hand, single-sex teaching seems to provide greater focus and allow young people the freedom to grow up at their own rate. On the other, there is fundamentally something unnatural about segregating the sexes throughout the period of schooling, when school is meant to be a preparation for life. "Diamond schools" are an innovative solution to the conundrum and have a very positive contribution to make to this debate.

A “diamond” structure combines both single-sex and co-educational teaching. Typically, boys and girls are taught together until the age of 11, separately from 11-16, before coming back together again in a joint Sixth Form.

"Diamond schools" are often the product of the merger of a boys' and a girls' school, thus it is usual that at KS3 and KS4 girls and boys can be taught separately on different sites. It is a common feature that boys and girls combine outside the classroom in activities for academic trips and visits and in some co-curricular activities, such as choirs, orchestras and the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. Thus boys and girls are able to maintain an appropriate level of social contact that means that it is possible to develop friendships with those of the opposite sex.

The diamond structure has further additional benefits too.

"Diamond schools" are very convenient for parents as effectively they provide a "one-stop" drop for the school run - children of both sexes from nursery to sixth form can be dropped off together, or, indeed, share in a common busing system.

The main advantage, however, is that "Diamond schools" are able to retain many of the positive characteristics of small schools - each part is often of a size that will allow each pupil to know everyone in the school; whilst enjoying the benefits of an infrastructure and economies of scale of a much larger school.

"Diamond schools" in the UK Independent sector include:

• Berkhamsted School
• Brentwood School
• Erskine Stewart's Melville Schools
• Forest School
• King's School, Macclesfield
• The Grammar School at Leeds
• Stamford Endowed Schools

This blogpost was published as an article written for the GSA MyDaughter website