From the Principal
Welcome to our Incoming Principal!
Following last week’s announcement from the PMSA, it is a great pleasure to extend my sincere congratulations to Dr Sandra Hastie, the thirteenth Principal of Somerville House. On behalf of the school community, I extend a very warm welcome and wish Dr Hastie all of the joys that come with Principalship of this very fine school.
I look forward to the opportunity to conduct a series of handover meetings with the incoming Principal. There is much to share about the functioning of Somerville House. Parents, I would expect that Dr Hastie might ask “what are Somerville House students like?” I know that I will confidently be able to comment on the traits of a Somerville Girl – smart, tough, independent, confident and joyful. These are the attributes of many students that I have known throughout my Principalship.
Foundation Golf Day
On Friday 25 August, the Somerville House Foundation held a Golf Day at the Nudgee Golf Course. They were successful in raising $33,000 and these funds were generously donated to the School to assist with the purchase of sports equipment at SomerFields.
We are most grateful that these funds will be put to good use for the purchase of portable aluminium football goals, an electronic timing and starting system, a competition hurdles and trolley, a discus cage, a high jump mat, uprights and crossbars, a three-lane run up pit for long jump and a sports utility to cater for all sports.
Parents Connect Afternoon
It was disappointing that the inclement weather thwarted our plans for parents to meet at SomerFields last Tuesday afternoon. We will canvas opinion whether to gather on a Saturday morning when the AFL games are being played in Term 4, or whether we look to an afternoon after school.
The idea of Parents Connect is for parents in the Junior School to connect with a Senior School counterpart and garner advice about the move from Year 6 into Year 7. We hope that parents can meet and network with other parents in their year level, as well as learn about being a parent in the Senior School. You will also be able to meet key members of staff and learn about the various Support Groups that operate within our Parents and Friends Association.
I encourage you to keep an eye on SomerLink for a post advertising the Parents Connect Afternoon.
Confidence and Failure
We know that girls learn best through discussion, so it is important that our teachers tailor their pedagogy to girl style learning and focus on the collaborative style of learning as preferred by most girls. Research shows that girls learn differently to boys, so at Somerville House we encourage our teachers to engage in professional development that teaches them how to cater to girl style teaching pedagogy.
The features of such pedagogy include a high level of involvement and interactivity, a focus on talk, and a willingness of the teacher to create a collaborative learning environment, in conjunction with the creation of a sense of confidence and security for the learners, so that girls are willing to learn from each other, to take risks in their learning and explore.
From experience, and reading the research in this area, it is clear that sometimes girls tend to underestimate their abilities, maybe because of a fear of failure. Leading in an all-girls school means that I have been privileged to meet many confident students from Junior School and Senior School. However, girls can experience a confidence crisis, when the fear of failure gets in the way.
An article authored by Whitney Ransome, the co-founder of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, is as salient today as when she penned these thoughts in 2014. I share Ransome’s commentary entitled “Single-sex schooling cultivates confidence in girls.”
In their new book, "The Confidence Code," Claire Shipman and Katty Kay draw on a broad spectrum of scientific research to support several of their hypotheses: Compared with men, women don't consider themselves as ready for promotions; predict they will do worse on tests than they actually do; and generally underestimate their abilities.
In other words, men tend to say "I can," while women tend to say "I can't."
These attitudes develop long before adulthood, however, often on the playgrounds and in classrooms, where perceived inadequacies chip away at girls' confidence levels. This happens even when all evidence suggests otherwise. Everyone — teachers, parents, mentors and friends — needs to encourage girls to take academic risks, dare to be wrong, speak up even when unsure, try new things and pursue harder challenges. By pushing through what may feel uncomfortable, girls and women begin to experience the benefits of risk taking and grow more confident as a result. Everybody wins then, both the women who are free to explore their ideas and the world that benefits from them.
For many, it's a fear of failure that gets in the way. One educational expert called this the "Tyranny of Perfection." It's a confidence destroyer. Women tend to apply for a promotion only when they believe they've met 100 percent of the listed qualifications. Men apply when they've met 60 percent. And when a girl is asked "What do you charge?" for a provided service they too often respond "What do you want to pay me?" Until girls and women value their work and worth, they will find it harder to ask for a raise.
An all-girls experience, be it the Girl Scouts, a girls' athletic team, a girls' camp or a girls' school can be a springboard to achievement and a sense of self-worth. Recently NPR's Diane Rheim brought Ms Shipman and Ms Kay onto her show. Two of her callers mentioned their experiences at a girls' school. Both stated they never questioned their competence and confidence. For them it wasn't equal opportunity but every opportunity. All the leaders, team captains, editors, actors and class officers were female. Taking action is expected. And according to Richard Petty, a psychology professor at Ohio State University, "Confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into action."
Offering the single-sex school option to a broader base of our nations' young women increases the likelihood of competent and confident future leaders.
Recently, Linda Sax, an associate professor at UCLA, conducted a study that demonstrated how, after entering college, graduates of girls' public, parochial and private schools rate their confidence levels in math and computer skills 10 percent higher than their co-ed counterparts. And 81 percent of girls' school graduates' rate themselves in the "highest 10 percent " for academic ability versus 75 percent of co-ed grads. Roughly 60 percent of the girls' school graduates also consider themselves in the "highest 10 percent" in regard to intellectual self-confidence.
In her book "Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling," Rosemary Salomone of St John's University said "all-girls settings seem to provide girls a comfort level that helps them develop greater self-confidence and broader interests, especially as they approach adolescence."
The cultures within our local girls' schools foster a level of confidence that lingers long past graduation. Nothing says it better than the Garrison Forest School motto, Esse Quam Videri — To Be Rather than To Seem.
I support the contention shared by the author. Somerville House graduates are strong women who are confident to use their voices in a positive way.
Mrs Kim Kiepe
Principal