http://www.sendspace.com/file/38n0a0
potrzebuje miec tekst do tego nagrania trzeba przesluchac i napisac, poziom upperintermediate, nie musi byc wszystko ale przynajmniej w takim stopniu zeby mozna bylo cos o tym powiedziec i trzeba zwrocic uwage na slowka:articulate, flourish, thrive, blossom, co-ed grammar school, involved, broader education, do assembly, outperform
She‘s the new president of the president of the Girls' School Association. Now the GSA represents a 190 schools teaching about a hundred thousand girls. Jill is the current head ofDame Ellis Harper School in Bedford. But her family wasn’t a particularly academic one and she went to a grammar school, which became a mixed comprehensive shortly after she started. She’s though now a passionate advocate of single-sex education. Jill, good morning to you.
Good morning, Jane.
So why then this conversion to single-sex education?
And sounds like a religious journey, doesn’t it? I went to a co-ed school as you said. I started teaching in co-ed school in Thornby (?). And my first experiencewith single-sex education was at a boy’s school after that and my third school was a girls’ school. And it was only when I moved to be head of English at a girls’ grammar state school that I realized how different girls are without boys in the classroom. They’re more confident; they’re more articulate. They are far more prepared to take a risk and and to have a go and they absolutely flourish.
What happened to you then in your mixed comprehensive school?
I did ok.
Did you?
I was quite a confident girl to begin with. I had two brothers who were much older and I think I’d grown up being able to find my corner. I was the youngest child; I was the only girl; I was born quite late in my parents’ life and I think I had quite a lot of attention really. And I think I did quite well in the coed grammar. Met my husband there. I’m still married to him, many years later. But I actually look at how girls behave in my school and realize how much more they gain from their wider education experience than I did. So many of them are involved in music; they do debating; they’re keen on drama. They have a far broader education than I had at Honeyhut(?).
And perhaps they’re not afraid to be good at things. Is that what you’re saying?
I think so. They want to be good at things. They’re quite ambitious. And did an assembly recently where I asked the girls to rate how ambitious they were. And I started out by saying you know it’s not something that you have to be and I want you to be honest. But it was amazing how many girls did say that they were very ambitious and it struck me that in the co-ed schools that I’ve taught in girls would’ve been less likely to admit that actually they were ambitious. They want to be lawyers, doctors, and businesswomen. They want to run their own businesses. They’re very open about that. And they want to learn and they want to please.
Nevertheless, the girls outperform the boys even in mixed schools, don’t they?
They do. I mean interestingly the good schools [?] have recently done some research on girls in comprehensives and they found that girls of all levels of ability do better if they go to all-girls secondary schools when they compare their results at the end of primary school with the GCSE results.
But perhaps they do better because these schools on the whole are selective.
And no, these were comprehensive schools. They weren’t selective. They didn’t have in their sample any grammar schools and they were all states schools. And they said that the girls particularly who’d thrived were the ones of more modest ability. They gained the most in terms of what was added and their education. And I think it’s about confidence. I do think that in girls’ schools girls can be themselves. They tend to be more confident, more outgoing and they blossom.
Is that really true? If so, it’s an indictment of the fact that we don’t seem to have come very far if girls’ expectation are dashed by the presence of the male of the species. If girls really do still feel that they shouldn’t flourish and they shouldn’t be ambitious in the presence of boys. Then I think we’ve achieved nothing if that’s really true.
I think, I mean I have to say that having been in teaching for 30 years, I think we’ve achievedan amazing amount. State schools now are much stronger than they were when I started teaching in the 80s. I mean
education is far more important politically than it was 30 years ago. A lot of attention has been placed on education I think people seee that this is the key to our future success in whatever area you’re looking at. I think that, I don’t think it is an indictment, I think it’s a very journey; it leads you into sexist generalizations but men and women are different. Girls and boys are different. It’s partly nature; it’s partly nurture. The fantastic compromise or the balance that I find works best and this is true in Bedford it’s where you educate girls in the classroom academically separately from boys, but outside the classroom we have a huge range of extracurricular coed opportunities
All of which sounds wonderful but which comes at a price. I’ve got to ask you about this because the fees at your school are how much over the course of a year?
10 000 a year.
But I guess you put extras in towards equipment, trips. You’re talking 15 grand a year?
No, no there’re very few extras. The only things that aren’t included in the fees are things like uniform and transport, but it’s a good question and a good thing to check when you’re looking at independent school, checking what the fee actually includes.
And that just isn’t an option for lots of girls and lots of parents.
Which is why I say it’s quite heartening that states…