WHY GIRLS AND THE GDST?
Portsmouth High School is part of the Girls’ Day School Trust, a family of 24 schools and two academies and over 100,000 alumnae bound together by a mission to help girls learn without limits, so they can lead lives without limits.
We think that schools’ should prepare children for the future and as specialists in girls’ education, we tailor our teaching to the way girls learn best. Girls from GDST schools have greater confidence that they can achieve their goals and believe in their school’s ability to prepare them for the future, compared to their peers in other schools across the country. We believe this demonstrates the GDST difference.
GDST SPIRIT FILM
THE GIRLS FUTURE REPORT
The Girls’ Futures report, commissioned to celebrate the GDST’s 150th anniversary, worked with specialist research agency YouthSight to gain insights from 1,358 girls in schools across the country.
The Girls’ Futures research found that girls from non-GDST schools experience a fall in confidence between the ages of 14 and 18. The doubts they feel and the challenges they experience limit their expectations of the world of work and how prepared they feel to tackle life after school, as well as their confidence in taking risks and in challenging gender stereotypes.
Conversely, girls from GDST schools have greater confidence that they can achieve their goals and have greater belief in their schools’ ability to prepare them for the future.
THE GDST DIFFERENCE
In mixed-sex schools, girls often adopt roles that reflect others’ views of them, and which tend to narrow their academic and non-academic choices. GDST schools are girls’ schools by design, rejecting gender stereotypes and built around collaborative classrooms, curriculums that give girls the freedom to explore, and strong positive female role models.
The results are clear: higher academic achievement, greater diversity of subject choice, stronger self-confidence and resilience, and enhanced career progression.
