2001: THE IMPLEMENTATION HAZEL JONES-LEE

2001: THE IMPLEMENTATION

BY HAZEL JONES-LEE (84-09)

Educated happily and variously at a large state primary school, a co-ed direct grammar school and then university, I had never been into a single-sex school until my first school teaching job at a quite famous girls’ boarding school. Its pedagogy, its support for staff and dedication to nurturing whatever were the real strengths of its pupils were magnificent, but there was a tension amongst the staff and pupils, both there and at my subsequent girls’ school, which I had never encountered before and which I can only attribute to its single-sex constitution.

For several years during the later 1990s, there was co-ed discussion amongst the Governors at RGS, but gradually, some staff were drawn into what were still very tentative and confidential soundings. Some time during 1998, Liz Radice, then Director of Studies, organised a small group of staff to explore ‘the feasibility of introducing girls into the Sixth Form at RGS’. Its recommendations ranged widely and became the basis for future discussions.

In March 1999, after Liz Radiceleft to become Headmistress of Channing School, I was invited to join a working party of three governors, James Miller and John Armstrong to explore the pros and cons of the status quo, a co-ed Sixth Form and a co-ed school and soon after, to present my paper supporting the introduction of coeducation to RGS, beginning with the Sixth Form.

Some time between then and November 2000, James Miller asked me to take on what became the role of Senior Mistress, initially to organise the internal process of entry and thereafter to be responsible for new Sixth Form entrants. It was my dream job. However, the appointment was not announced until some time later when James called a meeting to prepare staff for the press announcement on 14 November that RGS was due to welcome girls, in September 2002.

I was aware of staff hurt at what had been considered their necessary exclusion from the process up to that point and felt strongly that from this point on, there must be as much staff involvement in decisions for its roll-out as possible. In addition, I was not persuaded by the arguments of many similar schools which had gone co-ed before us that the process was easy. I do not believe that anything is easy by chance.

Consequently at the usual start of term staff meeting I invited any colleague who wished, to become involved in a series of small staff committees to discuss and suggest solutions to the many practical considerations: any impact on the syllabus, pastoral support, games, a code of conduct, extra-curricular, dress code, Sixth Form Supervision and preparation of both new girls and current boys. In the event, some 30 colleagues were involved and their recommendations contributed considerably to the success of what was to follow.

The Open Day in November revealed significant interest and at this stage, events overtook us with the immediate request by some girls for admission in September 2001, a year earlier than planned. Whilst we welcomed this response and began interviewing candidates, any offers of places could only be conditional until Governors received the final stage of approval from the Department for Education and Employment.

We felt that any boy or girl coming into the Sixth Form from outside should have as much familiarity as possible with the school before we and they made the decision that they should join us, so the Open Day was followed by individual tours of the school with or without parents, by interviews, to which parents were welcomed for an initial few minutes to ask questions, by a later Open Day with Heads of Department to discuss subject options and finally by an invitation to come into school after exams to have lunch and the opportunity to meet each other before the summer holidays. We also appointed a boy buddy to each girl, although, in practice, their success was varied.

I have vivid memories of some of those interviews, at which we were always more concerned to discern potential and inquisitive minds, than achievement to date, although that of course was important: they had to meet the same requirements as our own boys for entry. I remember well one girl’s being so overcome by nerves that we told her to forget the interview altogether and we talked about her day so far, starting with the trivia of the breakfast until we could

work our way into what we really wanted to ask. There were incidental benefits: one girl asked whether we did LAMDA. Puzzled, we asked for clarification and the name of her teacher, as a result of which the wonderful Jo Quilliam joined us, first as an occasional and then more or less permanent peripatetic teacher of Speech and Drama. We had expected interest from girls at the nearby independent schools, but were delighted to see an increase in applications from state schools, not only from girls, but from boys who would not have countenanced applying to a single-sex school. We had thought originally that co-ed was just about possible with 12 girls, though better with more, and were delighted when we started the September term with 22 girls.

In the interim, there were changes planned to the fabric, in the conversion of a cloakroom for girls, with its small seating area, which probably caused more reaction from the boys than anything else: a small, padded bench was elevated in folk-myth to a jealously regarded ‘sofa’. There was a make-over of the Sixth Form Common Room with the inclusion of a coffee bar, and also an extension to the medical facilities, so that Gillian Mather, the school nurse, could have her own room in which to see the both boys and girls who often came to her with as many personal as physical problems.

After the final approval came from the DfEE in March-April 2001, I visited Bradford Grammar School, which had gone co-ed several years earlier and was, and am, most grateful to the generosity of their welcome and advice, although more than a little alarmed when their formidable school nurse told me of the range of challenging pastoral situations we were likely to encounter.

When we opened on 6 September for Lower Sixth Induction Day, there was huge press interest, with representatives from The Journal, BBC and Tyne Tees as well as a few free distribution newspapers and a demand to see ‘a lesson’. Scooping up copies of Othello, which I was to teach that term, a small group of former Year 11 boys and new girls known to be doing English, we went to an upstairs classroom where I delivered an impromptu introductory lesson on Shakespearean Tragedy, which appeared on Tyne Tees News that night as a brief clip.

We were in business. Did I ever have second thoughts? No. Rather, there were lots of individual small moments of real pleasure such as the very hard-working girl who learned to apply strategy, rather than excessive hours, to her work preparation; of the mother who told me of her daughter’s delight in being able to play in a school team, having been rejected in her previous single-sex school; of a shy, but quick-tempered male tutee who had told me during the second year that he had dreaded co-ed, but that one of the girls had become his best friend. There were also the times of mutual support when I saw how boys and girls came together to comfort each other in times of distress.

When invited to a debate on local radio with the Head of one of the nearby schools, in which she was unable to participate at the last moment, the show’s host asked me whether I thought there was any case for single-sex education. My answer then was that there may be some few instances when parents might want single-sex education on religious or other grounds, but that for the vast majority of students, co-education was the most beneficial. I have not changed my mind.

We had expected interest from girls at the nearby independent schools, but were delighted to see an increase in applications from state schools, not only from girls, but from boys who would not have countenanced applying to a single-sex school.”