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Feminism: chat

Girls on Board - any experience?

42 replies

PeachesVonBeach · 19/10/2023 11:55

This initiative is being rolled out across DDs Junior School. I’ve read When Girls Fall Out written by the (white male 60-something 🙄) Founder and I’m really uncomfortable with it in principle, although I can see that he makes some fair points and I totally see why schools would be keen to adopt it to save time.

So far this term, the girls alone are being kept in for special meetings to discuss roles in friendship groups and the emphasis seems very much to be on letting the girls sort things out themselves once they understand whether they are a “queen bee” (this comes directly and be a rehash of the much older book Queen Bees and Wannabes) or a “girl in the water” or anything in between. They are supposed to understand the roles but not label each other?! Those not having problems are then supposed to use empathy and think about taking the “girl in the water” into their group. Boys don’t have to do this because apparently they are straight forward and don’t use exclusion. Unless there is clear bullying there isn’t supposed to be any teacher involvement, apart from when someone feels like they are “in the water” and a sort of “crisis meeting” of sorts happens and they talk through the same slide show again.

My youngest Dd Y5 (9) is really struggling to understand why they’re being separated from the boys to talk about “girl stuff” and why she keeps having to go to the same meeting!

I’m feeling pretty enraged about this all but can’t put my finger on what it is that’s making me feel so cross!

OP posts:
PeachesVonBeach · 19/10/2023 11:58

I guess I’d like to know it others have had a positive experience and maybe I’m
over reacting because it feels so misogynistic

OP posts:
fedupandstuck · 19/10/2023 12:09

No experience with them at all but the content on their website is concerning eg from their Teachers page:

"A Girls on Board session brings all the girls in a school grade together to explore and re-enforce the key principles:

  • All girls fear having no friends.
  • Adults can only help in very limited ways.
  • A girl without a friendship group is a problem for everyone because whichever group she eventually joins will be changed in some way by her arrival."

I have serious concerns about these kinds of small businesses set up to get into schools and profit from these kinds of training exercises. It isn't a charity, it's a business with the aim to sell their courses and content. The website references various research articles but I can't see any actual evidence of their approach being validated or justified. It's one ex-headteacher's view of how to deal with girls and friendships, not a carefully researched and evidenced process.

LadyTrunchbull · 23/10/2023 19:55

Their mission statement seems to be to get girls to think about how their actions affect others and to take accountability for it.

Ivyy · 23/10/2023 20:25

I'd feel uncomfortable about it too op, I know my dd would question why just the girls have to do the program and would complain it's not fair!

I've seen things on Facebook by this company and the guy who runs it, I don't know why but it just feels off that's it's a male running the show to me, indeed rather misogynistic. Also not to be rude but he looks a bit old to be clued up about young girls friendships and to be attuned with girls feelings? I know I shouldn't stereotype, he might be amazing at what he does, but I can't help question what expertise he has on the subject as an older male, it feels a bit like men telling women and girls what to do again. He'll never know how it actually feels to be a girl or the feelings experienced through female friendships.

As others have said, it's a business, not a charity and that also makes me cynical. From what I've seen, the pitch is very much about saving teachers x amount of hours that are apparently spent dealing with girls friendship issues. Unless the methods used have come from an official study and is evidence based then I don't think I'd trust whatever it is they're being taught anyway.

Wilkolampshade · 24/10/2023 16:04

I'd be uncomfortable because it sounds like it reinforces a load of negative gender stereotypes.
Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

ArabellaScott · 24/10/2023 16:06

Can't imagine why any girls or women would be offended at a man telling them how to organise, socialise and act.

'Girls on Board was developed by Andrew Hampton, Headteacher of Thorpe Hall School in Essex, and was recognised for excellence and innovation at the Independent Schools Association (ISA) Annual Awards 2016 and 2019. Dr Peter Woodroffe, Deputy CEO of the ISA, commented: “The judges enjoyed Thorpe Hall’s creative and innovative approach to the issue of adolescent girls’ friendship problems and the impact these can have. The judge even commented that they wanted to recommend it to pastoral heads of every school in the country!”.
Girls on Board was shortlisted for the TES Independent Schools Award for Wellbeing Initiative of the Year 2019 and 2020.'

Fuck off, Andrew. You patronising twit.

Home | Thorpe Hall School

http://www.thorpehall.southend.sch.uk

Thelnebriati · 24/10/2023 19:21
  • A girl without a friendship group is a problem for everyone because whichever group she eventually joins will be changed in some way by her arrival."
WTF is that gem supposed to mean?
ArabellaScott · 24/10/2023 19:34

Girls are just problems that need to be solved? Girls need to be quiet and meek?

Fuck knows.

Hoardasurass · 24/10/2023 20:39

I think that if they changed the words girl/s and queen for boy/s and king then this could be a very useful tool for teaching boys to think about other people's needs wants and feelings

PeachesVonBeach · 08/11/2023 23:15

Thelnebriati · 24/10/2023 19:21

  • A girl without a friendship group is a problem for everyone because whichever group she eventually joins will be changed in some way by her arrival."
WTF is that gem supposed to mean?

Exactly!

And this is the bit that really grates with me.

They've called a couple of meetings at school and the “mummy, so and so was a girl in the water today so we had to figure out who would take her in” jars with me so much. I would have been that girl and being “rescued” would have made me feel even more of an outcast!

Also, I totally agree that this feels like a money-making exercise based on a 60 year old male’s opinion.

Im sorry I missed all the messages - no idea how that happened btw!

OP posts:
ArabellaScott · 09/11/2023 09:45

Unless there is clear bullying there isn’t supposed to be any teacher involvement,

This is also worrying. A child has to assess a situation and decide if it's bullying or not, before perhaps raising it with adults? Any advice that includes 'don't talk to a trusted adult about this' sounds really off, to me. At best.

espresso14 · 09/11/2023 10:03

I watched the YouTube session with him put up by GDST (I'm not connected to that school), and as my DD was having school friendship issues and the school's perspective was she needed to be more resilient, I also wasted £10 and bought the book as she was really troubled. I wasn't very impressed.

He has a book out about boys now too.

AngelsWithSilverWings · 09/11/2023 10:07

My DD is a pupil at the school that started this initiative. The previous headmaster is the founder of the company.

We chose to move our daughter from a state school that had a very toxic atmosphere among the girls and it affected her mental health terribly. We had heard about the private school having this thing called Girls on Board and called the school to ask about it. We then decided to move her at the start of Y9 and it's been amazing.

I don't think the school is even a member of the scheme since the new head started but the culture is set in. The girls that DD is in class with have grown up through the school under the girls on board scheme and have been taught how to resolve friendship issues and to look out for each other.

My DD has never been happier in any school setting than she is now. She is now Y11 and I think would love to stay forever!

There are of course always issues between girls but the way they resolve their problems between them with the guidance of their head of year is great.

CesareBorgia · 09/11/2023 10:08

Thelnebriati · 24/10/2023 19:21

  • A girl without a friendship group is a problem for everyone because whichever group she eventually joins will be changed in some way by her arrival."
WTF is that gem supposed to mean?

And why the assumption a girl has to join a friendship group eventually?

WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports · 09/11/2023 10:21

I have issues with this idea. I was an outsider at school. I largely didn't want to be in a big friendship group as I couldn't handle friendships with more than two people at a time and as a voracious reader with a strong personality, 90% of the time I wanted to be left alone to read.

Labelling girls as "queen bee" or "girl in the water" is reprehensible. Those girls will take those "identities" through life and it will define how they navigate life.

Someone who has been given information (which will largely be based on the Forer effect/Barnum statements like all "personality type/archetype" bollocks) that leads them to believe they're a queen bee will navigate life believing they are a natural born leader and will walk through doors opened for them by their perception of themselves.

A girl labelled a "girl in the water" (drowning without friends is implied in the language) will feel inadequate. Not good enough for the group. In fact the other girls in her class had to be taught how to make room in their friendship group for her, instead of letting genuine friendship groups form naturally. She has also been told that these labels are either/or, therefore she is not "queen bee" material and is being subtly told that leadership and success are not for her, she will always be dependent on the charity of others to get through life. This creates a dependent mindset (and external locus of control) which is unhelpful for actually taking control of her own life later on.

A girl labelled as a follower or similar is being conditioned to self-identify as a passive follower. She might not feel the "taught helplessness" that is being signified at the "girl in the water" but she is also being taught that leadership is not for her.

These sort of friendship groups are based on a very dated view of how children socialise, based on power structures that were largely derived from the power structures they were modelled by adults. Corporal punishment and strict discipline in school and at home taught children that you "get to the top" where you are the "queen bee" (or leader, if male; note how they don't get twee nicknames to try and delegitimise their leadership traits). The queen bee, by the example given to them by borderline abusive power structures, used to lead by making life unpleasant for others.

What we are seeing over the past fifteen years or so is a massive shift in this mentality from the children themselves (as parenting has become more positive and schools are organised differently with less of a rigid hierarchial setup), and it does them a great disservice to shove them into boxes derived from our own childhoods and those who came before us.

So I think this program is reductionist and inadequate and it treats children who don't want big friendship groups as a "problem" to be solved instead of celebrating their individuality and autonomy to choose how they socialise with others.

Education on anti-bullying is very important but this is just not the way to go about it, if anything, reinforcing these obsolete power structures within childhood social groups will do the opposite.

Additionally, excluding the boys reinforces the stereotype that "social" work is for girls and boys just naturally socialise, and that boys don't need to talk about their feelings (by extension, have no feelings) which primes them more for the genderfeels nonsense to be peddled by another for-profit group masquerading as a charity.

littleripper · 09/11/2023 10:50

The whole thing reminds me of on MN threads when women try and discuss male violence and some turd pops up and says "oooo but I work in an office where the women are bitchy and mean to me"
Fucking idiotic.

ArabellaScott · 09/11/2023 11:19

AngelsWithSilverWings · 09/11/2023 10:07

My DD is a pupil at the school that started this initiative. The previous headmaster is the founder of the company.

We chose to move our daughter from a state school that had a very toxic atmosphere among the girls and it affected her mental health terribly. We had heard about the private school having this thing called Girls on Board and called the school to ask about it. We then decided to move her at the start of Y9 and it's been amazing.

I don't think the school is even a member of the scheme since the new head started but the culture is set in. The girls that DD is in class with have grown up through the school under the girls on board scheme and have been taught how to resolve friendship issues and to look out for each other.

My DD has never been happier in any school setting than she is now. She is now Y11 and I think would love to stay forever!

There are of course always issues between girls but the way they resolve their problems between them with the guidance of their head of year is great.

I imagine someone working in a school directly with children may be able to implement a useful approach to interpersonal relationships, perhaps using some of these ideas.

Where I think it goes wrong is in trying to formalise it and spread/sell it via impersonal internet/book form.

I'm really happy that your DD is doing so well, though!

ArabellaScott · 09/11/2023 11:20

Top post, Women.

fedupandstuck · 09/11/2023 11:37

@WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports thank you for clearly articulating my issues with this training material and the concepts behind it.

Also, this philosophy seems to suggest that mixed friendship groups are just not a thing, do they get mentioned at all? Or are we in such a stratified world that the idea of having friends of the opposite sex is just never an option?

WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports · 09/11/2023 11:44

Bullying culture should be addressed and talking to children about bullying/friendships is a very good idea, but not like this.

Another thing to note is that by separating boys and girls and teaching them to socialise differently, we are teaching them that they shouldn't be friends, which is also problematic as popular culture does this to them already with so many cartoons, TV shows and books (especially those aimed at Key Stage 2 and 3) modelling exhaustively how girls and boys can't be friends and that they're so different to one another that they are incomprehensible to each other.

Validus · 09/11/2023 11:45

The school I know here that uses it find it fantastic. Realising solutions to problems is an intellectual event and the sex of the thinker is irrelevant. And in a capitalistic society there is zero issue with the thinker monetising their realisation.

stop complaining about the fact a man was the thinker. It’s petty and sexist.

WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports · 09/11/2023 11:46

@fedupandstuck Ah X-post (typing with a very wiggly toddler on my knee trying to "raaaar" a dinosaur in my face a lot), yes I agree fully about mixed groups.

WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports · 09/11/2023 11:47

Validus · 09/11/2023 11:45

The school I know here that uses it find it fantastic. Realising solutions to problems is an intellectual event and the sex of the thinker is irrelevant. And in a capitalistic society there is zero issue with the thinker monetising their realisation.

stop complaining about the fact a man was the thinker. It’s petty and sexist.

The point >> ·

You >> 🏃‍♀️

If the sex is irrelevant, why are only girls being targeted with this? It's literally a man mansplaining to girls how to be kind.

ArabellaScott · 09/11/2023 11:54

WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports · 09/11/2023 11:46

@fedupandstuck Ah X-post (typing with a very wiggly toddler on my knee trying to "raaaar" a dinosaur in my face a lot), yes I agree fully about mixed groups.

I agree with the toddler.