The TES Secondary Group is a great source of support, ideas and inspiration and is the place to share best practice and get your questions answered by your peers. This is also where you go to debate the latest issues in secondary education.
I am beginning in an all-girls school in September as Head of RE. I have only taught in mixed on my PGCE (Secondary) and a mixed prep for the past two years. Is there anything I should be aware of about teaching in an all-girls environment? I recall someone once saying that you need to be very sensitive when giving feedback.. are there more things like this I should know? Or is even that unnecessary, and one should do things as in a mixed school?
Thanks in advance.
rdigsworthyou need to be very sensitive when giving feedback.
Yes - absolutely. In general girls are more sensitive than boys - especially if you are a male teacher!
I would also say that girls tend to be more co-operative and are better able to work in groups, often with minimal organization (certainly true for able girls). They can also be very chatty, so you need to ensure that they keep 'on task' - but they do tend, in my experience, to respond well to reason and negotiation, rather than a 'tough' approach (as boys sometimes require).
The one thing you should remember is girls hold grudges, sometimes for a very long time indeed! Yes be more sensitive in giving feedback, emphasising what they could do to get better rather than what they have done wrong. Girls can be very chatty but they generally take pride in their work and are better at revision strategies than boys (eg, they will rewrite notes using colour etc). They can be difficult to deal with on the pastoral side though, lots of verbal bullying, dirty looks etc.
kriturGirls can be very chatty but they generally take pride in their work and are better at revision strategies than boys (eg, they will rewrite notes using colour etc).
Girls can be very chatty but they generally take pride in their work and are better at revision strategies than boys (eg, they will rewrite notes using colour etc).
kriturThe one thing you should remember is girls hold grudges, sometimes for a very long time indeed!
So true. Girls in yr 11 still fallen out over stuff that happened in yr 7!
Be firm & fair and don't believe them when they say they have done the homework but 'forgot' it at home or could not print it out because the printer had run out of ink.
You decide where they sit in class, otherwise all the petty squabbles and cliquey (sp?) behaviour will be brought into class & contaminate the lesson.
Have 'colouring in' activities from time to time.
Beware, they have absoloutly no idea of how to sit decently or of how short their skirts really are.
Let them visit the loos during lessons - but only one at a time and never in the last 5-10 mins of the lesson. If one has asked to go to the loo near the end of the lesson, let her be one of the first out of the classroom at the end. If there is a persitent 'loo visitor' inform the HOY or someone with a pastoral role.
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