Head's Welcome

Why St Catherine’s Prep School is more than SATs

Sitting enjoying a Sunday lunch with friends last weekend, we mulled over the Sunday papers together. A group of nearly 40 somethings: friends from school days and mostly alumnae from a girls’ academic school. You can imagine the tone of the conversation – feisty debate and comments flinging back and forth! It was only a matter of time before the Times Top 100 Prep School list was presented to me with much questioning as to why St Catherine’s, along with so many other top Prep Schools didn’t feature…. at all. With one friend in marketing and two with three year old daughters, it was hardly surprising that the conversation became quite intense.

I appreciate the feel-good factor of seeing the name of your child’s school listed and hence I felt that it might be useful for you to hear why St Catherine’s and the excellent schools which educate your sons are not present. The list, and others like them, is compiled using national Key Stage tests at 11 – SATs. Such tests enable a school to measure themselves against national norms which can, of course, be useful. However, the tests themselves are limiting. In order to achieve an excellent rank order, SATs have to remain the focus of the staff and pupils until the end of the summer term in Year 6. I believe passionately in a broad education at this age and stage and would not be prepared to forfeit that to follow the SATs programme.

Girls here broadly follow the National Curriculum; they are also introduced to Common Entrance and Scholarship papers in LIII which are very different in focus and stretch. We aim to have completed the Year 6 (LIII) curriculum by January and then use the last six months of the girls’ time in the Prep School to enrich their learning and ensure that they leave us very well-prepared for their senior school. This means an introduction to Year 7 materials, the chance to oversee and assist younger pupils, taking part in LIII production, sports day and opportunities to reflect and mark the end of the first stage of their education in a fitting way. There would be a very different focus were SATS tests taking place during the summer term.

Since half term we have seen girls commemorate the anniversary of the First World War with: author visits, drama lessons and music as well as English being used to help the girls understand the relevance of the occasion and to enable them to express themselves. The school has produced an anthology of poems, prayers and creative pieces to mark the occasion. We have hosted the IAPS national gymnastics competition; we sat and watched fifty eight routines including every child aged 7-11 at the House Gym and St Catherine’s Day meant a day off timetable to pause and reflect on the ethos and values we share as a school. Budding scientists represented the school at a national science quiz; chess players took on opponents and built their ability to strategise; LIII charity monitors helped load on Christmas boxes destined for children in need via Operation Christmas Child; the iPioneers presented a memo app to the Senior Management Team; School Council members debated traffic and road safety issues. The Pre-Prep have learnt… songs, lines and movement around a stage which is of professional standard ahead of their Nativity. This has all happened amidst challenging lessons, timed assignments for girls in LIII and preparations for the Christmas service. This is what a great Prep School should be striving to achieve. It enables each pupil to be challenged and to have their efforts recognised. It is truly difficult to ‘measure’ and yet its worth is so tangible and significant.

Naomi Bartholomew

Gendered Beliefs about Intelligence

Recent research undertaken at University of Illinois argues that six year old girls already have gendered beliefs about intelligence.

“There are lots of people at the place where I work, but there is one person who is really special. This person is really, really smart,” said Lin Bian. “This person figures out how to do things quickly and comes up with answers much faster and better than anyone else. This person is really, really smart.”

Bian, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, read this story out to 240 children, aged 5 to 7. She then showed them pictures of four adults—two men and two women—and asked them to guess which was the protagonist of the story. She also gave them two further tests: one in which they had to guess which adult in a pair was really, really smart,’ and another where they had to match attributes such as ‘smart’ or ‘nice’ to pictures of unfamiliar men and women.

The results were stark. Among the 5-year-olds, both boys and girls associated brilliance with their own gender. But among those aged 6 or 7, only the boys still held to that view. At an age when girls tend to outperform boys at school, and when children in general show large positive biases towards their own in-groups, the girls became less likely than boys to attribute brilliance to their own gender. Bian also found that the older girls were less interested in games that were meant for ‘really, smart’ children.

Research such as this is a further call to arms for educators of young girls and boys. It is also another reminder of the essential work we do here at St Catherine’s and indeed in other girls’ schools to ensure girls and young women are given strong female role models to follow and to emulate. I recommend http://www.amightygirl.com as an excellent resource listing books, toys and films suitable for ‘smart, confident and courageous girls’ and urge us all to work together on this to ensure that St Catherine’s girls have a sense that there is nothing that they cannot go on to achieve.

Naomi Bartholomew