Leadership Sessions

Breakout Sessions

#MeToo and #TimesUp: Calls for Action

This has been a transformational year for women in the United States. What has this change in national dialogue meant for our all-girls’ school communities? How have the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements changed conversations about feminism, activism, empowerment, and gender? This session will outline the origins, similarities, and differences between these two movements. During this time, facilitators will also highlight how these movements have offered opportunities for student engagement and activism—both inside and outside of the classroom. Additionally, participants will brainstorm ways they can contribute to this movement as educators in their school communities with adults and young people alike.

PRESENTERS: Rachel Jones, Girls’ Education Program Manager; Natasha Ramirez, Girls’ Education Program Manager; and Jessica Capers, Girls’ Education Associate | The Young Women’s Leadership Network (USA)


21st Century Women of Substance: Girls’ Education and the Round Square Discovery Framework

Today’s students face an exciting and challenging future encompassing five or six, or more, different careers. Some they will create themselves, and most don’t even exist yet. To succeed they will need to be women of substance: Entrepreneurial, creative, confident, adaptable, changemakers, critical-thinkers, and problem-solvers. They need to be tenacious, resilient, self-managing, and internationally-minded. But how do we create space in a packed curriculum to develop this strength of character? Drawing on experience from an international network of 180 schools, Round Square will share how schools are using its Discovery Framework to embed character-education in the curriculum.

PRESENTERS: Rachael Westgarth, Chief Executive and Rod Fraser, Chairman | Round Square (UK)


Aligning Vision and Reality: The Campus Master Plan

A campus master plan is a living document—a vision for common goals, framework for decisions, guideline for resource management, and a communication tool. Case studies from the Harpeth Hall School and Laurel School will illustrate the successes and challenges of master planning, with lessons learned in creating flexible programs for the specific demands of all-girl environments. Breakout discussions will focus on specific needs of attendees, including the planning process, resource management, and board buy-in. Participants will leave equipped to evaluate the lifecycle of their master plan and armed with ideas to create flexibility and cast vision with the master plan.

PRESENTERS: Sarah Dexheimer, Architect and Chip Jones, Architect | orcutt|winslow (USA); Ann Klotz, Head of School | Laurel School (USA); and Susan Moll, Director of Advancement | Harpeth Hall School (USA)


Applying the University Model of Startup Incubation to a JK-Grade 6 Co-curricular Experience

With a 15-year deep commitment to an inquiry approach to teaching and learning we began to realize this innovative work was not reflected in our traditional teacher initiated academic clubs—and the gap was growing. How could we bring voice, choice, interests and passions of our students to the surface? How could we support social innovation co-creation within co-curricular experiences? How does this tie into skills of the future? These provocations prompted BSS to look at the university model of startup incubators and accelerators. Inspired by, and working with folks from Ryerson University’s Zone Learning, this session will take attendees through our journey, surprises along the way and a design jam activity!

PRESENTERS: Catherine Hant, Principal, Junior School and Mary Anne Van Acker, Assistant Head, Innovation Development and Technology | The Bishop Strachan School (Canada)


Authentically Communicating the Value of Your School

Emma Willard School, the oldest girls’ school in the nation, remains a “tough sell” with a progressive campus culture and a location just outside the nexus of boarding school world. Learn how the school’s admissions and communications teams joined forces to authentically communicate the school’s standard-bearing value, owning and proudly representing the school’s market niche. Discussions topics will include building and managing the school’s first multi-platform communication and marketing strategy that addresses the needs of the school’s multiple constituencies, a global outreach plan, and top-notch family engagement that boosts retention, engages donors, and permeates the school culture at large.

PRESENTERS: Julie Clancy, Director of Admissions and Erin Pihlaja, Head of Communications| Emma Willard School (USA)


Branding, Blogging, Bragging: 21st Century Marketing Matters for Girls’ Schools

At Lincoln School, we challenge our students to think beyond expectations, own their own narratives, and believe unabashedly in who they are. In the past two years, we’ve applied those same tenets to our marketing and communications strategy, emphasizing our school’s “Bold Minds” in a way that connects with our community and dismantles stereotypes about girls and girls schools. Through a four-step process—refining our school identity, rebranding our mission and materials, refocusing on strategies with proven impact, and telling stories using language that resonates—we’re carving out a niche, unapologetic about our accomplishments, and leading a national movement to put girls first.

PRESENTERS: Suzanne Fogarty, Head of School and Ashley Rappa, Director of Marketing & Communications| Lincoln School (USA)


The College Bound Experience: From 6th grade through College Graduation

The College Bound experience provides personalized college advising services to our students from 6th grade to college graduation. The College Bound Advisor’s (CBA) main role is to foster a college-bound environment, guiding students and their families through the college admissions, financial aid, and matriculation processes, with the goal of placing each student in a good fit college where she will thrive. In addition, the CBA assists students’ successful transition to college and after high school graduation, alumni network will provide support to current high school students and prospective/incoming college students, and cultivate strong relationships with its alumnae, building a dynamic, innovative Alumni Program.

PRESENTERS: Jeremy Cortez, Director of Alumnae Relations | Young Women’s Preparatory Network (USA); Ann Marano, College Bound Advisor| Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School (USA); and Eric Heineman, College Bound Advisor | Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders (USA)


Dads4Daughters

Dads4Daughters celebrates the role fathers can play in achieving greater gender equality in the workplace. We know that when men are spoken to as fathers they are powerfully galvanised to bring about necessary change. This energy for change has never been more relevant. St Paul’s Girls’ School is thrilled with how the initiative has taken hold in recent years. We are now collaborating with the UN’s HeForShe campaign and with other partners to bring about a positive change in work place behaviours, and to remove the barriers to success that too often limit the careers and prospects of young women.

PRESENTER: Sarah Fletcher, High Mistress | St Paul’s Girls’ School (UK)


The Faces of Young Women’s Preparatory Network

This session will offer attendees the opportunity to hear directly from students and young alumnae about how an all-girls, college-bound education impacted their lives. What did their future originally hold for them—and what will their future hold now because of the pathway they chos to take? Learn more about the impact that a single-gender public education is having, had, and will have in their present and future.

PRESENTERS: Lynn McBee, CEO | Young Women’s Preparatory Network (USA); Samantha Casas, YWPN Alumna, Class of 2018/Class of 2022 | Irma Lerma Rangel YWLS/Boston University; Karla Garcia, YWPN Alumna, Class of 2014/Class of 2018 | Irma Lerma Rangel YWLS/UNC Chapel Hill; Chikaodinaka “Chika” Roselyn Gbenoba, YWPN Alumna, Class of 2014/Class of 2018 | The Talkington School for Young Women Leaders/The University of Miami; and Tyrian Robertson, YWPN Alumna, Class of 2013/Class of 2017/Masters Public Affairs Candidate 2019 | Irma Lerma Rangel YWLS /Earlam College/Indiana University Bloomington


Getting Outside the Bubble: Using Research to Set Strategic Priorities

This panel will combine perspectives of a School Head and an expert in market-informed strategy to discuss examples of how substantive initiatives regarding curriculum, student life, learning modes, and experiential opportunities can have a profound impact on applications, enrollment, class profile and net revenue. These leaders will share details of how they affected transformative institutional change to gain a competitive advantage, while remaining true to the mission of their institution. Further, they will examine the underlying principles for a less painful and more effective strategic planning and positioning process, as well as the roles of various school leaders.

PRESENTERS: Craig Goebel, Principal and Stacy Williams, Director of Client Relations & Communications | Art & Science Group, LLC (USA) and Charley Stillwell, Head of School | Episcopal High School (USA)


Girls in STEM and in Leadership: The Development of Cultural Attitudes

In this talk Dr. Kinzler will discuss on-going projects testing the development of cultural attitudes about leadership among girls and boys growing up in the U.S. in different schooling environments and in India. Borrowing from methods and theory seeking to understand the underrepresentation of women in science fields, these studies probe the development of children’s thinking about leadership as tied to cultural notions of gender and race. How early are cultural attitudes about STEM and about leadership transmitted, and how can we equip girls and members of underrepresented groups with the tools necessary to combat biased stereotypes?

PRESENTER: Dr. Katherine Kinzler, Associate Professor of Psychology | Cornell University (USA)


Glittering Prize or Poisoned Chalice? Sustaining Success Beyond the School Gate

How do schools set students up for success in the sprint to credentials and university, without handicapping them in the long-distance race for sustained success at work? The heads of three UK girls’ schools will discuss how they have responded to the challenge of preparing girls in particular to be not just academically successful, but also confident about career prospects and resilient in the face of setbacks. They consider ways of reconciling the risk-averse pupil excelling in set-piece situations, with the characteristics required when faced with spontaneous challenges and competitive situations. The focus will be on practical and effective strategies.

PRESENTERS: Kevin Stannard, Director, Innovation & Learning | Girls’ Day School Trust (UK); Jane Lunnon, Head| Wimbledon High School (UK); Helen Stringer, Head | Northampton High School (UK); and Suzie Longstaff, Head | Putney High School (UK)


Good-bye Little Miss Perfect, Part 2: Practical Tales of Challenging Unhelpful Perfectionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic

Free from the shackles of unhelpful perfectionism, students and staff both enjoy themselves and also perform at higher levels. To tackle damaging perfectionism the whole community needs to buy in to new ways of thinking—students, staff and especially parents. On one side we have universities who want students with intellectual curiosity, marked independence, and self-advocacy skills, and on the other, we have parents who continue to talk about their daughter’s university application as “mine”. What to do? We will share our experiences, observations and work from Oxford High School (where Judith was Head until August 2017) and The Bishop Strachan School where Angela and Judith are working together to set our girls free.

PRESENTERS: Judith Carlisle, Head of School and Angela Terpstra, Principal, Senior School | The Bishop Strachan School (Canada)


Helping Girls to Embrace a Growth Mindset

According to Dweck (2006), the terms fixed and growth mindset refer to two categories of belief about ability. Students with a fixed mindset believe that their mental abilities are static and that their intelligence and abilities are not to be improved with effort. Conversely, students with a growth mindset believe that their intelligence and abilities can be expanded with effort. Research evidence demonstrates that students with a growth mindset academically outperform their fixed mindset peers. What are the growth mindsets that empower girls at school? And, what are the fixed mindsets that limit their growth?

PRESENTER: Maria Gabriela Martino de Galindez, Academic Committee Member | Red ALCED (Argentina)


Innovation and Preservation: Our Road To Implementing A Bold Vision For Teaching and Learning

Through strategic planning and mindfulness to preserve the most valued parts of the school, the leadership at Madeira has not only recast its mission but has altered the way the school approaches teaching/learning. Included in this process was the creation of a schedule that values depth over breadth and the utilization of project based learning strategies as well as the crafting of a new Educational Philosophy. Because of the Board’s commitment, the vision of the Head of School, and the leadership of the faculty and staff, the changes implemented have set the school on a path of innovation, sustainability and a strengthened school culture.

PRESENTERS: Pilar Cabeza de Vaca, Head of School; Kate McGroarty, Assistant Academic Dean; and André Withers, Assistant Head of School | The Madeira School (USA)


Inspiring Females Programme GDST

Would you like to unleash the powerful voice of the young women in your school and help them know that their voices matter? The Inspiring Females programme was born at Norwich High School GDST in 2016. It inspires young women, connecting them with professional role models and educating them as to what new movements are available in the world of careers. Our core aims are personal development, preparing young women for their futures, and supporting growth towards equality. It is a pioneering programme as it is shaped by girls, reflecting their authentic voices and desires. Our events — our diverse programme offers 8 core events across the year — are dynamic, lively, and resonate with women of all ages. Partnership, collaboration and active participation are key elements: we have reached over 850 individual girls and harnessed the generosity of nearly 200 guests who have taken on a variety of roles from mentors to Q&A panel hosts. A quarter of all of our guests have been from our highly-talented pool of GDST alumnae. Find out what the ingredients of our successful programme are, and what we have learnt along the way. To learn more, click here or follow us on Twitter: @InspFemales.

PRESENTERS: Kirsty von Malaise, Headmistress | Norwich High School (UK)


Leadership, Policy, Practice: All-Girls Schools and Gender Salience (and Silences)

This panel of all-girls school leaders will explore leadership and gender theory, specifically how the role of policy maker and instructional leader interacts with our own subjective theories, identities, and politics of gender. We understand all-girls schools as contradictory spaces of gender salience and silences. The starting assumption for our discussion is that theory and practice interact in nuanced and complicated ways with meaningful implications for the everyday lives of girls. The participants of the panel represent diverse regions including New York, New Jersey, Missouri and Texas. Presenters include a professor of education and gender, a private school director of studies, and two founders of public all-girls schools.

PRESENTERS: Stephanie McCall, Assistant Professor of Secondary Education | East Stroudsburgh University of Pennsylvania (USA); Julie Gentile, Director of Studies| Kent Place School (USA); Josie Carbone, Assistant Superintendent for Middle Schools for Public Prep | Public Prep (USA); and Tom Krebs, CEO | Kansas City Girls Preparatory Academy (USA)


Leading for Collaborative Learning

In this presentation an education consultant and a girls’ school principal explore what it means to lead education as an ethical intervention in demanding times, when ignorance, anxiety and cynicism can be overwhelming. The presenters will begin by drawing a distinction between the conditions in which we lead, and the problems we must own and address. They will then focus squarely on how one select-entry girls’ school in Melbourne fosters collaborative learning opportunities for its staff and students.

PRESENTERS: Toni Meath, Principal | The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School (Australia), and Erica McWilliam, Adjunct Professor| Queensland University of Technology (Australia)


Leveraging Our Power: How the National Center for Girls’ Leadership at Stuart [NCGLS] is Building a Sisterhood of Support for Girls

Discover how your school can partner with leading girls’ schools across the country to support future female leaders, no matter where they go to school. Learn how NCGLS will: 1) develop online and real-time leadership courses across six key dimensions for girls at every age, no matter where they go to school, 2) create and maintain a database of internships and professional experiences for high school girls to develop greater expertise in and exposure to fields where women are traditionally underrepresented and 3) Use a consortium collaboration to highlight consortium schools and to extend the geographic reach of Stuart’s highly successful #LEADLIKEAGIRL Conference.

PRESENTERS: Patty Fagin, Head of School and Courtney Portlock, Head of Upper School at Stuart Country Day School of the Upper School and Director of the National Center for Girls’ Leadership at Stuart| Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart (USA)


Measuring Growth and Progress in Dispositions: Getting Hard Data on Soft Skills

What you measure is what you value. Pymble Ladies’ College is a future-focused organisation that is actively designs learning experience to promote the development of dispositions in its students. At a time when there is a saturation of data regarding student performance, Pymble is focusing its energies on measuring growth and progress of students in the challenging area of dispositions. Gain insight as to how a leading school is evolving its learning design and assessment practices around a new paradigm that challenges traditional notions regarding the value of education.

PRESENTER: Justin Raymond, Dean of Curriculum Innovation (K-12) | Pymble Ladies’ College (Australia)


The Merits of a Mentor: Modeling for Young Women as Female School Leaders

We all need mentors and confidants. Women, in particular, often draw strength from the ability to connect, seek advice, and partner. Women, students and school leaders alike, cull inspiration, onus, and self-actualization from their sense of connection to a greater community beyond themselves. In this session, leaders from three girls schools with faith-based missions, will speak to first their experience being mentored by a seasoned female leader, then to mentoring a colleague; each will address the way this process modeled for students how women can engage with one another in a spirit of professional or personal formation and growth.

PRESENTERS: Corinne Fogg, Director of Curriculum & Professional Development | Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart (USA); Eve Grimaldi, Dean of Students| Georgetown Visitation School (USA); and Meg Frazier, Head of School | Marymount International School London (UK)


Modern Boarding: How it Equips Girls to Thrive Beyond School

The session will briefly consider what is meant by Modern Boarding and how schools can and have adapted their boarding provision to cater for the changing market whilst still maintaining the best that boarding can offer and the supportive framework they provide for helping girls (and their families) to navigate the complexities of the teenage years. The second part of the session will explore how boarding in today’s girls’ schools equips young women with the practical and personal skills to thrive at university and within their professional lives.

PRESENTER: Eve Jardine-Young, Principal | Cheltenham Ladies’ College (UK)


Oh the Lessons We Learned!: Our Journey through the Project XQ Competition

In this engaging session, three full-time educators, the founding team of Girls Global Academy, relive their journey from a tweet from Laurene Jobs about the XQ Super Schools competition and the submission of an initial concept about an all-girls school to the robust inner-workings they navigated with discovery, design, and developmental phases of the competition to their final submission. The lessons learned from their work together during the XQ Super Schools Competition has transformed the team both personally and professionally.

PRESENTERS: Shayne Swift, Founding Team Member; Enje Brown, Founding Team Member; and Karen Venable-Croft, Founding Team Member | Girls Global Academy (USA)


The Role of Single-sex Education for College-bound Women, Revisited: A Multilevel Analysis

What characteristics and experiences exemplify women graduates of single-sex high schools? How do women graduates of single-sex high schools differ from their co-educational high school-attending peers at college entry? These questions and others form the basis for this session. Revisiting the the 2009 NCGS report on the effects of single-sex schooling (Sax et al., 2009), this session will present findings from an updated collaborative investigation between NCGS, the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA and University of Missouri-Kansas City. Using data from the 2016 Freshman Survey, we will identify ways in which women from single-sex schools are different from, and similar to, their coeducational school-attending counterparts. Additional differences will be presented by school type and race/ethnicity, where possible.

PRESENTER: Tiffani Riggers-Piehl, Assistant Professor of Higher Education | University of Missouri-Kansas City (USA)


Snowflake to Powerhouse: Helping Girls to be the Force, Not the Victim

With concerns around the development of a Snowflake Generation threatening to overwhelm young people, parents and educators alike, how do we help girls to find and hold on to an authentic voice of their own? How can they find confidence in their own identity as young women in a fast-moving and pressured world made more difficult by the power of social media? What can we do to ensure girls are empowered to make and be the change in an unequal world? Attendees will discuss all this and more!

PRESENTERS: Lucy Elphinstone, Headmistress | Francis Holland School (UK) and Fionnuala Kennedy, Deputy Head (Pastoral)| Wimbledon high School (UK)


Stepping Up to Leadership: How to Grow as a School Leader and What Steps Need to be Taken to be Effective and Successful

Toni Riordan and Ros Curtis are Principals of two P-12 schools in Brisbane, Australia. They will provide two models for the development of female leaders of schools. The first model of leadership relates to preparing for the Principalship. The second model relates to growing other senior leaders to be effective and successful leaders in their current roles. This breakout session will be of relevance to those who have an interest in encouraging others at all levels in schools to step up to leadership opportunity, as well as their own leadership development. Strong female leadership in girls’ school is essential role-modelling for the students in our schools as “if they don’t see it, they won’t be it or dream it.” Specific and school-based leadership strategies will be shared and participants will be given the opportunity to reflect on the leadership development strategies in their own schools and what else could be done to increase the pipeline of female school leaders.

PRESENTERS: Ros Curtis, Principal | St Margaret’s Anglican Girls’ School (Australia) and Toni Riordan, Principal | St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School (Australia)


Thinking Girls; or, “Practical Wisdom for Girls”

First, we explain our rationale: to educate the diverse, ethical and open-minded female leaders of the future. Next, we demonstrate how engaging with Aristotle’s account of the character and intellectual virtues—courage, justice, self-control, and practical wisdom—enables course participants to reflect on and develop in themselves these vital leadership qualities. We will facilitate discussion based on material from one course unit: Carol Gilligan’s and Annette Baier’s work on women’s ethical thinking, and how this relates to Aristotle’s virtue ethics. Finally, we will invite participants to respond to a hypothetical ethical dilemma, presented via a demonstration of our online learning platform.

PRESENTERS: Charlotte Avery, Headmistress | St Mary’s School, Cambridge (UK) and Jane Slinn, Founder & CEO of Independent Thinkers Education| Independent Thinkers Education (UK)


Transforming Learning

Our session will focus on how to embrace being a learner, a leader and a teacher, through exploration of the Our Lady of Mercy College Parramatta’s (Sydney NSW Australia) TRANSFORMING learning framework. We support and challenge our learners to expand beyond what they know they can be. The session will explore how we developed a transforming learning framework for our specific context which focuses on relationships for learning, meeting the needs of high potential learners (hpl), the creation of an innovative OLMC Insight Data Dashboard to track student learning growth and the development of innovative student reporting focusing on feedback.

PRESENTERS: Stephen Walsh, Principal; Gemma VandePeer, Director of Teaching and Learning; and Jonathan Saurine, Leader Innovation | Our Lady of Mercy College Parramatta (Australia)


Transitioning from Religious-led to Lay-led School Leadership: New Habits and Tin Hats

Leadership in faith-based schools rooted in a distinct Charism and Mission, is in transition! Due to a decrease in men and women entering vocational life, many religious orders are divesting operational authority to lay-led boards and lay Presidents/CEOs. This type of transition is not always easy to navigate for any of the collaborators. This sessions will unpack the challenges and successes currently facing faith-based schools, as communities embrace this new reality from the perspective of a panel consisting of five Heads of School/Presidents.

PRESENTERS: Connie Scerbo-Yunyk, President | St. Mary’s Academy (Canada); Concepcion Alvar, Headmistress | Marymount School of New York (USA); Mary Kate Blaine, Principal | Georgetown Visitation (USA); Olen Kalkus, Head of School | Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart (USA); and Charlotte Avery, Headmistress | St Mary’s School, Cambridge (UK)


The Value of Creative Subjects

It is commonly agreed that creativity is a highly desirable characteristic for our young people entering the workplace to thrive in the 21stCentury. This session will explore the type of school environment which is necessary to foster creativity, including consideration of the importance of the creative subjects and the importance of the pastoral system in achieving this aim. It will consider how these can practically contribute to enabling our young women to enter the workplace prepared to be innovative and entrepreneurial, as well as equipped to contribute their own ideas and take appropriate risks without compromising on the academic standards achieved. Strategies employed successfully (and unsuccessfully!) will be shared and ideas welcomed.

PRESENTER: Emma McKendrick, Headmistress | Downe House (UK)


The Value of Data: Data & Development

As a three-year project with the Dana Center at University of Texas at Austin, the Young Women’s Preparatory Network (YWPN) is doing a study of over 6,000 YWPN students and a comparison group in co-ed schools to better understand the short and long-term impact that YWPN, single-gender, public schools have on students. By using this data, programs and development teams can strategically improve our application of funding and do an in-depth analysis of how the school culture impacts students and scores and a student’s long term success.

PRESENTER: Lynn McBee, CEO | Young Women’s Preparatory Network (USA)


INSPIRE! Sessions

Developing a Development Team

Creating a productive team that represents and requires diverse skill sets to achieve a unified mission is no easy feat. Combining this objective with the skills required to be successful in building a solid reputation among various departments and donors—emotional intelligence, diplomacy, communication skills, and ethics—and hiring the best fit becomes even more crucial. This session will discuss how to build a team from the ground up or restructure a team using “talent mapping” techniques, focusing on strengths, and learning what is most vital to cultural fit and performance success—the answers may surprise you!

PRESENTER: Elizabeth Zeigler, President and CEO | Graham-Pelton (USA)


Educational Coaching for the Development of Women Leadership

One of the essentials in our schools was the introduction of a personal assessment system. The objective was to accompany students in their formation process, in order to deepen their self-knowledge and strengthen their self-esteem. Recently, we have introduced educational coaching as a means of enriching our system of personal assessment, and to encourage our girl students to find in themselves solutions to their problems and the setting for their own objectives. The session will focus on the strategies implemented to help them find a sense of mission, which would make them develop autonomy, decision-making abilities, resilience, and self-confidence.

PRESENTER: Gloria Gratacos, Dean Faculty of Education | C.U. Villanueva (Fomento Educational Group) (Spain)


Embedding Leadership and Service Learning into the Curriculum

What is your leadership style? When we asked this question to students 4 years ago we often heard: “I don’t know what type of leader I am, because I have never had a leadership role.” As a school, we quickly realized we needed to not only change the question, but expand our students’ perspective on leadership and service learning. In this session, participants will learn about how Branksome made Leadership a key strategic priority and worked with community stakeholders to build a school culture where all students could experience explicit instruction on leadership regardless of whether or not they had a formal leadership role. Participants will be introduced to Branksome’s Grade 9 Leadership course and the powerful service learning project that we created for our Grade 9s: creating and leading a Special Olympics Sports Day for students with intellectual and physical disabilities. They will also receive information about our 8 week curriculum in which students participate in leadership lessons, discover their personal leadership strengths and challenges, and explore the issue of barriers to access.

PRESENTERS: Denise Power, Director of Student Life | Branksome Hall (Canada)


Entrepreneurial Competencies for the Development of Women Leadership

In our school Entrepreneurship Studies is now a must in the curriculum. Its objective is the development of entrepreneurial skills and abilities that allow the students to succeed both in their personal lives and future professional careers. We have been able to contrast that there is a real change in the attitude and character of the students who take this subject. Therefore, autonomy, resilience, self-confidence and decision-making arise as they lead a project that starts from their own initiative. This session will show you some successful ways to develop entrepreneurial values and competencies in and beyond the classroom.

PRESENTER: Gemma Arasanz, Entrepreneurship Studies Leader and EASSE Board Member | La Vall School, EASSE (Spain)


Foreign Policy and the Role of Girls

Globalization is here, and the world is intertwined like never before. As a result, American foreign policy decisions have long-lasting consequences, and the people making those decisions will not live long enough to experience the full effects of them; however, the girls we teach will. My self-designed course Spycraft: Espionage and Diplomatic Policy, offers the only curriculum available to high school students that bridges the knowledge gap that exists among teens and global affairs. And even more importantly, bridges the gender gap between women and careers in foreign policy. Utilizing techniques learned from my tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency counter-terrorism center and as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I provide a different approach to learning about foreign policy that is unparalleled by any other high school education.

PRESENTER: Tracy Walder, Upper School History teacher | The Hockaday School (USA)


Fostering Extraordinary Leadership

As schools founded in the Mercy tradition, we seek to inspire our young women to see the power of ordinary actions as the transformative experiences that develop their skills to be extra-ordinary leaders of the future. In this session we will provide insights into the creative and innovative leadership opportunities that have been created across all year levels including Board Room lunches for senior leaders to Year 10 students planning and leading “Girls Night In” events to the “Girl Talk” initiative where girls work together to address emerging social issues within the student body.

PRESENTERS: Catherine O’Kane, Principal | All Hallows’ School (Australia) and Nicole Christensen, Principal | Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College (Australia)


Girls Leading Girls: Building Self-efficacy through Authentic Cross Age Programs

This workshop will share a model of cross age programs we have developed for 800+ girls across K-12 (and alumnae) and some reflections from the journey. Our programs are informed by the work of Seligmann and Dweck and evaluated through a suite of student surveys and interviews. We have sought to intentionally craft experiences that develop confidence and leadership in the mentors and also provide for the mentees approachable role models who bring wisdom along with their own flaws and frailties. Participants will come away with specific program ideas, exemplar documentation and some learnings from our experience.

PRESENTERS: Elisabeth Rhodes, Principal and Tracy Healy, Deputy Principal| Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School (Australia)


Growing Tomorrow’s Leaders through Entrepreneurial Learning

Studies show that many girls self-select out of endeavors that are risky or difficult due to fear of failure. Entrepreneurship education grows girls’ leadership abilities by fostering a resilient, can-do attitude that grows their willingness to seize opportunities. Session attendees will learn strategies for effectively introducing entrepreneurial mindsets and skillsets into their classrooms and will participate in hands-on, interactive activities that promote risk-taking, creative problem-solving, adaptability and confidence. We’ll share examples of how to use entrepreneurial learning to prepare girls to lead in our complex and changing world.

PRESENTERS: Cristal Glangchai, PhD, Founder/CEO and Leslie Coles, Director of Programs| VentureLab (USA)


Guiding Principles and Mechanisms for Infusing Global Competency

This interactive session uses a visual framework, video, and case study to prompt a conversation about the what, why, and how of infusing global competency into a K-12, all-girls’ school. Facilitators will share a framework they developed at York House School to facilitate a school-wide conversation. Participants will hear from students, educators across grades and disciplines, and administrators about the experience. They will explore key principles that drive the design of transformative and relevant learning experiences linking academics, student leadership, community engagement, and international exchange. They will learn of mechanisms that enable educational change in this direction that young women, leaders, and the world are calling for today.

PRESENTER: Kara McDonald, Global Programs Coordinator | York House School (Canada)


A Head on Looking Ahead: Learning to Love Leading

The session will offer an honest and energetic evaluation of the fun and challenges of leadership in the 21st Century. It will cover the importance of the role model leader, what leadership for millennials means, why women should step up and what makes it fun. Lots of candid anecdotes, a splash of practical advice, a snippet of useful research and lashings of audience activity.

PRESENTER: Jenny Brown, Headmistress | St Albans High School (UK)


International Teachers: New Imperialist or Navigating Multiple Discourses?

Based on research conducted for completion of a doctoral studies programme this session will explore how international teachers navigate and make sense of an international school setting where values, expectations and pedagogy are constantly emergent and contingent. The focus would be for those charged with teacher training in an environment seeking to support intercultural competencies and international mindedness.

PRESENTER: James Hatch, High School Principal | Seisen International School (Japan)


Into the Blue Light™: Super-Charging Media Literacy to Support Positive Outcomes in College Admissions and Career Development

In this session, Kimberly Wolf, M.Ed. (Founder, Girlmentum Labs) and Carolynn Crabtree (Founder, Cornerstone Reputation) detail the latest strategies students can use to manage their online reputations. Today’s students can have a positive impact on their college prospects and future job searches if they take steps in high school to polish their digital profiles and manage Google search results tied to their names. Drawing from research on adolescent media use, expert perspectives from admissions officers and employers, and best practices in online reputation management, Kimberly and Carolynn explore programming options administrators can roll out to reach students, parents, and educators.

PRESENTER: Kimberly Wolf, Educator, Speaker, Founder | Girlmentum Labs (USA) and Carolyn Crabtree, Speaker, Co-Founder | Cornerstone Reputation (USA)


Is Girl Scouts the Premier Organization for Girls… or the Boy Scouts?

Expecting girls to explore adventure, seek alternative solutions to community problems, goal set and create advertising campaigns to promote cookie business, all while in the midst of boys, is feasible. Can a girl overcome the barriers she faces when compared with boys constantly? Yes, she can. But, is this the strongest approach to girls gaining leadership skills, confidence to believe in her own potential, and embrace risks of trying new opportunities? Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee thinks no. Girls learning in a single-gender environment discover their voice faster, develop stronger leadership skills, and build self-confidence that leads to action. This session will walk participants through how to create an Asset Map that highlights all the challenges a girl faces (different from a boy). After the Asset Map is created, further discussion will take place on the “Current State” of a girl today and the “Desired Future” we hope for her. What is the gap in between the two and how does Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee seek to fill the gap?

PRESENTER: Mary-Claire Spencer, Director of Urban Membership | Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee (USA)


Lessons in Leadership

ASGS schools are excitingly diverse but share a tireless commitment to supporting their students in taking up their full place in the world as leaders, movers and shakers. Many have developed successful innovative student leadership initiatives—going well beyond school councils and prefect systems. Some examples to discuss—student researchers, student curriculum developers and co-planners (Parliament Hill), student appointments panels (Langley School) , peer educators, healthy relationship advisors (Sarah Bonnell), Young Women’s Leadership Conferences and “Girl Leading” a residential girls’ leadership programme, run in support of Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” Campaign launched in UK at Mulberry School in 2015.

PRESENTER: Sue Higgins, Communications & Research Director | Association of State Girls’ Schools (UK)


Student-led Conferences: Planning and Supporting the School Community in Reflection and Leadership

Student-led Conferences are an increasingly popular practice to encourage students to engage in self-evaluative thinking and goal-setting that furthers their development. A powerful student-led conference experience can be inspirational to students, teachers, and parents.  Given its increasing popularity, there are more and more resources for teaching meta-cognition and reflection, but it takes much more than worksheets and lessons to build a successful and sustainable Student-led Conference practice in schools. In this session, Cristina J. Easton, Upper School Principal at Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, will share her experience in multiple school settings of planning and executing SLCs from what stakeholders should be involved, to building and scheduling logistivs, to family buy-in, to how to support your staff in this kind of educational experience that can sometimes seem so different from their usual content.

PRESENTER: Cristina J. Easton, Upper School Principal | Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (USA)


Using Data to Drive Instruction

At PPN, our teacher leaders work to build high performing teams and drive the work of our instructional teams through the effective use of the DDI process. Our instructional leaders consider: how to engage others to take responsibility to achieve results; what their student achievement data is telling them, and how to design and facilitate effective data team meetings to ensure the team is working toward desired student achievement outcomes. Our goal is that our students leave us as goal-oriented decision makers with the ability to read, write, listen, speak, create, and think deeply across disciplines. Join us as we discuss some of the structures and instructional approaches we utilize in developing our data-driven culture.

PRESENTERS: Jessica Strong, Academic Director of Humanities | Girls Prep Lower East Side Middle School/Public Prep Network (USA) and Shai Stephenson, Teacher | Girls Prep Bronx Elementary School (USA)


Why Women Leaders Rule: Powerful Change Leadership

In this dynamic, fast-changing independent school environment, all heads and senior administrators can expect to be change leaders at their institutions. This session will show a “behind the scenes” look into a culture change process at one school during a leadership transition as well as examine what particular advantages and challenges stereotypes and expectations about women leaders create for females in power. We will also discuss how to support each other as women in stepping into our authority and the specific importance of female faculty and staff at girls schools to be role models in our professional behavior and choices.

PRESENTER: Lauren Castagnola, Communications Specialist | Westover School (USA)


SNAP! Sessions

A Home of Hope for Orphan Girls in Sierra Leone

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Teddy Roosevelt’s words in America 100 years ago are making sense today in Sierra Leone. Especially after the Ebola devastation of 2014 and 2015, when teenage pregnancy soared because family planning funding was diverted to the Ebola emergency. Two local NGOs partnered in November 2017 for a Listening Tour to 16 schools in two Northern districts, identifying barriers that are keeping girls from completing secondary education. Here’s our report back, and our plans for implementation of various projects: mentoring for those returning, mother-daughter clubs, and livelihoods training.

PRESENTER: Katherine Cassidy, Co-Founder | Touch the Sky Foundation  (Sierra Leone)


Navigating Networks

Global citizenship requires girls to exercise faith, grow intellect, and build confidence as they prepare to launch from high school into the world. Working with local and international networks/resources, Upper School students at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart develop life skills as they interact with others from a variety of cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic backgrounds. Creating partnerships and building relationships are key to our philosophy as we strive to parallel the structures of our global society. This session explores how Stone Ridge ensures that our female leaders are ready to serve with faith, intellect, and confidence.

PRESENTERS: Jeanne Downey-Vanover, Chair of World Languages, Teacher of Spanish and Kimberly Falatko, Network Exchange Coordinator, Teacher of English | Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart (USA)


A Paralympian’s Journey: From School to International Sporting Medals

In this session Student B describes her education from aged 11 to 18 years, and the opportunities, the achievements, and the challenges of being a double amputee. Now in her late twenties and a Paralympian, working towards Tokyo 2020, she describes the humour, resilience, mindse,t and support from parents, friends, and school that have got her to this point. For someone who believes hard work–not talent–leads to success, you will hear how educators pplay their role in such a journey.

PRESENTER: Sharon Cromie, Executive Headteacher | Wycombe High School Academies Trust (UK)


Personalized Learning, Leadership and Community Engagement: Creating Authentic Learning Experiences for Students Beyond the Classroom

This workshop focuses on creating and executing authentic learning experiences that foster leadership, community-building, and personalized learning. Presenters will discuss the Intensive Studies program in which students develop capstone projects in the Arts, STEM, and Global Studies that connect scholarship, service and community engagement. Students can also apply for grant money to fund their projects. Additionally, the X-Term Senior Internship Program exposes students to a wide range of various careers and is administered by leveraging parent leadership and community contacts. These programs provide rich opportunities for students to develop leadership, engage with community leaders and delve deeply into areas of personal interest.

PRESENTERS: Laura Farrell, Dean of Faculty and June Lehman, AP United States Government Teacher | St. Catherine’s School (USA)


Sister Circles: “West Coast meets the Middle East”

This session will focus on comparing and contrasting the Sister Circle program that was part of a 4 year study in Los Angeles ,CA. to the implementation of the program in Doha, Qatar in the Middle East. We would examine emerging themes from the original study which included; a caring adult, creating safe places and self esteem builders as interventions used in working with high school girls from an inner the city, low socio economic area of Los Angeles. and how these same themes are beginning to emerge in an all girls high school in an affluent, suburb of Qatar.

PRESENTER: Bobbi McDaniel Ed.D., Girls Principal | Vision International School (Qatar)


Teaching Girls Leadership With A Creative Twist: Improv

Funny Girls is a program of the Harnisch Foundation that teaches leadership skills through improv comedy to girls in grades 3-8. Our program’s 11-class curriculum uniquely matches improv exercises to essential leadership skills and concepts, including self-awareness, learning agility, collaboration, empathy, and resiliency–skills that our world demands of its leaders. Key takeaways include how to leverage the main elements of improv into your current leadership curricula, no matter its focus. No prior knowledge of improv necessary to implement these learnings! Information about the program can be found at www.funnygirls.org.  

PRESENTERS: Jenny Raymond, Executive Director and Carla Blumenthal, Program Manager | Funny Girls, Harnisch Foundation (USA)