Girls should be taught how to ask for a pay rise, school chief says
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Loading... - Giulia Falcone
- 18 Dec 2020
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Girls should be taught at schools how to ask for a pay rise, the head of a group of leading girls’ schools has said.
While girls excel in the classroom, they struggle to get ahead in the workplace because they lack confidence, according to Cheryl Giovannoni, chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST).
She said schools must teach girls “what it takes to be a leader” including the “resilience and grit” that it requires.
“I think teaching girls that being able to ask for that pay rise, or to demonstrate what you have achieved and to be confident in having those conversations, is really important,” she told Times Education Supplement.
“It is about teaching them those skills and having a sense of what it takes to be a leader. And the kind of resilience and grit required that helps.
“Girls do really well all the way through school, [but] when women tend to founder is when they get into the workplace. They don’t make as much progress as men do.”
Ms Giovannoni had a successful career in advertising - which included positions as president, managing director and CEO at various companies - before heading up the GDST, a group of 24 independent girls’ schools.
“We think if we work hard and we do a good job then we will be promoted and we will be noticed, but it doesn’t always work that way,” she said.
Among the GDST schools are South Hampstead High School in north London, which counts the actress Helena Bonham Carter among its alumnae, and Oxford High School where the pottery tycoon Emma Bridgewater and the actress Dame Maggie Smith studied.
Earlier this year, the head of Francis Holland School, a girls' school in Sloane Square, west London, said that sensitive girls should be taught “banter” at school to toughen them up for the world of work.
Lucy Elphinstone who added that young women need to learn how to laugh at themselves and overcome “the curse of the good girl”.
