The head teachers of both Royal High School Senior and Junior Schools in Bath, Jo Duncan and Heidi Hughes, were recently invited to speak at a major international conference on girls’ education in Washington DC.
The pair were invited to the second annual Global Forum on Girls’ Education in Washington DC, alongside keynote speakers including Billie Jean King, Iranian writer Azar Nafisi and Lt Colonel Lucy Giles, the first woman ever to be in a command position at Sandhurst.
Mrs Duncan and Miss Hughes were there to talk about how changes to the curriculum at the Royal High Junior School have won nationwide accolades.
Entitled ‘Delivering a creative junior curriculum using the indoor and outdoor classroom’, they talked about how the education philosophy of Reggio Emilia, developed after World War II, had inspired hugely-successful changes to the way girls were taught at the Royal High School. The philosophy advocates threading creativity through everything a child learns and believes outdoor learning is also crucial.
The Royal High Junior School’s ‘creative curriculum’ has twice been nominated for nationwide awards by the Times Education Supplement and has been recognised as a beacon of excellence in junior education, laying firm foundations for independent thought and inquiring minds.
The Global Forum on Girls’ Education, led by the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools in the US, is one of the largest girls’ education summits worldwide.
This year, there were more than 800 delegates from 20 countries, including UK Heads from the Girls’ Schools Association, the Association of State Girls’ Schools and the Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST).
“It was an incredible experience to share best practice with schools from across the world,” said Jo Duncan. “It is very powerful to come back to Bath and reinforce what we do here to educate girls from 3-18, knowing that single sex education and its benefits are recognised and implemented across the world.”