What’s the gender pay gap in schools, and how does it impact senior leadership teams?<\/p>\n\n\n
It had to happen: the rhetoric of the business world seeps even\nfurther into education and now it reaches the most important people in\nschools: the pupils. This time, what we are observing is part\nbusiness-speak \u2013 and, indeed, practice \u2013 and part gender sensitivity.<\/p>\n\n\n
As usual, there\u2019s an outlier which is first to spot the trend and pursue its possibilities to become a trend-setter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
So\n hands up if you clocked the recent publicity for the Guernsey Grammar\nSchool and Sixth Form Centre, and are now considering following suit.\nAre you contemplating, discussing or even planning a conversion of\ntitle, and possibly actual task, for your most senior pupils: Head Boy,\nHead Girl, Prefects, Monitors? Such titles may soon be things of the\npast, replaced by whole new badges indicating \u2018Senior Leaders\u2019 with a\nleadership team.<\/p>\n\n\n
At the Guernsey school, the leadership team idea\nhas gone so far as to drop the \u2018Head Boy\u2019 and \u2018Head Girl\u2019 nomenclature,\nand have the new team led by a Chairperson and Vice Chairperson. That\nactually sounds to me like a Head Boy (or girl) and Deputy Head Boy (or\ngirl), but that may be a quibble. You can see how they arrived at the\nChair and Vice idea. After all, schools themselves are likely to have\nsenior leadership teams headed by a Headmaster or Headmistress \u2013 you\ncan\u2019t really imagine one for the male staff, one for the female staff. \nThat would be a nonsense. A Head and a Deputy Head \u2013 that\u2019s logical.<\/p>\n\n\n
So,\n schools have one team \u2013 usually mixed gender and these days sometimes\nan alarmingly big team since the invention of Assistant Heads to\nsupplement the ranks of Deputy Heads \u2013 one boss. In co-ed schools, few\nwill have questioned the practice of having a senior pupil team of boys\nand girls, probably with scrupulously equal numbers, but with a Head Boy\n and a Head Girl, effectively therefore two teams. <\/p>\n\n\n
In a way, the\n practice of Head Boy\/Head Girl, usually (I think \u2013 though I may be\nwrong) with no implication of one of the posts being \u2018higher\u2019 than the\nother, meant that schools were actually ahead of the curve in gender\nparity. Both genders with equal representation, both with a chance of a\n top job.<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cIt feels only fair that girls and\nboys should have equal opportunity for experience of leadership. If\nschools cannot contrive it, then who can?\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n
I\n wonder if the Guernsey Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre has had any\n flack for the reported outcome of their new system, which, according to\n the press, has resulted in their appointment of a Chairperson and Vice\nChairperson, who are in fact both boys. Aargh! The Times records that,\n\u201cTwo boys have been elected to the top roles, with three girls also on\nthe team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
Ah, bless! Or, alternatively, What?! <\/p>\n\n\n
I do hope\nthey won\u2019t be the tea-makers or the note-takers at their senior\nleadership team meetings. It is deeply ironic that what appears to be a\nmove to challenge gender stereotyping should actually result in boys\ngetting both top jobs. It suggests that in a fair contest, with whatever\n criteria were used in what is described as a \u2018comprehensive application\n process\u2019, boys win. The Headteacher is quoted as saying, \u2018You are\ngetting a position not because of your gender but because you are the\nbest person.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n
Hmm. The plot thickens. If I have read the slightly\nconfusing news report right, the school ended up with a senior\nleadership team of seven, of whom only three are girls, and, of course,\nboys have the two top jobs. Somehow this seems to me to run counter to\nthe way of the new world. Oddly, taking gender out of the equation has\nended with no top girl at all, whereas previously the genders had parity\n of opportunity. The old system produced one girl to lead them all, one\nboy to lead them all. And I\u2019m sure very few schools would have had a\ndebate about which of the two senior pupils was the more senior, a real\nor perceived \u2018top person\u2019. It seemed that establishing the post of Head\nGirl was an obvious move in schools which had been for boys only but\nconverted to co-ed, even in the early days of tiny cohorts of girls\nstorming the gates which had been closed to them, sometimes for\ncenturies. The post was evidence that girls matter, their voices should\nbe heard, there is a place at the top table for a girl.<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cAt\n the Guernsey school, the leadership team idea has gone so far as to\ndrop the \u2018Head Boy\u2019 and \u2018Head Girl\u2019 nomenclature, and have the new team\nled by a Chairperson and Vice Chairperson.\u201d <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n
There\n is a logic in having just one top job \u2013 one chief executive, one\nHeadteacher, one chair of governors. If women want equality, bring it\non. Any job is available to them, they just have to beat the opposition,\n whoever they may be and of whatever gender. It would be a nonsense to\nhave a Chief Lady Executive and a Chief Gentleman Executive. The battle for equality<\/a>\n has opened up more top jobs to women than would have been heard of in\nmy mother\u2019s time. You cannot read a paper without finding articles about\n the efforts of companies and their member associations to improve\ngender diversity, particularly at board level, i.e. the level from which\n chief execs are chosen. So you could say the likelihood of becoming a\nchief exec \u2013 the one and only \u2013 is severely limited by the failure of\nwomen to get to the level from which they could be selected. As in\nschools, you need female Heads of Department if any of them are to make\nthe jump to Assistant Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher and Headteacher.<\/p>\n\n\n
And\n that brings me to a slight concern in schools. In the business of\nreporting gender pay gaps as recently required, The Times reports that\nin education, the average pay gap is 15.6% but it goes on to specify in\nindependent schools, \u201cOn average, private boys\u2019 schools have much bigger\n pay gaps (21%) than girls\u2019 schools (2.2%.) At Eton College\u2026 Women\u2019s\nearnings are 24% lower than men\u2019s,\u201d (Sunday Times, April 8, 2018). The\nargument usually goes that the reason for the pay gap is that fewer\nwomen are in the highest positions, Heads of Department and above, and\nmore women are likely to be working in ancillary roles, which are less\nwell paid. The presumption is that any Head of Department, say, is\nlikely to be paid the rate for the job, which is not gender-specific.\nThe question then is not \u2018How much do you pay a Head of Department?\u2019 but\n \u2018How many female Heads of Department do you have?\u2019 And if it\u2019s not very\n many, why not? And what are you going to do about it? Do the governors\nhave a plan, cunning or otherwise, to address gender diversity at this\nlevel?<\/p>\n\n\n
Meanwhile, back in Guernsey, and even recognising that if\nwomen want a level playing field of opportunity, then this is one of the\n results \u2013 no quarter given for being a girl, why would there be? \u2013 I am\n still troubled by a new system which robs a girl \u2013 whoever she might be\n \u2013 of a certain opportunity. Obscurely, it feels only fair that girls\nand boys should have equal opportunity for experience of leadership. If\nschools cannot contrive it, then who can? If there is a chief post for\nboys, and a chief post for girls, that\u2019s gender equality.<\/p>\n\n\n
Like male and female athletes \u2013 they get to run in different races. <\/p>\n\n\n
This article first appeared in IE-Today<\/a> on 30 May 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What’s the gender pay gap in schools, and how does it impact senior leadership teams? It had to happen: the rhetoric of the business world seeps even further into education and now it reaches the most important people in schools: the pupils. This time, what we are observing is part business-speak \u2013 and, indeed, practice\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[99,124,125,182,191],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ie-today","tag-gender-pay","tag-leadership","tag-leadership-teams","tag-salaries","tag-slt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}