Our Ethos

Alongside a focus on personal development and character education, our international and global outlook is also at the very heart of what we do and equally vital to our ethos; we want our girls to know that as human beings there is much more that unites us than divides us.

As such we have links with schools in Nepal, Cuba, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Spain, France, Morrocco and Lebanon. We think this work is vital to a world leading and world changing curriculum. As the author R.J Palacio says “we can’t teach empathy, but we can inspire it’ and the direct contact between our girls and their counterparts overseas gives them a personal insight into life elsewhere and brings aspects of our curriculum into a real world context. We want them to understand that in exploring where difference does exist, we learn, we grow and we develop. An old adage suggests that at a party we should seek out and speak to the people least like ourselves. Don’t make a beeline for the people who seem just like you; dress just like you; think just like you! The people least like you are often the most interesting and our international outlook allows us to bring the outside world in – to beam children from around the world straight into the classroom; to meet different cultures, different races; to hear about life as a child elsewhere; to make new friends; to experience different points of view and to always be drawn back to the common traits that make us all human.

“An international community had a positive influence on personal growth & development, interpersonal ease and social levelling”

From our extensive pen pal programme to subject specific developments through to our creative cross curricular projects in years 7/8/9, our international ethos and global outlook has become an intrinsic part of what we do. We want our girls to understand and be proficient in the use of ‘soft power’; building networks, communicating compelling narratives & establishing international rules. Climate change, mass migration, Covid-19, antibiotic resistance… will require global solutions. We want our girls to be at the forefront of those solutions – well versed and established at, and confident in, working with colleagues from across the globe. Our international school links provide the chance to hone hard and soft skills through international discourse and debate; hear alternative viewpoints, participate in international research and opinion and to form lasting relationships that can secure long term benefits for us all. A research project carried out by The University of Edinburgh acknowledges that students working in an international community, this has a positive influence on personal growth & development, interpersonal ease & social levelling. A second consideration is that this is a sustainable way to ensure that the vast majority of our students get some direct experience of a childhood lived elsewhere, of a global perspective – given that overseas trips are costly for students and costly in time and organisation for the staff who lead them. They are, of course, also for the few and not the many. All students can benefit from bringing life overseas directly into our classrooms through video conferencing technology and/or pen pal exchanges and the like. An international outlook is not offering lots of trips (though we do). It is a much more fundamental attempt to focus our curriculum on global issues and challenges, to provide opportunities for our girls to work with students overseas to better understand these challenges, (and each other) and to work collaboratively with teachers and educators overseas to share best practice.  A global dimension, in fact, is woven throughout our school curriculum not only discretely, in individual subjects, but also through imaginative cross-curricular projects such as Dear Freddie Mercury which looks at immigration or The Ministry of Information which looks at the role of the media, misleading statistics, fake news and dodgy dossiers in shaping our perceptions of the world around us or Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die which considers the inequality that exists to this day concerning power and access to resources and education.

Fundamental British Values

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me.

• Martin Niemöller

Holocaust Memorial Day is a time when we seek to learn the lessons of the past and recognise that genocide does not just take place on its own – it’s a steady process which can begin if discrimination, racism and hatred are not checked and prevented. Sadly, genocide is not exclusive to the holocaust; Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and are more recent, tragic examples. We’re fortunate here in the UK; we are not at immediate risk of genocide. However, today there is increasing division in communities across the UK and the world; too focussed on building walls. Not building bridges. Now more than ever, we need to stand together with others in our communities in order to stop division and the spread of identity-based hostility in our society.  Not on one single day – but every day

Martin Luther King noted that “When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast with a scientific and technological abundance. We’ve learned to fly the air as birds, we’ve learned to swim the seas as fish, yet we haven’t learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.”

So, let’s ensure that we learn and lets ensure that we listen and teach our children to do the same to recognise that wherever you are, wherever you go, people are people. There is more that unites us than divides us. FSG is proud to be an International and Global School to that end and whilst we educate and inform our girls of the challenges that issues such as immigration pose – to both destination countries and the countries of departure, we are proud to promote the Fundamental British Values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs.

• “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

• “More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness”

• “We think too much and feel too little”

Knowledge vs Wisdom

“Dear Teachers:

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness. Gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained  nurses. Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates.

So, I am suspicious of education. My request is: help your students become more human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, or educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

Haim G. Ginott”

So, whilst Ofsted are more concerned with knowledge and facts, we consider wisdom to be the aim. We’d contest that if knowledge is power, then wisdom is the power to do the right thing!

Our ‘hidden curriculum’, our ethos and values and how these are demonstrated and reinforced through our international and global dimension are also a crucial part of our wider school curriculum – and we strive to ensure that our girls leave us knowing that it’s not what we are or who we are that matters but how we are.