Helen Jeys, Head Mistress of Manchester High School for Girls, has stepped into the Presidency of the Girls’ Schools Association.

As the new academic year begins, Helen Jeys takes on the Presidency of the Girls’ Schools Association, succeeding Lindsey Hughes, Headmistress of Channing School.

She arrives at a pivotal moment for girls’ education, and with a clear sense of focus for the year ahead; making sure that young women are heard and valued.

“Girls have never had more to say”.

“Girls today have never had more to say, and rarely found it harder to be heard,” Helen says. “Too often they are talked about – in debates on wellbeing, technology, on ambition – and too rarely talked with and listened to.”

“Amplifying the voice of the girl means putting young women in the room, at the microphone and on the record. In a GSA school every leadership role, every solo, every place on the team, and every opinion belongs to a girl. That is no small thing, it fundamentally shapes the agency of young women.”

Over the coming year she will work with member Heads, teachers, policymakers and, crucially, girls themselves to make the case for an education designed around young women rather than adapted for them.

Character not just curriculum

A philosopher by training and the author of two philosophy textbooks, alongside dozens of articles on proactive pastoral care, Mrs Jeys will bring a distinctive focus on character, dialogue and oracy to the Presidency. She is a long-standing advocate of teaching young people to argue well to test their thinking against opposing views critically, analytically, and generously at a time when public debate is increasingly polarised.

She adds: “Education is not only about what a girl knows but about who she becomes. Aristotle understood that character is formed by practice – by doing courageous and thoughtful things until they become habits. Our schools give girls that practice; to disagree without contempt, to change their mind when the evidence changes, and to hold their nerve when it doesn’t. A girl who can think clearly can direct and realise a life well-lived.”

A pioneering heritage, a collaborative cross-education ethos

Helen leads a school with a remarkable history. Manchester High School for Girls was the first academic school for girls in the North of England and educated the daughters of Emmeline Pankhurst. Helen credits its pioneering history with sharpening her conviction that strong female role models change what girls believe is possible.

Having taught in selective, co-educational and single-sex schools, and as a serving ISI inspector, she is also a firm believer in partnership across education: “Everyone I meet, in every kind of school, is working incredibly hard to give young people the best possible start. We learn most when we learn from one another. The question that should unite us is not which school a girl is taught in but whether she leaves her education believing that her voice is worth using.”

“In a world that still makes limiting assumptions about what a girl can or should do, our schools make none.”

Jeanette Cochrane, chief executive, The Girls’ Schools Association

Welcoming Helen to the Presidency, GSA chief executive Jeanette Cochrane said: “Helen brings formidable intellect, real warmth and an unmistakable clarity of purpose to the Presidency. She has spent her career insisting that girls are taken seriously – as thinkers, leaders, and as young people with something urgent to say. In a world that still makes limiting assumptions about what a girl can or should do, our schools make none. Ours is an Association that has never accepted the limits others place on girls, and in Helen it has a President who will say so, clearly and often.”