Girls' Schools Association
| Abbreviation | GSA |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1874 |
| Purpose | Professional association for headteachers of independent and state girls' schools |
| Headquarters | Suite 105 108 New Walk Leicester England |
Region served | Mainly United Kingdom |
President | 2024–25: Alex Hutchinson, Head, James Allen's Girls' School |
| Affiliations | ISC |
| Website | gsa |
The Girls' Schools Association (GSA) is a membership association for the heads of independent and state girls' schools in the United Kingdom. It is a constituent member of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), and works with the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).
History
The GSA started life as the Association of Headmistresses – an organisation founded in 1874 by Dorothea Beale and Frances Buss, with the intention of improving access to education for girls.[1] Buss was the founding president.[2]
Over the next century, the AHM led professional discussion and debate about the leadership of girls’ secondary schools and wider aspects of school-age education for girls in England and Wales. During the late 19th century, the AHM was a pioneering organisation arguing for the right of girls to a full curriculum of secondary education equivalent to that of boys. In these years it was hampered by the relative financial poverty of girls’ education but this situation improved significantly after 1902, when local education authorities were empowered to create and fund girls’ secondary schools on a large scale. By 1944, the principal of equal provision of secondary education for boys and girls was no longer in doubt and the three post-war decades saw continued expansion, with a range of girls’ schools – fee-paying day, fee-paying boarding, state-funded selective and state-funded comprehensive – operating side-by-side.[3]
As it approached its centenary year, the AHM recognised a total of five affiliated associations with the UK. At their respective annual general meetings in November 1973, two of these associations – the Association of Heads of Girls’ Boarding Schools and the Association of Independent Direct Grant Schools – resolved to amalgamate in order to form a new ‘Girls School Association (Independent and Direct Grant)’ under the presidency of Dorothy Dakin, Headmistress of The Red Maids' School, Bristol (1961-1981).[4]
The aim of the new body was ‘to unify the independent and direct grant schools for girls’. At the first annual general meeting a year later, Dakin told GSA's inaugural members that it was ‘still closely connected with its parent Association of Headmistresses’ but was also making connections with other independent school groupings: ‘the boys’ schools (H.M.C. and I.A.P.S.) and governing bodies’.[5]
In fact, the AHM was, itself, beginning merger discussions with the Headmasters’ Association (HMA), with the result that a unified secondary headteacher body came into being in January 1978. This was the Secondary Heads Association (SHA) and it was GSA policy from the start that all of its members should also be members of SHA.
Structure
The chief executive is Donna Stevens.
See also
- Girls' Day School Trust
- List of girls' schools in the United Kingdom
- The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC)
References
- ^ Gordon, Professor Peter; Gordon, Peter; Lawton, Professor Denis; Lawton, Denis (2 August 2004). Dictionary of British Education. Routledge. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-135-78311-2. Retrieved 11 April 2025.
- ^ "Buss, Frances Mary (1827–1894), headmistress". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37249. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 18 October 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Price, Mary; Glenday, Nonita (1974). Reluctant Revolutionaries: A Century of Head Mistresses, 1874–1974. London: Pitman Publishing.
- ^ "Association of Head Mistresses, 1874–1977". Archives Hub. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. Retrieved 1 July 2025.
See 1973/74 Annual Report, pp. 16–17.
- ^ "Association of Head Mistresses, 1874–1977". Archives Hub. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. Retrieved 1 July 2025.
See 1974/75 Annual Report, pp. 16.