QuickINFO FOR
Enrolment
LOGINS
FIND IT FAST
Innovation Centre Project
LK Connect
Spirit Magazine Digital
Educating Girls
“Our mission is to educate beyond the stereotypes.” Dr Nicole Archard BA DIPED, MA, MEDLEAD, MTHEOLST, PHD
Dr Nicole Archard, Principal of Loreto Kirribilli, is a passionate advocate for girls’ education. She has dedicated most of her career to the education of girls, and her interest led her to pursue a PhD in the subject.
Dr Archard firmly believes - and the research supports it - that a girls’ school environment is the best place to educate girls and young women. Why? Because the inequity that exists in our society can be purposefully challenged in a girls’ school environment.
The Confidence Gap
In Australia, more girls than boys finish Year 12. More women than men attain a Bachelor’s degree and more women have a Master’s degree. Yet, despite these achievements, statistics show Australian women experience cultural and social underachievement in their careers. They are paid less and occupy fewer leadership positions. On average, they will retire with 40% less super than men.
It is a complex issue, with many contributing factors, but one reason for this inequity is self-confidence. One youth study shows that once girls hit puberty, their confidence levels drop by approximately 30%. Boys’ confidence levels also drop, but not by as much. The same study revealed girls are likely to describe themselves as stressed, anxious, shy, emotional, worried, depressed, ugly, whereas boys at the same age are more likely to describe themselves as confident, strong, adventurous, fearless.
Even in adulthood, this loss of confidence in girls never fully recovers. Women are more likely to doubt their abilities and are not always able to imagine themselves as a leader.
The Purposeful Education of Girls
As a girls’ school, we have the opportunity to challenge these social and cultural impediments and to influence our students’ attitudes so that the door to their futures stays open.
"Being in a single-sex environment means that we can explicitly focus on 'the purposeful education of girls', meaning that everything that we do, inside and outside of the classroom, is directed towards developing the girls’ confidence, self-efficacy, and ultimately, their self-concept," explains Dr Archard.
Research supports that girls in girls' schools are less likely to adhere to gender stereotypes. They are more likely to choose - and succeed in - subjects like Maths and Physics. They are more likely to speak up, step up to leadership positions, and get involved. They are less likely to feel judged, pressured, distracted, or talked over.
We are familiar with the saying, ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’, but you also can’t be what you don’t believe. Girls must learn to develop a strong self-concept which in turn will help develop their level of confidence.
Everything that we do is a purposeful education of girls. Not just in the curriculum that we're delivering, but everything we're doing in the classroom, everything we're doing in directing the girls regarding their interactions with each other...it's all purposeful.
Dr Nicole Archard, Principal
Outside the Comfort Zone
One of the many things that Loreto Kirribilli does well is ensure girls are stretched beyond their comfort zone, academically but also through extra-curricular pursuits. Girls are taught to embrace a setback and to try again, in order to grow and develop from the experience. We see the outcome of this approach in our remarkable HSC achievements, and many other academic and sporting results.
A Supportive Community
Girls are also taught and encouraged to support each other - to lift each other up even when it means lifting someone higher than your level of achievement - and then celebrate this. At the Junior School or Senior School Swimming Carnival or Head of the River or any other activity within the school, the girls cheer each other on. This is very important. If we teach our girls to lift each other up, not pull each other down, this can translate into the workplace where women will support and mentor other women into employment as well as leadership positions.
Our Year 12 was characterised by our willingness to work together, and to work hard for what became more than our individual HSCs - what became a common goal.
Sarah, 2025 Dux of Loreto Kirribilli
Strong Women as Role Models
In the Loreto context, we have role models of strong women. More than 400 years ago, Mary Ward thought her institute had failed. She was imprisoned, she was excommunicated, and her schools were shut down. Yet here we are today, 1.5 million alumni across the world, in the name of one woman who thought she died a failure. Mother Gonzaga Barry led the IBVM to Australia to establish Loreto schools here. Aged 40, she was dealing with hearing loss and feeling unfit for the journey, but nevertheless she left her home and friends in Ireland for the bushland and gold fever of 1875 Ballarat. Today she is remembered as an educator far in advance of her time.
Another source of inspiration is our impressive ex-student community, where examples abound of women who have broken through stereotypes and achieved great things in the law, medicine, the arts, sport, and social justice. As Loreto women, we are blessed with the example of Mary Ward, her spirit and courage, and her conviction that ‘women, in time to come, will do much’.
Every school has a curriculum. Every school has an extra-curricular program, and buildings, and a pedagogical approach. The difference is that at Loreto Kirribilli we do it through a girls’ educational lens. We are constantly thinking about that lens, and how to create alternative narratives for our girls, developing their confidence, resilience, risk-taking, and self-concept, and educating beyond the stereotypes.
Dr Nicole Archard, Principal
In the News
Statistics tell the story
In the global context, alarming statistics show the inequity for women and girls around education, child marriage and health and wellbeing:
- 98 million girls are not in secondary schooling (UNICEF)
- 12 million girls under the age of 18 are married each year (UNICEF)
- 7,000 adolescent girls are infected with HIV each week (UNICEF)
- One in five girls and women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner within the last 12 months (United Nations)
- 49 countries have no laws that specifically protect women from violence from a partner (United Nations)
However, too often we think that gender inequity issues that concern girls and women are problems that exist overseas, and therefore they are not our problem. However, inequity regarding life outcomes are borne out by the statistics in Australia:
- There is a gender pay gap of 18.5%
- There is currently a gender pay gap in every industry, manager category, and occupation
- Women retire with 40% less superannuation than men
- Only 22% of CEOs are women (and this steadily decreases based on how high the company is listed on ASX)
- 68% of Boards in Australia either have no women or are male-dominated
Source: Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA)
Gender and confidence: all children, when they hit adolescence, experience a drop in confidence. However boys recover much more quickly, and girls never recover to the same level as boys.
- Between the ages of 8 and 14, girls' confidence levels drop by 30%
- Girls are likely to describe themselves, stressed, anxious, shy, emotional, worried, depressed and ugly
- Boys are more likely to describe themselves as confident, strong, adventurous and fearless.
Source: Teen Girls are Less Confident Than Boys & It’s Affecting Their Futures, Ypulse, April 12, 2018
There is no such difference between men and women that women may not do great things .... women, in time to come, will do much.
Mary Ward 1585-1645
