In last year’s focus groups, we found that GFS girls are more likely to be unhappy with their lives at school than other children their age. In fact, only 47% of GFS girls said they were happy at school.
“There is so much pressure, it’s such a hard environment…before the holidays I had really poor mental health.” – GFS girl
There are many reasons as to why that may be, but one thing we know for certain is that if we want to build a better world for girls and young women, we have to offer support in schools too.
“I know this isn’t true – but every boy in my class says girls can’t do football, basketball…but I do sports every day and I’m good at them.” – GFS girl
So, we piloted working in schools for the 2023/24 academic year. We brought two offerings into schools, consisting of workshops and after school clubs.
Workshops were trialled at schools in Liverpool, South Wales and Greater Manchester, during the school day. Sessions gave girls in school years 5, 6 and 7 three half day sessions with activities exploring self-expression, communication, confidence, and relationship management.
After school clubs were trialled in South Wales and Greater Manchester, at the end of the school day. One club created a small support group for girls in Year 5, while the other created a drop-in style club for girls in Years 7-9.
Like our regular GFS groups, after school clubs run weekly during term-time. They also include some of the same GFS programme activities we offer at GFS groups. But the largest focus of these after school clubs is creating a safe space, with girl-led discussions and wellbeing support.
What did we learn?
Around two out of three girls felt better after the workshop. Younger girls (Year 5) experienced greater improvements – this is in line with our organisational stance on the importance of supporting girls from a younger age, to achieve more positive long-term outcomes.
Overall, workshops were fun, and we’ve learned a lot about how we can improve this offering.
At after school clubs, both girl retention and attendance were good. Groups were able to offer support focused on school life, but core programme was more challenging to deliver.
Girls still built relationships with one and other in our after-school clubs, but they approached this in a different way than girls in our community groups do.
“GFS makes me talk about my feelings. GFS makes me smile. GFS makes me be myself.” -GFS after school club girl
There’s more for us to learn about delivering after-school clubs in schools as we trial this format more.
Next steps
We want to reach more girls in more schools. To achieve this, we’re recruiting our first full-time Group Coordinator roles in London and Manchester. These roles will involve delivering workshops and after school clubs in schools.
We also plan to continue developing meaningful and effective girl-led programmes, while exploring how to best deliver this programme in the school environment.
We also plan to explore how to best deliver realistic impact, while continuing to learn and refine our model.