On Wednesday 8th March, International Women’s Day, we hosted a training session led by Andrew Hampton of ‘Girls On Board’, attended by members of staff from around the Dorset area. The session was based around the contents of Andrew’s book ‘When Girls Fall Out’ and encompassed the many complicated facets of girls’ friendships and how we can help girls to navigate them.
Andrew Hampton worked as a Headteacher for 18 years and in this time he experienced many cases where the fallout of a broken down friendship circle amongst girls had caused them a level of turmoil that often led to them leaving the school entirely. This led to the founding of the organisation ‘Girls On Board’ dedicated to making sure that girls are equipped with the necessary skills to face problems in their friendships if and when they arise.
In his talk he mentioned how pop culture had a huge impact on the depiction of girls’ friendship groups, through books such as ‘Queen Bees and Wannabees’ by Rosalind Wiseman, the book that inspired the film ‘Mean Girls’, and how this plays a role in how people often view these relationships.
As well as providing training for staff, Andrew held a workshop for a class of year 7 girls which they took full advantage of, asking lots of questions and providing some great first-hand insight.
This particular training day was of course focussed on girls; however, Andrew has written and is soon publishing a book entitled ‘Working with Boys – Creating a Culture of Mutual Respect’ which we hope will lead to a return visit after such an invaluable day’s training.
