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Search forOutspoken headmistress sparks 'anti-posh' backlash
Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 08:00
Visitors to the Echo's website thisisgloucestershire.co.uk have mocked the Cheltenham Ladies' College principal after she said she hoped the recession would lead to the end of the materialistic "me, me, me society".
She said girls were growing up in a world obsessed with Botox and binge-drinking and parents wanted single sex schools for their children in a desperate attempt to prolong the wholesomeness of childhood.
She went on to claim that boys and girls need a separate education because of neurological differences. But it was her comments about the economic downturn that provoked consternation among readers.
She told the annual conference of the Girls' School Association, of which she is president: "Am I alone in finding the economic downturn somehow bracing?
"Perhaps it will spell the end of the conspicuous and ultimately unfulfilling materialism of the me, me, me society. Let's hope so."
Mrs Tuck was speaking earlier this week at the GSA's annual conference, representing 200 fee-paying girls schools, in Winchester, Hampshire.
She told delegates that parents today were anxious that their daughters were growing up too fast, and were worried that they are exposed to many negative influence.
Mrs Tuck said: "Sometimes, surrounded by media reports on Botox and bingeing, it's easy to feel we lead in a moral vacuum – garden in a gale, but we must go on gardening."
She added school communities were the antidote to self-absorption and narrow-mindedness, and said "prolonging the wholesomeness of childhood" is often cited by parents as a key reason for choosing a girls' school.
Parents are "worried, aren't we all, about a coarsening of society and the toxic cocktail of binge drinking, internet safety and the early sexualisation of girls" she said.
Mrs Tuck said the GSA would be launching a new website in January, mydaughter.co.uk, to give advice to parents on raising girls. Mrs Tuck also told delegates at the conference that it was "good risk management" for every independent school to consider the possible impact of a recession.
But she added: "Maybe there are costs you can cut, but don't dilute the essence of what your schools do, that make them distinctive enough from the state provision that parents feel their investment is justified."
Mrs Tuck's speech also addressed single sex education, and the importance of teaching girls differently to boys. She said girls' brains were "wired differently" and that it was "crucial to cater for their separate needs".
She said: "I have a hunch that in 50 years' time, or maybe only 25, people will be doubled up with laughter when they watch documentaries about the history of education and discover that people once thought it was a good idea to educate adolescent boys and girls together."
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