As the chief executive of the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA), Donna Stevens is passionate about promoting gender equality.

She talks to Tes about the importance of ensuring that women are as likely as men to become decision-making politicians or scientists, why she believes that work in independent GSA Schools to promote sport among girls could be beneficial in the state sector, too - and how she manages to run a weekend drama school for 100 children on top of her day job.

1. Who was your most memorable teacher and why?

My maths teacher at my comprehensive school in south Wales. She was memorable but maybe not for the right reasons because she was scary. Luckily, it didn’t put me off maths and I went on to study it at Oxford.

Secondly, my sixth-form maths teacher, who could not have been more opposite; she was super lovely, encouraging, mad - I loved that about her. She used to give us past papers from the 1970s and I did my A levels in 1999.

2. What were the best and worst things about your time at school?

I’m a real geek - I loved school; I never missed it. I distinctly remember going to school when I had glandular fever. There wasn’t a subject I didn’t love, from drama to maths to science to Welsh.

I slightly regret not continuing with subjects [at GCSE], such as drama and design and technology. I was encouraged into more academic subjects.

I can’t think of anything bad at school. I had a great time and the best group of girlfriends. We’re all still friends now and celebrated our 40th birthdays together recently.

3. Why do you work in education?

My career path is maybe a little bit unusual. I didn’t have great career advice at school or university. Actually, I think that’s something that could be better across the whole sector.

I did a maths degree and I got swept into becoming an actuary, which is all about value and risk, and so forth. And I had a great four years in London in that role. It was the first time in my life I had money and I met lots of fun people.

But I soon realised I wanted to do something with a more direct and deeper impact, so I toyed with going into teaching.

At this point I was in my late twenties, and I applied to be a starter teacher. I didn’t get the job and I found myself then moving more towards this side of education, working at the Girls’ Schools Association and, prior to that, the Independent Schools Council, where I had scope to influence policy and practice.

4. What are you proudest of in your career and what do you regret?

I don’t really have many regrets - I probably took a slightly longer way into this role than maybe I could have.

I’m quite proud [that], on a Sunday, I run a drama school. It’s been running for five years now. It caters for 100 children, including my three young children, and I think it’s filling the hole from the GCSE days when I was pushed away from studying things like drama.

5. If you could choose your perfect staffroom, who would be in it?

Ultimately, I think the important thing when you’ve got a team is that it’s diverse so that each person brings different challenges.

When I was working for a consultancy, we were put on to teams to do a project, [working with people] with completely different conflicts and thinking styles.

We used this psychometric measure, HBDI (the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument), which measures different ways of thinking - from “analytical”, to “creative”, to “organisational”, to “feeling” and “collaborative”. I was always paired with this man who was really chaotic - I like a list and I’m strategic, a critical thinker - and he would have really wacky ideas. But there was nearly always a really good idea in there and I would bring the critical thinking element to sense-check these ideas, so we made a really good team.

So, the staffroom should be diverse - in terms of approach to work and thinking styles and backgrounds - to get the best output.

6. What do you think are the best and worst aspects of our schools system?

We have great schools in this country, state and independent, but we still don’t have gender equality. Men are more likely to be scientists, politicians, making the key decisions - and, obviously, something we’re really passionate about at GSA is closing that gap, potentially.

We did some research recently showing that girls in girls’ schools do better academically. What’s probably lesser known is that girls are significantly more likely to study maths and science - particularly physics - and are then significantly more likely to become scientists and politicians, so that women are making these decisions alongside men. We’ve got a really good system but we’re not quite there yet on equality.

We’ve got a long list of alumni that goes way back in time. We’ve got Christabel Pankhurst, a suffragette and co-founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union, all the way to today’s Soma Sara [founder of Everyone’s Invited] and Malala Yousafzai. If I could change something, it would be more equality in our schools system.

7. Your own teachers aside, who in education has influenced you the most?

Maggie Aderin-Pocock [presenter of The Sky at Night], who has turned all the stereotypes of women scientists on their head - she’s full of infectious enthusiasm for her subject.

And Brian Cox, who’s now a well-known physicist and TV personality, but I also remember him from his somewhat different earlier career when he was in a band, D:Ream, and who I saw as an 11-year-old at Cardiff Arena.

8. If you became education secretary tomorrow, what would you change?

I’d love to see some of the things that we do in our schools replicated across the school sector, so we start to get more gender equality, such as girls studying Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths).

There’s a significant dropout rate for girls in sport around puberty - I was one of those statistics - but if you look at the take-up rates of sport in girls’ schools, it’s much more favourable. I think physical activity and sport is so important for general wellbeing. So, yes: secretary of state, come and have a talk about how we can replicate some of the things we do in our schools.

9. What will our schools be like in 30 years?

I think choice is really important for parents. But what I’d want to see is a system where pupils excel in whatever they want and they’re not bogged down in gender stereotypes.

And the other point to make here is about technology. [Because of the pandemic,] I think teachers learned things in technology overnight that, if they’d been planned, probably would have taken 18 months but, because it was necessary, that’s where we are now.

10. What one person do you think has made the most difference to our schools over the past year?

Can Covid be a person? Because if anything’s had a massive influence over the past 18 months, it’s this thing called Covid, which we all know about. And there have been lots of negatives, and we are all aware of the negatives, but I do feel like there have been some positives, such as technology.

For me, what I think is great is that young people now really look up to and respect nurses and doctors and teachers as opposed to the latest celebrity. I do think Covid has been awful, but it’s really forced a reset of values in the family and in wider society, in a good way.

Donna Stevens was talking to Catherine Lough, a reporter at Tes

This article originally appeared in the 8 October 2021 issue