CHAPTERS on All-Girls School

As it is soon to be no more

I have had some core memories unlocked this week after a trio of reminders of my school days. First, a message from one of my oldest school friends. Second, I bumped into someone from school on the tube. Third, Derry Girls. I am late to the party with Derry Girls, and if you are too, it’s a brilliant sitcom about a group of teens at an all-girls school. I went to an all-girls school for secondary, and this show has taken me right back.

People always seem intrigued when you say that you went to an all-girls school. “What was it like?!” they ask, as though you just revealed you were raised by a pack of wolves. The tropes are usually that girls' schools create contagious anorexia, sex-obsessed fiends, or that the air is polluted by toxic levels of bitchiness. I’m sure some girls’ experience of single-sex schooling falls into those stereotypes. Luckily, mine didn’t.

Next year, the school I went to is being merged with the boys' school down the road, becoming co-educational. Hearing that news made me nostalgic and a bit sad. I don’t have any particularly strong beliefs on whether single-sex or co-education is better or worse. This isn’t a political piece on the issue. I just felt a personal sense of sorrow for the girls of younger generations who won’t get to experience the school I know and loved.

There’s nothing edgy about liking school, is there? That’s how I knew me and my friends weren’t the coolest kids on the block. But at least we had each other, and we all felt the same. I remember the day I got my letter of acceptance. It was around the time that the first Harry Potter book was all the rage, and this felt like my Hogwarts moment. My mum had an old-fashioned telephone chair in the hall with velvet upholstery. I sat there, carefully peeling open the envelope, heart racing, crying. I cried even more when September rolled around, and I realized I hated the place. It took me 40 minutes on a bus to get there, the teachers were very strict, and I didn’t know anyone. This earned me the nickname ‘crying girl,’ which aptly still describes me now. That phase was a small blip, though. The place soon came to feel like a home, and the girls became a family.

Some of the teachers were not dissimilar to Sister Michael from Derry Girls too—stoic, old-fashioned, and no-nonsense. On own clothes days or school trips without uniform, we’d be told, ‘NO FLESH FLASHING, GIRLS!’ I remember one particular teacher frowned upon anyone who wasn’t using a fountain pen. It was that same woman who told us we could be engineers, build bridges, be marine biologists, or whatever else we set our minds to. There were some male teachers, but the women were in charge and were the ones we feared most. In particular, the French teacher, with her black hair piled high in a slick bun, who managed to command silence in any room she entered. Their powerful presence and arbitrary rules were all part of building a belief in us that we could be a success if we followed their guidance.

All of that went over our heads at the time, obviously. We just wanted to have fun. I remember the unbridled laughter, stomach muscles in agony giggling solely because we shouldn’t be. There were the strange trends, like trying to cram A4 notepads into tiny handbags, rolling skirts up at the waistband, and experimenting with fake tan. We are the millennials who, without the benefit of make-up tutorials on YouTube, had to work it out ourselves through getting it very wrong. Lord, did I get it wrong sometimes.

At lunchtimes, we messed about trying to perfect the human tower, clambering on each other's backs, squealing at the top of our lungs before collapsing into a heap of entangled bodies. Then trying it again. One year, we discovered a pond at the back of a geography classroom and challenged each other to jump over it until, inevitably, someone fell in, and the area was locked off. In the canteen, we’d try to distract ‘the bread lady’ from her duties so that someone could pinch an extra roll. It was all very innocent and quite sweet looking back on it now.

When I hear people say how much they hated school, I realise how special my time truly was. It wasn't just an education; it was an experience filled with camaraderie and memories that shaped me and my friends forever. So when the stereotypes about single-sex schools paint a negative picture, I feel very lucky to have found fun and empowerment impacted on me instead.

I hope that the school’s merger with the boys' school means it will continue to thrive. I’m not here to cling on to the past or cast aspersions on mixed schools. It’s just a bittersweet moment of appreciation for the place where we all grew up.