Miss Bailey's Blog - Week 4, 2023

So much of my time here at Godstowe revolves around communication on every level. Whether that is in assemblies to impart messages for the girls or staff, in meetings with the teaching and admin team and governors, in letters to you our parents or at events in front of smaller or larger audiences. I spoke to Main School girls today about respectful communication both in terms of verbal and written words. I am sure they will be coming home or back to the boarding houses this weekend to discuss how words and speech can be used to both good and bad effect. We also spoke about the WhatsApp and Snapchat platforms and how easy it can be for an effective and positive conversation channel to be inappropriately used and for ideas and topics to rapidly descend into angry and thoughtless overtones. I have unfortunately seen too often people's names used and how this can affect those individuals and the real offence and damage it can cause.

We value careful and considered communication at Godstowe and how this can enhance the positive atmosphere of our school. Leading by example on this has such an intrinsic effect on your girls' and boys' future experience. In this day and age, we can communicate across so many channels and my reminder to the girls in Main School was that once we commit many conversations to social media and WhatsApp channels these are easily shared to a wider or unplanned audience, or indeed they might remain there forever.

This was very well-received by the girls today and I'm sure they will be leading by example going forward. My hope is that we can all benefit from it!

Have a super weekend and I'm off to the first Music Recital for 23-24 and to those coming to the Quiz Night, see you there tonight!