In this episode of 'dare to be more', host Anthony Perl speaks with Daniel Sandral, Head of Junior School, and Joanna Graffen, Head of Senior School, about why girls' schools are more important than ever before in today's educational landscape.

Daniel, who has worked in co-educational, boys', and girls' schools, shares his perspective on how single-sex education eliminates gender-based stereotypes from the earliest years. He explains how girls in all-girls environments receive full teacher attention and opportunities without the natural dominance that boys often exhibit in co-educational settings, allowing them to explore all subjects freely - from robotics to engineering - without societal limitations.

The conversation explores how this foundation of confidence building continues through Senior School, where Joanna describes seeing full physics classes, robust engineering programs, and strong female leadership as the norm. She shares how MLC School graduates often report that when they enter university or the workforce, it simply doesn't occur to them to step behind a boy, because leadership has been normalised throughout their education.

Daniel and Joanna discuss MLC School's recent third-place finish in the National RoboCup competition as an example of what girls achieve when given equal access to STEM opportunities. They also address the importance of safe spaces during the challenging teenage years, emphasising that while MLC School students engage with boys through co-curricular activities, debates, and musical pursuits, having a girls-only school environment allows them to develop strong peer relationships and emotional resilience without additional social pressures.

The episode explores how girls in single-sex schools stay involved in sports significantly longer, the developmental appropriateness of tailoring education to where girls actually are in their growth journey, and MLC School's powerful legacy as one of the first schools to send women to university. Joanna describes the annual Sapphires' Lunch, where graduates from 50+ years ago return to celebrate their connection to this community of strong women.

The conversation concludes with both educators reflecting on the School's "dare to be more" philosophy.

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Host:  Anthony Perl

Production: Podcasts Done For You. For more information about podcast production services, visit podcastsdoneforyou.com.au.

MLC School is committed to empowering young women to become confident, compassionate, and courageous leaders who dare to be more. I'm your host, Anthony Pearl. Let's begin today's conversation. Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Dare to Be More, and we have a very fascinating question to ask both of our guests today.

Joanna Gaffen: Hello? So I am Joanna g Graff, and I'm the head of senior school here at MLC. So I look after the girls from year seven to 12, and I work very closely with our other guest, Daniel.

Daniel Sandral: Absolutely, yes. I'm almost the counterpart. I'm Daniel Sandal. I'm the head of the junior school, which is from pre-K. We have a preschool. It's through two year six, and obviously I work hand in hand with Joe 'cause obviously our students continue on into our senior school. So we have

Anthony Perl: this question that's dangling in front of us why girls schools are more important than ever before.

Daniel Sandral: Oh, right, it's multi-layered. And look, here, I'm a boy in an all girls environment talking about this topic, and I'm really passionate to do so.

I've been around for a long time now. I've worked in many, many different schools in many contexts. I've worked and visited boys schools. I've certainly worked in many, many co-educational schools, and I have worked now in two all girls schools and there is a difference. And that difference is all around the wellbeing of that girl.

I'm gonna be honest, boys bit different. You, you walk into a primary school, into a kindergarten class and you just sit back and watch. Listen and you'll see why girls, girls are so important. Boys by nature dominate. If you do a survey of who gets the teacher's attention, most of the time it's a boy who answers most of the questions.

They get to take WR where sometimes the boys may have dominated, they don't have any. Gender based expectations placed upon them. And likely or not, those things do happen in a co-educational environment. And so what I have seen in my experience as an educator over time is how girls really absolutely get to thrive an all girls

Anthony Perl: environment.

Joanna Gaffen: Yeah, I think some of the things are very similar and some are different, and I think the most important thing in a senior school context that I see is the empowerment and the confidence.

So the confidence to be themselves, the confidence to develop those really strong peer relationships. Without that. Competing factor of the boys in that environment. And I think Daniel said something about those gender based stereotypes, and that's something that's really important to me in a senior school context.

So here these girls are leaving in year 12 and knowing [00:05:00] that they can go and do engineering, they can go and do science. They can go and be whoever they want to be because that confidence has been instilled in them here that all of these opportunities are for girls and they can take it and do great things.

So that's what I love about a girls school.

Anthony Perl: Jonah, is there a strength. In being able to know what it's like to be a leader and to make those own choices, and then how ready are they to walk into an environment where, be it university or into a workforce where it's definitely a co-ed environment in the majority of cases.

And I think for a lot of the girls, it doesn't really occur to them that they would. Step behind a boy. So, because it's just so normal for them to step forward and take the lead in a school context, when they come back after they leave here, they often say, oh, it just didn't occur to me that there would be any gender disparity because they're ready.

So that's, yeah, something that's pretty great about a girls school

Anthony Perl: and Daniel, particularly from early on in the piece, having girls. Being treated just as girls and not having to worry about boys. How big an influence, positive influence is that?

Daniel Sandral: Oh, look, we can't estimate how significant that is and I honest we probably don't see the two benefit of that until they leave us.

Now, I truly believe if those students, if those girls and young women were in a co-educational environment, it is. Far, far less likely that those girls not only had that opportunity, but had the opportunity through their schooling to participate at such a high level in a STEM subject to actually engage with those skills and work with those schools a a.

It may be stem, it may be sport, might be other areas. Whereas if they're in a co-educational environment, they may have not had those opportunities, and that starts from when they're very, very young.

Anthony Perl: And I imagine, Joanna, that's something that you pick up on, is it creating safer spaces by having. An all girls environment.

And how important is that as well in that development?

Joanna Gaffen: I think having a safe space to be confident and be themselves is really key. I think it's important to go back to what Daniel said earlier about, there's nothing wrong with boys. Boys are fantastic, and these girls have really strong relationships with boys.

13, 14, 15. All of us as parents know that is a really tough time and we see that as teachers as well. And sometimes it's just good to give them a little bit of a reprieve from that mess when they're with girls. And look, girls' relationships are hard too, in terms of their friendships and navigating that, but having that sort of safe space to.

To develop those really strong relationships with their peers can make it a really safe space so that they can work on the ways in which that they relate to the boys as well.

Anthony Perl: How do you put this in the context of today's society as well? Because what I wanted to ask about is the fact that, as we've talked about in other episodes, or we'll talk about in other episodes of the podcast, is that the school has had a legacy of.

Joanna Gaffen: I think we're very proud of the fact that MLC school was one of the first to have women graduate and go to university. The, some of the first graduates went and studied physics at University of Sydney. So that's something that really is strong, um, in our s. History. We have our sapphires lunch.

It's this really beautiful occasion where the women who have graduated more than 50 years ago are invited back to the school to celebrate, to be with each other. They have a chapel service and then they have this lunch where. They hear from the school captains of today and they talk about what MLC School did for them.

But they know that there's this safety in this community and they'll always belong to this community and that's something that they can always look back on and fall back on.

Anthony Perl: And Daniel bringing it back to you as well, the premise originally of the question that was posed is more important than ever before.

Has that changed over the years? Is it becoming more important that we keep girls schools separated?

Daniel Sandral: Oh, look, it's a such a really interesting question because at the moment, at a cross foundation, we're seeing a lot of schools. Change a lot. And some of our boys schools are becoming co-educational, emerging.

And look, there's a lot of research out there. And look, one of the things is it's not for academic reasons that we send our daughters to a, an all girls school. It's for all those other reasons that, and that were spoken about before, about the sense of not placing any stereotypes upon our students, really empowering them in terms of leadership and inner school, seeing that women can be leaders, and in my context, whilst I'm a leader.

They see me also responding and working with leaders that are senior towards me and how that's done respectfully. Um, it's about the girls getting more than ever having opportunities to break through into areas that they really, truly are passionate about and not something that they might be locked into because of their agenda because.

It literally starts in the early years of their learning where they start to learn and develop and think about who am I? And so that's why it's so important that. We here at MLC School start that from a very young

Anthony Perl: age, and Joanna, I imagine you don't get many people saying, well, why aren't you allowing boys into the school?

I imagine it's more about girls being embraced as being a singular sex school, which probably points to the factors to why it's so important for it to continue.

Joanna Gaffen: Yeah, I think there's definitely an appetite. I think there many families can see the value in their daughters being embraced in their single sex.

Other girls just find their niche in music or playing sport, but there is just nothing that they can't have a go at. And I think that's what families are looking for when they choose a school like ours.

Anthony Perl: I mean, sport's a fascinating one because sport is kept separated all the way. Through, you know, we see men's and women's teams in whatever sport you care to bring up, so it's really interesting to keep that separated in a school sense as well, so they're not feeling as though they're competing with one another because they're not expected to compete with one another when they get older as well.

If parents are taking them to play club sport, it becomes a little bit harder. But when they're at school and training straight after school, their friends are all doing it. So they're gonna stay in sport longer. And for me, that's an absolute win because the longer that we can keep girls active and involved in team sport, the better it is, both for their health, but also their social and emotional wellbeing.

Because they're busy, they're off their phones. I hate to bring up. The phones, but they're off TikTok, they're out of the group chat, they're running around and having a great time. They also then have relationships with girls in a different context than the playground. So it might be different to their social group.

Anthony Perl: Daniel, just to wrap things up on your side of things, boys and girls mature at different rates and even in those early years, there's a significant difference and therefore a great value in keeping girls with girls.

Absolutely.

Daniel Sandral: And Joe mentioned earlier how we gauge with boys schools and your question immediately brings a memory up to me, where at my year six students always have a social, a dance with some of our other local boys schools. It's so evident there when you bring them together. You can see the emotional and social growth difference between the girls and the boys.

We take advantage of that. We take advantage of that in terms of what we can do in terms of the teaching that we do in the class. We take advantage of that in terms of the academic demands that we can challenge our girls in class. So it's just another third of advantage.

Anthony Perl: So just to wrap things up with both of you, the question of Dare to Be More and how that relates to this whole idea of being a singular sex girl school.

Being more important than ever before. How do you think that interplay between Dare to be more comes in? Joanna, if I can ask you first.

Joanna Gaffen: I think that it's not even dare to be more because they know they can be more, they're not being daring because they just think it's part of who they are. And I think that's what we build in a girl's school is that absolute confidence.

Daniel Sandral: And what about you, Daniel? MLC Girls are more because they are an all girls school. The all girls school environment here allows them to be more in so many different pursuits where they've had hindered opportunities in other contexts. So they are daring in that sense because we have many more opportunities.

Anthony Perl: Thank you for joining us on Dare To Be More. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you never miss an episode. Your likes and comments also help more families discover these valuable conversations. For more information about MLC School and their approach to girls education, visit their website, MLC c.nsw.edu.au.

Check out the show notes for more information. The Dare To Be More Podcast is produced by podcast Done for You. I'm your host, Anthony Pearl, and we invite you to join us next time as we continue to explore what it means to dare to be more.