“Why can’t our daughters come here?” An Interview with Sara Hirst, Pioneer of Co-Education
When Sara Hirst first drove down Black Horse Hill into Sedbergh in 1994 for her husband Christopher’s long-list interview for the position of Headmaster, she could not have known that the town and School would come to define fifteen “magical” years of her family’s life – or that she would play an important role in reshaping its history.
Those first impressions were vivid: the sweep of the Howgill Fells, the town nestled among them, and then the School itself – the majesty of Powell Hall, the Chapel and the Library.
“The beauty of the area so impressed me,” she recalls. “Most importantly, it was the friendliness of everyone we met. The boys were so welcoming, so chatty, so well-mannered, and just charming. And I remember whispering to Christopher, ‘Why aren’t girls at this school?’”
Those words would become prophetic.
A New Chapter
Before Sedbergh, Sara and Christopher Hirst were firmly rooted in the South West. Christopher had been appointed Headmaster of Kelly College at the strikingly young age of 38, while Sara was on the staff as an English teacher and housemistress.
Christopher was ambitious and a proud Yorkshireman. From time to time, Sara would ask him which headship he might one day like to move on to. The list changed over the years, but one name remained constant: Sedbergh.
“It was what he always wanted in his heart. To be Headmaster of Sedbergh.”
That ambition was realised, and Christopher was appointed Headmaster in 1995. The move north was met with a degree of trepidation by Sara, who was Cornish-born and Devon-bred, but those reservations soon disappeared.
“Within days, I had fallen in love with Sedbergh,” she says. “I realised it was the right school for Christopher. We had fifteen magical years here as a family with our three daughters.”
Sara bucked the fairly rigid traditions of the time by continuing to teach alongside her role as Headmaster’s wife.
“That meant a great deal,” she says. “It meant I could get to know the boys – and later the girls – far better in the classroom – to teach them and care for them more closely than I could ever have done just by being in the Headmaster’s house.”
A Boys’ School on the Brink of Change
Back in the mid-90s, the School had been educating boys for almost 470 years, but the idea of co-education was definitely simmering “in the background”.
Christopher’s initial brief was focused on building on the strengths of the boys’ School. Both he and Sara recognised that, if Sedbergh were ever to become co-educational, it would need a strong foundation – academically, musically and on the games field – so that girls would be joining an established and thriving community.
Meanwhile, co-education was becoming increasingly common across leading independent schools. Market forces and parental expectations were changing, with many parents who were sending their sons to Sedbergh asking the straightforward question: “Why can’t our daughters come here?”
Many Old Sedberghians wanted to send both their sons and daughters to the School. With three daughters of their own, it was a poignant issue for the Hirsts.
When the idea of co-education was first discussed, the governors initially favoured taking girls into the Sixth Form only. Sara strongly opposed this idea.
“I had seen Sixth Form co-education at several schools, including at Kelly College, and I didn’t like what I saw. I felt that if we were going to go co-educational, we must go throughout all the year groups from the very beginning. Christopher had taken Kelly College fully co-educational soon after his arrival there.”
The decision was therefore taken to introduce co-education across the School, with the first girls to join Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12 in 2001. Years 11 and 13 were excluded only because pupils at those stages were already in the middle of their examination courses.
Planning the Transition
Sara was asked by Headmaster Christopher Hirst and Chair of Governors Robert Napier to mastermind the transition. Drawing on her experience at Kelly College, she began working through the practicalities: curriculum, girls’ sport, boarding, staffing and facilities. The governors were wholeheartedly behind the move, but there was a huge amount to consider if the first girls were to feel that Sedbergh was truly their school from the outset.
One crucial practical question was where the first girls would live. Lupton House had ceased to be a boys’ boarding house in 1995, and there had been discussion about selling it. Christopher had argued against this, choosing instead to retain the building and turn it into an outdoor pursuits centre.
When the time came to choose a boarding house for the first girls, Robert Napier gave Sara an open choice.
“Sara, you can have any building in the School as the first girls’ boarding house. Which one would you like?”
Her answer was immediate.
“It’s an easy decision, Robert. Lupton House, because it is there. It is ready to be a girls’ house.”
Unlike some schools introducing co-education, Sedbergh had a building ready and waiting, with no need to convert a current boys’ house. Lupton also carried particular significance for its former residents.
“So many of the Old Luptonians were thrilled that their boarding house was now alive again, and had not disappeared off the face of the earth.”
For Sara, the decision to introduce girls across the year groups and the availability of Lupton House were two of the most important factors in making co-education work.
“But then we had to announce it and win the hearts and minds of the world.”
“We had an answer to all our critics”.
The OS community was, Sara recalls, “almost uniformly supportive”.
There was some scepticism among recently departed boys, which she jokes may have been because they were about to miss out on having girls at their School. Some parents, too, felt they had signed up for a boys’ school and that the School had effectively “moved the goalposts”.
Then came the media attention, and with it some backlash from elsewhere in the sector. Critics questioned whether a school that had educated boys for so long could successfully become co-educational. Sedbergh was too isolated, they argued. The climate was too harsh. It was all too male!
Sara, however, had an answer to every objection. “We’re not isolated here. We’re only five miles from the M6.”
The School already had a large number of excellent female teachers, house matrons and tutors, and Sara believed that the community surrounding the boys had always been more balanced than outsiders might assume. Equally importantly, she was confident that co-education could be introduced without losing what made Sedbergh distinctive – the Sedbergh philosophy of all-round education.
“I had every confidence that the girls who would choose Sedbergh would enter into that world and embrace it fully.”
The First 40 Girls
Chair of Governors Robert Napier initially set Sara the challenge of finding 15 girls to join the School.
“I thought, ‘That’s no good, Robert. That’s hardly enough for a couple of sports teams.’”
Sport was going to be central to the success of co-education.
“We needed a good number in the School,” Sara explains. “We were looking for girls who wanted to work hard in the classroom, but also wanted to go up Winder and embrace everything that came with living here.”
That vision appealed to many parents. Some were attracted by the prospect of their daughters growing up away from urban environments, with the opportunity to experience the natural world and embrace the structure of “busy days” filled with work, games, music, drama, debating and DofE.
Then came the first open day for prospective parents, in February 2001.
The weather was atrocious: sleet, rain and high winds. Sara feared nobody would turn up.
But they did.
“At the end of what was a wonderful day, I thought, ‘Yes, we have it underway.’ It was one of the worst days of the winter, and everyone came. It was a very special Sedbergh moment.”
The response exceeded expectations. Instead of the 15 girls Robert Napier had initially asked for, 40 girls enrolled.
There was still plenty to do to make success possible. Parents were given time, information and gentle but firm reassurance. They met key staff, particularly the first Housemistress, Sue Wallace-Woodroffe, and the first Head of Girls’ Games, Hayley Christy.
Behind the scenes, the practical preparations were well underway. Lupton House was refurbished as the first girls’ boarding house. Investment went into netball and tennis courts, while the all-weather hockey pitch was improved. Timetables had to be carefully worked through to ensure the girls had equal access to sports facilities.
From the outset, Sara was determined that the girls would be part of the School’s sporting life, not on the margins. On the first Saturday of term, they took to the field for a hockey fixture against Giggleswick.
“We lost,” she says, “but it was important that they were on the field that first Saturday.”
A First Night to Remember
The first night the girls were in School, Sara was woken in the small hours by the sound of helicopters overhead. By early morning, the phone rang at the Headmaster’s house. Robbers had barricaded themselves in a building opposite Evans House, while armed police had taken up position inside Evans.
“We had spent the past year reassuring parents that Sedbergh was the safest place in the world to send your daughter,” Sara says wryly. “And what should happen on the first night but circling helicopters and armed police in Evans!”
Thankfully the one-off incident ended peacefully and quickly.
That same day, Sara watched the new girls walk up from Lupton House to Powell Hall for assembly, “resplendent in their new uniforms”, escorted and warmly welcomed by the upper-sixth boys.
“It was a very special day,” she says. “The town loved seeing the girls walking around. Somehow, it brought an invigoration not only to the School but to Sedbergh itself.”
Changing the Culture – and Growing the School
The arrival of girls began to change the character of Sedbergh in ways both subtle and unmistakable.
“It became much noisier,” Sara laughs. “On Sunday evenings, when the girls went back to their houses after chapel, you could hear their voices resounding around the town. They have a strong sense of humour and laugh a lot. That made a difference – all good, for most of the time.”
Brother–sister friendships flourished. For some boys at the time, Sedbergh could be a “rough, tough place”; having girls in the School broadened perspectives and brought different kinds of friendship and support.
The numbers grew quickly. The first 40 girls soon became 79, putting pressure on the School’s existing accommodation. An unexpected change provided the answer. Nearby Bentham School was taken on by Sedbergh, becoming Sedbergh Prep School. This freed up the existing Prep, Cressbrook House, to become a second girls’ boarding house. Cressbrook became Robertson House in 2003, providing a new home for the growing number of girls.
“We were so lucky,” Sara says, paying tribute to the estates and maintenance teams who made the rapid changeover possible. “Without that building, I don’t know how we would have managed the increase in girls’ numbers.”
Pioneers – and 25 Years of Co-Education
Looking back 25 years, Sara still describes that first cohort of girls as pioneers.
“We called them that because they took the plunge. So much was against any of them coming – the media, the outside world saying that it’s not the place for girls. Rubbish. They came. Their parents came and supported them. They believed that we could get it right for the girls.”
Sedbergh shaped those pioneers by giving them what it has always given its pupils: a culture of “busyness”, a refusal to “do nothing”, and a determination to uncover every ounce of talent – whether in the classroom, on the fells, on the stage, in the orchestra or on the games field. But the influence ran both ways. The girls brought new voices, humour, perspectives and traditions to the School, becoming part of its long-standing culture of resilience, community and participation while helping to shape what Sedbergh would become.
Sara is often asked whether there was a moment when she thought, “We’ve done it. We’ve arrived.” Her answer is always the same: no.
“I never believed at any time that we had done it,” she says. “I was always looking for ways of improving. Any good organisation that says ‘We’re brilliant’ is asking for trouble. My philosophy was always: we’ve got it good, but we can get it better.”
That sense of continual improvement remains central to how she views co-education. For Sara, it was never about simply bringing girls into an existing boys’ school, but about creating a school where boys and girls could thrive together.
“True co-education means boys and girls coexisting positively, on an equal level, each getting the attention they deserve.”
Now, 25 years on, Sara looks back on a remarkable chapter in Sedbergh’s story.
“It means such a lot to me,” she says, “to have played a small part in the history of co-education here, alongside so many wonderful members of staff. Co-education at Sedbergh now feels entirely natural. But in 2001, it was a huge leap of faith.”
Today, co-education is simply part of everyday life at Sedbergh.
“I feel a great sense of pride and privilege,” she says. “Not in what I did alone – because none of this was done alone – but in what the whole Sedbergh community achieved, and in the huge influence the Pioneer Girls of 2001 had on the School’s history.”
Article by Sedbergh Association