Women are under-represented as school leaders and many female teachers are plagued by “imposter syndrome”, the president of the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA) will say today.

Gwen Byrom, who is also headteacher of Loughborough High School, will tell the heads of independent girls’ schools they have a “moral” responsibility to raise their pupils’ aspirations.

“I have lost count of the times I have said to my early career teachers: ‘I wouldn’t be offering you the job if I didn’t think you could do it’,” she will tell the GSA annual conference.

“Impostor syndrome looms large and I am also sure that there are few headteachers here who have not imagined that, at some point, somebody in ‘authority’ would find them out.”

Although three-quarters of teachers are female, rising to nearly nine out of 10 in primary schools, only two-thirds of heads are women, according to official statistics.

The difference is even more acute in secondary schools, where women make up 64 per cent of the workforce, but only 38 per cent of heads.

Dr Kay Fuller at the University of Nottingham has predicted it will take another quarter of a century for those figures to even out.

Female leaders also face a 13 per cent pay gap: women heads on average earn £65,500 while men earn £73,700.

“As girls’ schools, we are in the powerful position of presiding over environments which empower young women to pursue whatever life they want,” Ms Byrom will say, according to remarks released ahead of the event.

“With that comes the added responsibility of inspiring them to carry that message with them into the world and to call out sexism and unconscious bias wherever they encounter it.”

She will add: “As headteachers we each have a responsibility for the hundreds of individuals in our schools. We all know that, and I know we all take that responsibility very seriously.

“But of course, how we run our schools, what and how we communicate to our students, has an impact on wider society.

“Every time a young woman leaves us to move onto the next stage of her life, her experience in our schools becomes manifest in her actions and has ramifications for all women - and society in general. 

“We see this in Emma Watson - an alumna of Headington School - who went from campaigning for the liberation and rights of house elves in her fictional role as Harry Potter character Hermione Grainger, to accepting the very real position of Women’s Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations.

“Her launch speech for the UN’s HeForShe campaign not only called for men to become advocates for gender equality, but also inspired Malala Yousafzai - an alumna of Edgbaston High and Nobel Prize winner - to call herself a feminist.”

State independent partnerships need to be a two way street

Ms Byrom will say that private-state school partnerships can help support social mobility but need to be “genuine two-way partnerships requiring teachers and students to visit each other’s schools”.

She will tell heads that this is more effective than partnerships where everything is based in one school.

She will add: “Those schools who have been sharing expertise, staff and opportunities with their state sector colleagues for years know that, when you strip away stereotypes and get down to what each school is good at, great things can be achieved for the benefit of all children.

“Almost all GSA schools are involved in some kind of school partnership.

“The key ingredient of the more successful partnerships seems to me the ability to come together on common ground and find ways to address gaps or weaknesses together.

“Projects which involve genuine two-way partnership and require teachers and students to visit each other’s schools are - I would argue - much more effective at creating common ground and breaking down stereotypes than those where everything is based at one school.”