By Caroline Anukem, Equity Diversity and Inclusion Lead, Beaconsfield High School

We often speak about confidence as though it belongs solely to the individual. Some girls appear to carry it naturally. Others are encouraged to “find” it, “build” it, or simply “believe in themselves.”

Yet after more than thirty years working across education, legal, and public sector settings, and through my work as an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Lead within a girls’ grammar school, I have come to believe this framing is far too narrow.
Confidence is not simply a personality trait.

In many ways, it is an educational outcome.

It is shaped quietly through everyday experiences within school culture:

Who feels seen.
Who feels heard.
Who feels psychologically safe enough to participate.
Who learns that mistakes are part of growth rather than evidence of inadequacy.

These experiences influence far more than classroom participation. They shape identity, aspiration, resilience, wellbeing, and the way young people eventually move through the world.

The question, therefore, is not simply whether schools are producing successful students. It is whether we are intentionally educating young people who believe they deserve to succeed in the first place.

The Environments That Shape Us

As a mother of four daughters, I have watched confidence emerge differently in each of them. I have seen how early girls begin absorbing messages about visibility, worth, intelligence, belonging, and likeability.

Motherhood deepened my understanding of what schools are shaping. Education is never only about outcomes on paper. It is also about the internal narrative a girl develops about herself whilst moving through those outcomes.

Long before girls step into leadership, workplaces, or public life, they are already forming quieter conclusions:

Am I safe to speak?
Do my ideas matter?
Can I take up space without apology?
Do I belong here fully, or conditionally?

My own education spanned two very different all-girls contexts: first in Zambia, and later in Liverpool. Looking back, I realise how greatly those environments shaped my understanding of confidence, identity, and belonging.

In Zambia, I grew up surrounded by representation that felt natural and unremarkable. Teachers, professionals, and leaders reflected an outward version of myself that quietly affirmed possibility.

What that environment gave me was deeply formative. It allowed me to grow up seeing Black excellence as ordinary. I did not hear phrases such as “a Black lawyer” or “a Black dentist” used in ways that implied achievement was exceptional primarily because of race. People simply were lawyers, academics, and professionals.

Only later did I understand how psychologically powerful that was.

Returning to Liverpool introduced a different kind of learning. Nothing dramatic happened. The shift was quieter than that. I became increasingly aware of visibility, difference, adaptation, and the subtle calculations young people sometimes make to feel accepted.

What stayed with me most was the realisation that confidence alone is not always enough. Environments matter deeply.

Young people may arrive in schools carrying confidence, curiosity, aspiration, and self-belief already forming within them. The responsibility of schools is not simply to benefit from those qualities, but to continue nurturing and protecting them.

Presence Is Not the Same as Belonging

There is a phrase I often return to in my work:

An invitation does not always mean inclusion.

Schools can unintentionally confuse presence with belonging.

A girl may be academically successful, involved in leadership, and participating fully in school life, whilst still feeling that she is navigating spaces not entirely designed with her in mind.

That distinction matters enormously.

Confidence does not grow simply through access to opportunity. It grows when young people experience genuine belonging when contribution feels welcomed rather than merely tolerated, and when identity does not need to be hidden or reduced in order to participate fully.

Belonging is not separate from achievement. In many ways, it helps make achievement possible.

When students feel psychologically safe, recognised, respected, and encouraged, they are more likely to:

• take intellectual risks
• contribute ideas confidently
• recover from setbacks
• seek support when needed
• persist through challenge

Confidence, therefore, is not simply public speaking or visible extroversion. It is also the confidence to ask for help, to try something unfamiliar, to respectfully disagree, and to recover from mistakes without shame.

What This Looks Like in Practice

At Beaconsfield High School, much of our work around belonging and inclusion is grounded in a simple conviction:
Confidence grows in relationship.

It grows when challenge is met with encouragement, when leadership is practised rather than merely admired, and when students feel trusted, heard, and genuinely valued.

At the heart of this work sit our cultural pillars:

• Choose Respect.
• Be Open to the New.
• Back Yourself.
• Spur Each Other On.

These are not intended to exist merely as statements displayed on walls. Increasingly, they shape the everyday language through which students understand community, participation, leadership, and responsibility towards one another.

Importantly, this work is not confined to one awareness week or one department. It is becoming increasingly embedded within the wider culture of the school.

Student voice remains central to that process. Through leadership opportunities, conferences, awareness events, discussions, and open dialogue, students are encouraged to see themselves not simply as recipients of school culture, but as contributors helping shape it.

Our EDI Surgery model, for example, was developed to create space for meaningful dialogue around lived experience, identity, belonging, and inclusion within a supportive environment.

Oracy also plays an important role. Through debate, discussion, public speaking, drama, and collaborative learning, students develop the confidence to articulate ideas clearly, engage thoughtfully with differing perspectives, and participate with intellectual courage.

Much of this work happens in ordinary moments:
A student speaking publicly for the first time.
A girl realising disagreement can exist without humiliation.
Young people seeing aspects of themselves reflected meaningfully within school life.

These moments are not peripheral to confidence-building. They are central to it.

Representation and Psychological Permission

Girls absorb messages constantly, both explicit and implicit about whose voices matter, whose success is recognised, and whose experiences are considered normal.

Representation therefore matters in ways both visible and invisible.

It matters when girls encounter diverse role models in leadership positions. It matters when curriculum content reflects a breadth of histories and perspectives. It matters when schools examine not only achievement data, but also participation, visibility, belonging, and voice.

Importantly, representation is not simply about optics. It is about psychological permission:

Permission to lead authentically.
Permission to participate fully.
Permission to imagine possibility.

This becomes especially significant for girls navigating complex intersections of race, culture, faith, disability, neurodiversity, socioeconomic background, or identity.

When schools intentionally cultivate inclusive cultures, they communicate something deeply powerful:

You do not need to become less of yourself to belong here.

Inclusion and Educational Excellence

Too often, inclusion work is positioned as something adjacent to the “real work” of schools.

I would argue the opposite.

Inclusion is not peripheral to educational excellence. It is foundational to it.

School culture shapes not only what students achieve, but how they experience themselves whilst achieving it. Young people learn continuously from their environments:

Who is listened to.
Who is interrupted.
Whose success is celebrated.
Who feels able to participate without fear of ridicule or exclusion.

These daily experiences accumulate into beliefs about worth, capability, and belonging.

This is why inclusion cannot remain performative or symbolic. It must become lived practice embedded within relationships, curriculum, leadership, systems, language, and culture.

In a world increasingly shaped by online comparison, social pressure, fractured communication and persistent inequities, helping girls develop a secure sense of self may be one of education’s most urgent responsibilities.

A girl who believes in herself is more likely to lead ethically, recover from setbacks, challenge unfairness, contribute confidently, and imagine ambitious futures.

Most importantly, she is more likely to understand that her value is not conditional.

That is not incidental to education. It may be one of its highest purposes.

A Final Reflection

I often say: “Inclusion is a verb, not a noun.”

Increasingly, I believe the same is true of confidence.

Confidence is not something girls either possess or lack. It is something shaped over time through experience, affirmation, opportunity, relationships, and belonging.

The most important thing schools may give girls is not simply achievement, but the enduring belief that they are entitled to occupy space within the world confidently, thoughtfully, and fully as themselves.

Confidence, then, is not superficial work.

It is identity work.
It is belonging work.
It is deeply human work.

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Caroline Anukem is the EDI Belonging and Culture Lead at Beaconsfield High School in the UK, where she leads a strategic whole-school approach to creating environments in which every student feels seen, valued and able to thrive. With more than 25 years' experience spanning education, law and the public sector, Caroline is recognised for developing practical, evidence-informed approaches that embed belonging into everyday school life. A passionate advocate for student voice and inclusive leadership, she has established innovative programmes that bring together students, staff, families and the wider community to strengthen school culture. Caroline regularly speaks on belonging, inclusion and educational leadership and is committed to helping schools move beyond awareness towards meaningful, sustainable cultural change.