[9] The Union planned to create a limited liability company to raise revenue to achieve their aims and presented the proposed scheme at a public meeting at the Royal Albert Hall in June 1872.

Members of the founding council included David Graham Drummond Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie, GPDSC's first president; Henrietta Powell; Sir George Bartley; Douglas Strutt Galton; Sir Walter James, second baronet; Joseph Payne; James Phillips Kay-Shuttleworth; Charles Savile Roundell; and the Marquess of Lorne.

[13] The policy of the Council, the executive body of the GPDSC, was to only found new schools where they were most needed, funded by shares taken up by local people.

[13] Initially the schools provided in-house training for pupils who intended to go on to teaching after graduation through the 'Pupil teachers' system.

The new constitution required that the GPDST would have to be wound up by 1 January 1956 if it failed to make an acceptable offer to buy the GPDSC's share capital.

[20] World War II plunged the GPDST into more financial trouble and the Education Act 1944 presented them with new challenges as they had to extend the schools to cater for increasing numbers of pupils.

The GPDST was increasingly unable to purchase the remaining share capital from the shareholders and was quickly approaching the 1956 deadline.

[citation needed] In 1944 the GPDST joined the Government's new Direct Grant Scheme to help keep the school fees low during the financial difficulties.

This scheme used grants to support independent academically selective schools outside the non-selective public education system of the time.

The scheme insisted that a third of the members of the Governing Bodies had to be representatives of the local education authority and 25% of pupils admitted had to come directly from elementary schools.

The Council worked on a reconstruction scheme which would satisfy the shareholders and for the trust to be recognised as an educational charity before the 1956 deadline.

[22] The GPDST still had to make the repayments of £75,000 to shareholders and extended its mortgages and set up an endowment fund to pay off the debt.

[23] After the debts were repaid the GPDST set up The Friends of the Girls' Public Day School Trust in March 1951.

[citation needed] In December 2021, the GDST issued a blanket ban on trans girls being admitted to any of its schools.

[29][30] In Feb 2022, 1600 members of the National Education Union took strike action over proposals to withdraw from the Teachers' Pension Scheme.