Can everyone achieve? What are the challenges facing Secondary Education leaders?
Soroptimist International St Albans and District invited Sarah Mitcherson, Head of Ridgeway Academy in Welwyn Garden City https://ridgeway.herts.sch.uk/ to talk on Zoom about the challenges facing the Head of a Secondary, Co-Ed school with 900 pupils. The school’s vision is “Everyone Can Achieve”. This first video is 37 mins long. Part 2 is in the second video.
We often invite inspirational women to speak at or Club meetings, and can honestly say that Sarah is beyond inspirational, we were all in awe of what she says and does. Her positivity, energy and commitment shines though. We are sure Sarah has a really bright future ahead of her – so look out for that name in the future. Our Member Liz Tillett is Chair of the School Governors at Ridgeway Academy and has been keen for us to have Sarah talk to us – now we know why!
Sarah’s talk was recorded. Please click on Contact Us or email sistalbans@hotmail.com to request to be sent the video links.
After a brief introduction from Barbara Saunders, Sarah kicked off with her background and motivation for what she does. She told us about many experiences and role models and mentors in her life that got her to where she is today. She is humble, and feels privileged and full of praise for the team she has around her – she says there are lots of opportunities in education for people to take on leadership responsibility – working as a team – it is not about ego and power. She talks about resilience and the importance of “controlling the controllables”.
Sarah explained how the team support one another – giving the example of how she was helped when she was pregnant at work – the analogy she used was from the airlines, that you have to put your oxygen mask on before you can help others…. There has been a lot of work to support women like her into leadership roles now the same needs to be done for black and ethnic minorities.
What can we do to help?
A big takeaway for us to take action on as Soroptimists is about the massive negative impact mobile phones are having on schools, on learning, on children and their mental health and behaviour. This term the school has started taking phones off all pupils for the whole school day and they are already seeing positive benefits so Sarah wishes they had been able to implement it sooner. We need to lobby, or join a lobby, to make mobile phones safe for children, with governments and service providers taking responsibility.
There will be more things we can follow up on later with Sarah too.
Q and A
As always Soroptimists had some great questions to ask and points to raise.
You can’t educate unless children thrive physically and mentally but the stark reality is that the students have to get grades otherwise doors to their futures are closed.
The level of need in society is huge and the foundations are not there to address the deprivation.
Particular issues for girls are around social media leading to a lack of self-esteem and confidence. The empowerment of girls is really important. The recent wave of toxic masculinity needs to be addressed with the focus on building healthy relationships, values and calling out unacceptable attitudes and behaviour.
In Summary
Soroptimist International aims to help women and girls achieve their potential and realise their aspirations. Life for many is getting tougher. Young people struggle to achieve their potential, mental health challenges are real and increasing. It seems that the pressures facing school leaders are immense – changing public policy, financial pressures and the need to prepare young people for adult life are just some of the challenges. This is why we wanted to hear first hand from Sarah about what it’s really like on the front-line in education.
Sarah and her team are clearly committed to providing an excellent education equipping the pupils to achieve their best academically, grow personally, and prepare for a successful future. They work hard and she wants everyone to endeavour to do their best in all they do. But as we heard, that is no easy task.
