One of the great delights in my working life is working with other professionals, to achieve more together than we could as individuals. Besides, with the right people it is enormous fun, as was precisely the case last Thursday, when the lovely Matthew Savage and I co-presented a session for school leaders at an education …
Category: coding
Aug 30
Coding: a fundamental element in the drive towards social mobility
The Guardian has an uplifting story in its pages today – the story of how 67 girls in an Indian slum are taking coding lessons, and how this has already raised their aspirations and improved their future opportunities. Three apps have already been developed, directly tackling issues of women’s safety (by using a geolocated distress …
Jun 28
It IS rocket science – and we CAN all do it
I am very proud of my new felt bookmark. It is a visible and tangible reminder of the recent NCGS conference I attended in the U.S., and I have taken great delight in the past few days in showing it to friends, family, acquaintances and, in my enthusiasm, sometimes complete strangers. It consists of two …
Jun 23
“You can’t be what you can’t see”
Richmond, Virginia, USA is beautiful at this time of the year. Warm, green, relaxed … and, currently, host to several hundred passionate educators of girls who are attending the annual conference of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, the theme of which this year is ‘From STEM to STEAM: Girls’ Schools Leading the Way’. A …
Jun 21
Computer coding: definitely women’s work
The movie choice on BA0067 from Heathrow to Phildelphia on Saturday was very apt for educators who were headed to the conference of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools in Richmond Virginia, which takes place from 22 June to 24 June. The theme of the conference is ‘From STEM to STEAM – Girls’ Schools Leading …
Nov 08
The male-female divide in sport
An article in this Tuesday’s Sydney Morning Herald caught my eye very early that same morning – it was a story about Melissa Barbieri, former captain of the Australian national women’s football team, who finds herself without funding after taking a year out to have a child. In order to keep playing in the W-League, …
May 10
Why it is important for girls to blow their own trumpets
A recent initiative at Wimbledon High School for Girls in London has received quite a bit of coverage in the UK – the school encouraged the girls over a number of months to scribble down their thoughts whenever they realised that they were proud of something that they had done and then the school spent …
May 05
“Equality’s just gone well out the window.”
A quote in the IPPR report about which I wrote in a recent blog caught my eye in particular. Describing how she felt about her equality with me, a 19 year old woman from Manchester said the following: “It went from empowering women to women are just items again. It’s gotten even worse, because women …
Apr 13
What we can and should do NOW to make gender equality happen
A really interesting and stimulating report was published a couple of weeks ago by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which justifiably claims to be the UK’s leading progressive thinktank. Their reports are always worth reading – full, detailed, current and to the point, they are a wealth of information as well as, in …
Mar 11
Investing in women is the smart thing to do
With the celebrations and messages of International Women’s Day last week still reverberating, I thought I would devote this blog to reminding us why it is so important that we devote time, energy and resources to developing opportunities for women throughout the world. Justine Greening, the UK Government Secretary of State for International Development recently …