Queen's pupils have been marking International Women’s Day with the launch of a mentoring scheme involving a range of global alumnae and businesswomen.
Women working across the world and at a senior level in the UK have given up their time to speak to pupils interested in their particular career path and area of expertise.
They include media entrepreneurs, engineers, industry CEOs, university professors, medical consultants, cyber security specialists, software developers, journalists, top civil servants and successful artists.
The interviews are the start of the #womeninspirewomen project which places mentoring from experts and professionals at the heart of Queen’s pupils’ learning, helping them to develop transferable skills to be ready for whatever the future holds for them.
Using a mixture of face to face and videoconferencing interviews, pupils elected to interview specific women depending on their areas of interest. The interviews have been recorded and will be added to the bank of resources available in the school’s career library.
The mentors will now continue to build their relationships with Queen’s girls as they support groups of pupils with projects over the next few months, helping them learn such skills as compiling and presenting reports, interpreting data, interviewing, negotiating, pitching, chairing a meeting and everything else that goes into making a variety of businesses successful.
Headmistress Sue Wallace-Woodroffe explained: “Meeting and getting to know successful career women is a fantastic way to encourage our pupils to raise their aspirations and to see their place in the world in a global context. Academic success is important but recognising the value of soft skills such as communication and even business orientated skills, and more importantly enjoying honing these skills, will really make our girls stand out from the crowd in whichever career path they take.”
Jenny Biggam, Head of the7Stars, the UK’s largest independent Media Agency and one of the school’s mentors added: “I’ve been happy to give my time so far and loved meeting the pupils and I’m looking forward to helping the girls develop the skills they’ll need to thrive in the modern business world.”
Year 9 pupil Evie Rutt said: “The interview I did was really good. I feel like I know so much more about the skills and characteristics I would need to succeed in business and things I can do now to help develop them.”
