Happy Birthday #WomenEd

Below is an amendment of my speech for the launch of WomenEd Bedfordshire on 4th May 2020.

WomenEd has changed my life.  I have noticed my courage growing since #WomenEd community embraced me. You have all helped me to accept myself and provided me with opportunities beyond my expectations. WomenEd, you have allowed me to dream again and for this, I am forever grateful!

Let me take you back to March 2017 when my self doubt and fear and anxiety were raging and beginning to control my self belief as a teacher and a leader. I was a Lead Practitioner working towards securing a senior leadership position. 

I have spoken previously about my internal voice, that menacing one that told me that I was not good enough to be a senior leader as I had limited knowledge and experience and that perhaps I was too emotional!

How lucky was I then to discover WomenEd when following aka stalking Hannah Wilson’s Twitter. And so, as I started following WomenEd, I became aware of @WomenEdLondon and saw the opportunity to gain a coach through the Coaching Pledge for women leaders.

I knew I lacked confidence in progressing my career further and so when I emailed Bukky Yusuf to ask if she could be my coach, I was delighted when she agreed, especially as she was already a network leader of @WomenEdLondon.

WIth Bukky’s help and the 10% braver motto, I started to take little steps towards building my confidence especially when presenting in public. I went from delivering T & L briefings to delivering whole school CPD to creating and implementing a whole school vision for coaching. The more I was just 10% braver, the more I grew in confidence. It is absolutely through Bukky’s coaching and her encouragement that I was growing both professionally and personally. I started to acknowledge the impact I was having in my workplace. 

Without leadership coaching, I don’t think I would have been courageous enough to take even those small steps. It was those steps that led me to attend and speak at my first TeachMeet in Newham and share some ideas. It was those steps that encouraged me to apply to take part in Diana Osagie’s courageous leadership programme tailored for BAME female educators. It was those steps that led me to conquer (ish) my fear of heights by climbing a rock face during a residential. 

Being brave though isn’t just about doing dangerous things like skydiving out of a plane or in my case, climbing a rock face. It isn’t about feeling no fear in difficult or dangerous situations. I have learned in fact that being brave is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway as Diana Osagie and Ankhara Llyod reminded me on the courageous leadership course. It’s about being open and honest with yourself and those around you about how you are feeling so that you can receive the help and support you need to flourish and mute the internal critic that tells you you’re not good enough or ready enough. 

Bukky’s coaching enabled me to see my worth especially when she called me gold dust and it’s still stuck with me after 3 years.

So, as my confidence was growing, I decided to offer to present @WomenEdLondon events and the first was in March 2018 at the @WomenEdLondon annual unconference was accepted. I spoke to approximately 80 women on my leadership journey supported by coaching. On that day, I pledged to coach other women in pursuit of helping others rise too and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing since. 

As a result of the WomenEd coaching and the support of the wonderful WomenEd community, in June 2018,  I secured a senior leadership position at my current school as Deputy SENCO and LP in Inclusion at Forest Gate Community School. Through coaching, I became more confident in sharing my practice widely and as a result, I was then asked to take on the role of whole school PCM working in developing early careers teachers.

I have been so inpsired by the work of WomenEd that I became a network leader for WomenEd London working alongside (always in awe of though) a phenomenal group of women and men so that I can support women like me to believe in themselves and succeed beyond the limits they or others might impose on them. 

WomenEd has helped me to recognise that we are, after all, gold dust.  

Happy birthday wondrous WomenEd!