More women heads could boost schools

Sammena Choudry was speaking at the first #WomenEd event to be held in the North of England at the 
weekend.

Mrs Choudry is a former teacher, academic and now runs her own education consultancy.

She is one of a group of education leaders who set up the national #WomenEd movement through Twitter.

She said: “Only 37 per cent of secondary school leaders are women even though they make up three quarters of the overall school workforce.

“School leaders from black and minority ethnic communities are even less well represented.

“They account for three per cent of positions despite BME pupils now representing 30 per cent of the school population.”

She said changing these figures in Yorkshire to ensure a wider breadth of people became headteachers could help to better understand the needs of pupils.

She said this could be an important part of raising standards in the county which lag behind the national average.

“Since we started #WomenEd we have had a conference in London and a series of regional events but this was the first in the North which was important.”

Mrs Choudry is also the founder of Equitable Education, an organisation providing specialist educational consultancy and expertise in closing the gaps for different groups of pupils.

Yorkshire and the Humber has been ranked as the worst performing region for children getting five good GCSEs.