Our partnership with the Inspiring Women campaign

Our partnership with the Inspiring Women campaign

Harris Academy South Norwood has been borne out of the amalgamation of a boys’ school and a girls’ school. It is our explicit aim, therefore, to honour our history. We commit to ensure that both boys and girls have equity of opportunity in results and in careers education provision and work experience. By working in tandem with Inspiring the Future: Inspiring Women we allow our girls to engage with powerful role-models that connect the with a pathway to which they previously did not have access.

Helenna Morrissey's article on careers and gender

Breaking the Cycle

It is our mission to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and to smash down the institutional bias in careers and higher education. This bias blocks the pathways of young people from ordinary backgrounds, of young women and of young people from ethnically diverse backgrounds. This section of our website explains our vision for promoting the advancement of young women in Higher Education and in careers in the past that were blocked for them.

Our Careers Education Programme is thorough, hugely inspiring and attempts to inspire and to produce profound change for our young women. 75% of women still work in the five Cs of employment; cleaning, catering, caring, cashiering and clerical.

As Ms Gonzalez Durantez says, “There is nothing wrong at all with that - but girls should also feel free to make a difference in science, IT, engineering or maths if that is what they like.

“The new generation of girls is a dream: they are clever, ambitious while realistic, determined and curious. It is our duty to help them to achieve their aspirations, whatever they are.”

The mission of Harris Academy South Norwood is to mirror that duty – to help our girls to achieve their aspirations, whatever they are.

Helping our girls at Norwood gain knowledge and understanding about the breadth of careers on offer

We are part of a national campaign that aims to bring about a significant culture change - that girls, whatever school they attend, whatever their background, get the chance to meet women doing a wide range of jobs and gain first-hand insights into different jobs and the routes into them. Recent research has shown how important – economically and socially – it is for young people to gain knowledge and understanding about the breadth of careers whilst still in education and making decisions about their futures.

Harris Academy South Norwood echoes the words of Miriam González Durántez in the launch of Inspiring the Future: Inspiring Women. All we do is there to “help young women to make informed choices to combat the mismatch between the aspirations of young people and where the jobs of the future are actually to be found.

We acknowledge that “women suffer from stereotyping all over the world, including in Europe and in the UK”. Ms Gonzales Durantez writes of women that “if we succeed in our professional lives, we’re branded “scary”; if we follow fashion, we’re “shallow”; if we like science, we’re “geeks”; if we read women’s magazines, we’re “fluffy”; and if we defend our rights, we’re “hard”. It is little wonder that girls struggle, amid so many absurd labels, to identify the right path for them.” What

Helping young women at South Norwood to make informed choices

Helping young women to make informed choices helps address skills shortages in the UK and the long-standing mismatch between the aspirations of young people and actual labour market demand. Historically, far too many occupations have been dominated, for no good reason, by one gender or the other.

The result: young women and girls often struggle to hear from role models they can relate to across the breadth of the economy. At Harris Academy South Norwood, we have constructed a programme and have an ethos that provides systematic access to female role-models that show them that all things are possible.

Norwood brings culture change in girls’ ideas about their careers

We want to bring about culture change in girls’ ideas about their future careers, their aspirations of what they can be and do and to give them first hand insights into the opportunities open to them. We commit to provide tailored engagement with employers that provide a safe space for our girls to explore their options, but also we commit to ensuring that no gender is excluded from any invited or organisation.

We work very closely with Inspiring the Future, Reach Out and the National Careers Foundation to shine a light on the issues involved and celebrate women across the country going into schools to talk about their experiences.

We would wish to thank Bank of America Merrill Lynch here for all they do to support us in providing opportunities for our female students to gain access and information to brilliant careers. They have committed to lead by example with hundreds of female staff, clients and suppliers signing up to Inspiring the Future and we have welcomed many of them to Harris Academy South Norwood.

For further information go to www.bankofamerica.com/about