International Women's Day at Lionheart

Lionheart the Educator

Across Lionheart’s schools, as well as assemblies and tutor time discussions to recognise IWD and those influential women in history who have fought for equality, students at our secondary schools and sixth forms have participated in the next in our series of the Global Issues Curriculum. Researched and produced by Lionheart’s Director of Personal Development, Dilan Savjani, a lesson on Women’s Rights , as part of the personal development (PD) curriculum, was delivered, where our young people learned about and discussed: 

• The history of women’s rights, including the timeline of events that has seen progression in gender equality and how that differs across the globe. 
• The more recent rise of misogynistic views and toxic masculinity through social media influencers, and the implications of such. 
• Roe Vs Wade and the landmark decision of the US supreme court 
• The death of Mahsa Amini in Iran and subsequent protests for freedom and equality 
• The denial of education and employment opportunities for women in Afghanistan and their limited freedom in recent years under Taliban rule 
• Women’s rights charities and how they can get involved to ensure their voice is heard. 

As with every lesson in our Global Issues Curriculum, it was important that students were given the opportunity to understand how they could make a difference and have a voice. And so, all students were encouraged to write a speech on their chosen topic around women’s rights, having also been taught about the important elements that make a speech, to ensure that not only the content but the delivery was good too. Students performed speeches to their class, with the best selected to go forward to a Trust-wide initiative which will see a whole host of students at a Ted-Ex style event later this academic year. Watch this space! 

You can read more about the importance of a representative and diverse curriculum in our Director of Curriculum, Alex Petrie’s IWD blog. 

Lionheart the Employer 

As an employer, it's important to us that we celebrate the women in the Trust and the equitable workplace that we are striving daily to achieve – not just for women, but for everyone.  

Today, on IWD, we’re celebrating all the women in our trust, including the women in leadership, as well as our female colleagues who are working in what would once have been considered a traditionally male role. 

• We’re proud that 62% of our leadership are women. 
• Our gender pay gap reduced by 3.9% last academic year. 
• We’re an equitable employer who recruits for the requirements of a role on skillset and experience. 

You can read more about Lionheart’s journey to progress equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace in our CEO, Kath Kelly’s IWD blog. 

 

Hear from Lionheart's female employees as they celebrate IWD 2023: