Croydon High celebrates International Women’s Day

As an unabashedly proud girls’ school, we are (perhaps unsurprisingly) full-throated supporters of International Women’s Day, which this year fell on Wednesday 8 March. The 2023 theme is #EmbraceEquity: recognising that each person has different circumstances and allocating the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

Each academic department chose to mark this important day and support this important message in a subject-specific way. What follows picks out some of the many highlights:

Pupils of religion, ethics and philosophy spent time learning about female philosophers who often get overshadowed by their more famous male counterparts.

Drama and theatre studies spotlighted female actresses, theatre directors and other creatives.

Art and 3D ran a typography competition and asked pupils and staff to literally stand in solidarity with women throughout the world by embracing equality with the #EmbraceEquity pose.

Our Classics department gave pupils an appreciation of the poetry of Sappho and invited them to consider how women are presented in classical literature (Ariadne and Dido).

Our Academic Support department used the literary masterpiece Jane Erye as a vehicle to teach the important difference between equality and equity.

Our Spanish teachers introduced pupils to Rigoberta Menchú a prize-winning activist who is still fighting to defend women and indigenous minorities through her work as UNESCO Goodwill ambassador.

Our Geographers focused on the many fantastic books written by women.

Amongst other female role models, pupils in Maths learnt about Maryam Mirzakhani, who was an Iranian mathematician and acknowledged as one of the brightest young minds who pushed in her area, having won a Field’s Medal (the mathematical equivalent of the Noble Prize) at the age of 40.

Our A level Politics pupils discussed current events and women’s rights in Iran and Afghanistan.

Our Historians reviewed the school’s ‘Neligacy’ with a recap on the work of Dorinda Neligan, our first headmistress and suffragette.

Pupils who had Music on Wednesday learnt about famous female instrumentalists in rock music.

A level Business pupils spent time debating the following topic: ‘To Reduce Gender Bias in Hiring, Make Your Shortlist Longer’ whilst our Economists discussed how to close gender gaps and grow the global economy.

Finally, each English teacher provided a short introduction to a woman who has or is making a positive impact on women and our place in the world, pointing pupils to follow-up resources and literature.