UNESCO and the Mulberry Schools Trust: Dr Vanessa Ogden reflects on leadership and the impact of Global Girl Leading

Dr Vanessa Ogden CBE, CEO of the Mulberry Schools Trust, has shared her reflections on school leadership in a special blog for UNESCO. This global project invites education leaders from around the world to share their experiences with a week-long diary. Dr Ogden’s entry focuses on the Trust’s flagship conference, Global Girl Leading, held in October 2024, which brought together young women and leaders to share insight and experience, inspire change and empower girls worldwide.

Her candid reflections explore her own distinctive perspective on the challenges and opportunities of leadership in education, and how the conference celebrated and amplified the voices of young women, showcasing the persistently transformative power of education.

We’re looking forward to watching how these endeavours contribute to ongoing dialogue on global education and leadership, as UNESCO officially publishes the blogs of education leaders globally over the next 12 months.

Introduction

Welcome to the Mulberry Schools Trust. We are a family of 8 schools, known as a multi-academy trust (MAT), based mainly in East London. I am the executive leader and was previously the long-serving headteacher of the founding school of the MAT, Mulberry School for Girls. I love my work.

This is me – in my office – and on the walls I have placed poetry and artwork by students from each school in the Trust. The poetry describes our educational ethos – service to our communities and the ‘place’ where each school is based. You can find a short performance of it here.

The concept of ‘place’ is very important to us. We serve in places where child poverty is very high and where a great education is essential for your future prosperity – your path to decent employment, a home, financial security and happiness. So much work is done together with families to generate change locally and build social harmony. This includes our big entrepreneurial Mulberry Changemaker programmes (see here and the dedicated menu on our website).

This week is a big week. On Friday, it is our annual summit for one of our Changemaker programmes – Global Girl Leading. The preparation for this takes place in and amongst the daily work of a school leader like me. There’s a lot to do! And today, I start my working week at Mulberry School for Girls.

Day 1: Monday 7^th October 2024

8.30am

Grabbing a coffee on the way, I arrive at work, meeting Alice, the headteacher of Mulberry School for Girls and her senior staff at the gate, greeting students as they arrive.

9.00am

Catch up meeting with Shanaz, who runs my office, governance, development and – importantly – Global Girl Leading (see 2024 conference resources here). We go through the ‘tick-tock’ (minute by minute programme) for the summit. We also have a big timetable of student activity getting ready for Friday, including baking 500 gingerbread women …. (more on this later)!

11.00am

Visit to Mulberry Academy London Dock I arrive (after a short walk) at our new secondary school (see here) which opened in September. It’s a flagship building which meets Passivhaus standards of sustainability. This time last year, whilst in construction, I chose the 80 trees for the site. Here is the Mulberry tree (of course!) and Chris Harvey, the headteacher.

Chris and I talk – as we walk – about the school’s routines, health and safety, duties at breaktime and lunchtime and the multi-tasking staff have to do with only Year 7 students on roll. Each student brings funding from government and so starting with only one year group means the budget is tight. The MAT has already given financial assistance and human capacity from services like HR, but what else is needed? I take away a list.

1.00pm

Dr Ogden’s Global Girl Leader Lunch Once back in my office, I hold one of my student lunches, along with Ms Tuffee and Rosie (the Trust therapy dog). Today, we welcome our first international visitor for the summit – Regina Hooper, a school leader from Melbourne. Her school is involved in Global Girl Leading and will be streaming into the summit on Friday from Australia. We have lively discussion, laughter and – importantly – pizza!

2.10pm	THE Heron!!! (a British fish-eating bird) interrupts – it is by the pond and staring hungrily at our goldfish, an easy captive lunch! Our brave Aussie visitor, Ms Hooper, chases it off, but it just flies impudently on to the roof waiting for us all to go away. So we organise for netting over the pond.
3.00pm	Call with a DfE Regional Director about some work we are doing in one of the DfE’s regions.
4.00pm	Meeting with the headteacher of Mulberry School for Girls (see here) Alice Ward. We talk through the things on her list, including another of our Mulberry Changemaker programmes – our STEM Academy sponsored by Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix (see here) and the school’s race car designs. We discuss how to get help with car mechanics. We have no funding for this, so we think creatively.
5.10pm	Email I receive a considerable amount of correspondence by email, which I always try to return the same day.
7.00pm	Leave my office for the train home This is my usual time. I’m looking forward to taking in the emptied rubbish bins, sitting down with my partner and our two cats, and doing that very British thing of processing the day with a cup of tea, whilst watching the weather forecast ……

Day 2: Tuesday 8th October 2024

8.00am

The London Stock Exchange Group Today, I am in the City of London, the financial and business heart of the UK. Higher paid work in the City often goes to non-residents, creating cyclical social exclusion for local youngsters and a lack of diversity in the workforce at leadership level. Business and industry leaders are acutely aware of this – many are actively working for change. So, I have been invited to bring two students from Mulberry schools to a round table with significant figures in policy-making (including one of the Prime Minister’s special advisors), civil society and the private sector to discuss these issues.

Here are Rinnad and Sumayyah with business leader Paul Drechsler and barrister Margaret Caseley-Hayford CBE. Rinnad and Sumayyah argued for investment in more sophisticated core technology in schools. A world of AI can bring down barriers for disadvantaged students who do not have access to tutoring, and be a positive force for economic prosperity if we learn how to harness it ethically. They made a real impact on thinking amongst the people round the table.

10.00am

Haberdashers’ Education Committee My next meeting is at the Education Committee of the Haberdashers’ Livery Company, a City of London merchant guild, with its charter granted in 1448. It has a family of independent fee-paying and publicly funded schools. Seeing education as a life chance, the Haberdashers’ first schools were established several centuries ago to provide education to children of workers who could not afford schooling.

Education is of central importance to the Haberdashers. Of note is their work in South London, contributing to system-wide school improvement there over the last two decades. Twenty years ago, the Haberdashers took on one of the most challenging schools in London, stabilised it, rebuilt it and improved teaching and leadership. They established the Haberdashers’ Academies Trust South, a multi-academy Trust, and extended this work to other schools in difficulty and built new academies. Today, their nine schools are ‘Good’ or better. Longitudinal success in improving challenging schools requires constancy, investment of human capital, and care – and the Haberdashers’ Company has delivered this, in all sorts of ways.

The committee meeting today talks through issues of school improvement, school estate, stewardship of funds, governance, and the wider political context of education. The Haberdashers’ Advantage programme is a direct initiative working with staff and students, covering professional adult collaboration, whilst also working with young people through events that enhance character education and improve career sector understanding. They each draw in expertise from members of the Company to work with students to add value to the schools’ core education. The discussion is always lively, always focused – and I always leave feeling I have gained as much as I have given.

4.30pm

Meeting school leaders from Melbourne I arrive back at Mulberry to meet two school leaders from Penola Catholic College in Melbourne. They are with us for the next few days in the lead-up to our Global Girl Leading summit on Friday. I visited them in Australia in July 2023 by invitation. This was to work on school leadership and place, which is central to improvement. You can find the article I wrote on this here and below.

5.30pm	Meeting with Dr Stuart Mundy, Chief Officer for Performance and Operations I have my weekly meeting with Stuart on operational areas. Today we focus on HR, talking through small process changes to the appraisal of senior leaders in all of our schools. We also discuss the annual staff celebration, when we get everyone together to socialise and hand out long service awards.
6.30pm	I leave the office for home meeting my partner at the supermarket on the way, where we stock up for our evening meals this week.

Day 3: Wednesday 9th October 2024

9.00am

Mulberry Canon Barnett Primary I start my day at our lovely primary school in Whitechapel. The school is Victorian and was built in the late 1800s by Canon Samuel Barnett and his wife, Henrietta, who worked in the local area to improve the lives of the poor. It’s a challenging area still with high child poverty but Anita, the head, protects the children really well and the school is very warm, friendly, and happy. It has a sunny, colourful feel, despite it being a grey morning today.

Anita takes me around the school, into lessons where children are all very focused on learning. A phonics lesson is especially good. Anita has made changes in use of space, and we talk about how to use the freed-up classrooms for projects that add value, such as Junior Model United Nations, parental liaison and community work and the creation of art and music studios. I take away a list of things to consider.

10.30am

Mulberry Academy Shoreditch is only a short walk away, up Brick Lane and along Bethnal Green Road. It’s a route that reflects the transitions in population, with street signs in Bengali and English and the Brick Lane Mosque, which was previously a synagogue and before that a church. At the school, I meet Ruth, the executive principal and we talk about some school improvement work that she is leading in East Sussex.

Her work is really appreciated by the school leaders she is supporting. We also talk about our new Alternative Provision school which we are building to serve our borough. This is to for children who have emotional, mental health, social and behaviour needs.

2pm

Global Girl Leading Meeting I get back for a meeting about our annual Global Girl Leading summit, scheduled for Friday. You can see more about the summit here. It celebrates the UN International Day of the Girl, 11^th October. We discuss comms, the ‘tick tock’, and the pre-conference magazine which you can view here. The 500 gingerbread women for our end of summit reflection activity are all baked and packed by students! The glow sticks for our anthem finale are in. The tea lights and the giant wooden letters (GGL) have been made ready for the art installation!

Day 4: Thursday 10th October 2024

8.00am

Off site I start my day working off site. I need uninterrupted time drafting my script for tomorrow. I am chairing two panel discussions and a Q&A for a keynote speaker, Tina Tchen, who is flying in from the USA today. At Mulberry, the team is hosting the Carol Baur Internacional School from Mexico. A traditional Mexican dance is happening, followed by a visit to Mulberry Academy London Dock, where they will be greeted by singing in Spanish (see below).

A traditional Mexican dance performance

12.30pm

Mulberry School for Girls I arrive on site for a meeting with the principal of Carol Bauer. We talk about girls’ leadership and the expressive arts as a pillar of girls’ education. This is part of Mulberry’s curriculum model in Global Girl Leading. We are invited to visit in March 2025.

2pm	Global Girl Leading team catch up we meet to discuss logistics so far. During his lunchtime, the Executive Headteacher of Mulberry Stepney Green has driven all of our resources and equipment over to the venue in Westminster. Mr Bhutta is a hero. We agree to brief all staff again at 4pm, followed by a final team meeting at 5pm.
4pm – 7.30pm	Global Girl Leading briefings followed by completion of my script, finishing badges and table layouts, finalisation of the evaluation and reflection activities. One of our panel speakers on women’s leadership at national level pulls out, but we have enough for it not to matter. I contact our site manager to ask him to leave the top floor of the school building unlocked until the team has finished.
8.00pm	I leave my office for the train home and meet Katharine in the corridor, who – despite my earlier call – was locked in on the top floor! Ben, Shanaz and others are still working up there so I check in with the site manager on my way out.
9.15pm	I arrive home and find the evening meal cooked and my cats glued to the radiator as there is a cold snap – the Northern Lights (and Comet A3) have arrived! Celestial heralds for International Day of the Girl…..

Day 5: Global Girl Leading Summit Friday 11th October 2024

6.30am

Welcome to International Day of the Girl I am at my train station, with a hot take-away coffee from the little platform cafe. It’s a clear morning, cold and the sun is rising. I find an exhibition on modern slavery – artwork by survivors, all women. I reflect on our summit today, drawing attention to these issues for girls, and giving them knowledge and power to face them down.

8.30am

Speakers arrive at the venue. I meet Tina Tchen, formerly Chief of Staff to First Lady Michelle Obama and now executive leader at the Obama Foundation. Tina is so generous in her time with girls there, who are delighted to see her. I gather the four student comperes together and we get ready to start the proceedings.

9.00am

The Global Girl Leading Summit begins with a film about the history of Global Girl Leading, which you can find here. We have 400 girl delegates in the hall, with 50 Year 12 students – trained as Global Girl Leaders – who are managing the logistics and leading table discussions. We have spent the last 18 months building a movement – by girls, for girls. Together, staff and female students from across the Trust have been writing materials, interacting with schools internationally, making films, working with speakers and panellists and inventing innovative ways to reflect on and evaluate learning. You can find the research, pedagogy and curriculum model here.

It is hard to identify highlights of the day – you can find the recorded live stream of the summit here – and some snippets of the day below, including the film of the choral finale – This Girl is On Fire – with rockstar panache (and glow sticks – necessary, of course!) and our short film, Speakers’ Corner.

Global Girl Leading 2024 in Pictures

Speakers’ Corner – Global Girl Leading 2024

5.00pm

Sitting in the (closed) café at the venue I have a few moments to sit down. Tina Tchen (who was surrounded by girls for quite some time) has been hidden by Shanaz (like Secret Service, Shanaz said) so that Tina can rest. Police officers are here – protestors disrupted another event, releasing thousands of live crickets.

6.00pm

House of Commons, Parliament we have our Global Girl Leading reception to thank our speakers, Global Girl Leaders and staff. Our local MP (and former Mulberry girl) Rushanara Ali is the host. It’s wonderful seeing parliament inhabited by 200 young women – their rightful place. And now they know it.

10.00pm

Leaving for the train home My partner and I arrive home to our Global Girl Leading cats, who might well have been live-streaming into the summit all day, such is the strength of their protest about where we have been……

The weekend will be catching up with work I haven’t done because of the summit – setting up senior staff appraisals, looking at plans for a new school and reading up for the Curriculum Review panel meeting next Wednesday.

However, I lie down with the voices of the conference girls in my head, singing their anthem – This Girl is On Fire (here). Happy International Day of the Girl.

This Girl is On Fire – Global Girl Leading Choral Performance

CEO UNESCO Blog

UNESCO and the Mulberry Schools Trust: Dr Vanessa Ogden reflects on leadership and the impact of Global Girl Leading

Introduction

Day 1: Monday 7th October 2024

Day 2: Tuesday 8th October 2024

Day 3: Wednesday 9th October 2024

Day 4: Thursday 10th October 2024

Day 5: Global Girl Leading Summit Friday 11th October 2024

Day 1: Monday 7^th October 2024