The Brooke Weston graduates: Sally Birkby, Rachel Kay, Lise Wildman and Mark Willimott.
Teachers from Brooke Weston are celebrating gaining their Masters degrees, but they've also broken a couple of records along the way. Not only did the group complete their coursework in the quickest ever time, but they are also the largest group from the same school to have graduated.
The teachers, Sally Birkby, Head of Business Rachel Kay, Head of IT Mark Willimott, and Lise Wildman (who has since left the College) all completed their MScs in Educational Leadership and Management in just two years, a year ahead of the average time taken. The teachers studied in their spare time and even attended lectures from the staff of Leicester University after teaching an entire school day themselves! Mr Willimott said: 'For each assignment there was probably four or five day's work of study to fit in around the normal Brooke Weston workload. Everything had to be linked in with what we actually did day to day here and it all directly related to Brooke Weston.'
Brooke Weston funded the courses and now several more teachers are undertaking the MSc with two more expected to graduate in the summer. Rachel Kay said: 'My dissertation looked at the characteristics of Brooke Weston. I did a lot of interviews with staff here finding out lots of the unique features of the College that maybe people in other schools wouldn't have experienced.'
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'Brooke Weston is really proud of them all.'
Trish Stringer
Vice Principal, Trish Stringer, who initiated the training attended the graduation. She said: 'It's been absolutely excellent, they have studied useful modules for them as individuals. They did work hard and the fact that they did it alongside their own work in College was testament to them. Brooke Weston is really proud of them all.'
Professor Bernard Barker of Leicester University said: 'It is very unusual to complete so quickly and equally unusual for a cohort of such size from a single school. You can be very proud of these students; and I think Brooke Weston deserves especially praise for the support and energy it has given the programme.'
