[Intro Music]

00:00:08:11 – 00:01:02:25
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated, in every classroom, in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates the successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series one of the Diverse Ed podcast, we have ten episodes. In each episode our co-hosts Nick Kitchener-Bentley and Yamina Bibi will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them an educator, share the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey, and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:05:21 – 00:01:17:24
Nick
Hello and welcome to the Diverse Ed Podcast. My name is Nick Kitchener-Bentley and I’m a lead practitioner and drama / inclusion teacher at Sarah Bonnell school. I’m also on the steering group for LGBT ed.

00:01:18:05 – 00:01:30:04
Yamina
And I’m Yamina Bibi and I’m an assistant head teacher also at Sarah Bonnell school. I’m also a network lead for Women Ed in London. In this episode, we will be talking to Nicky from the age chapter.

00:01:30:04 – 00:01:56:12
Nicky
I’m Nicky Bright. I’m the former head of an independent school, an independent girl’s boarding school and chair of the Girls’ Schools Association Professional Development Committee. And I’m now a leadership development consultant, facilitator and coach working with schools, games companies, corporates like Rolls-Royce, developing and facilitating leadership programs. And I’m also a menopause awareness advocate.

00:01:56:12 – 00:02:07:01
Yamina
I love that. Thank you so much for that. So, Nick and I were just curious to know what inspired you to write your contribution to Diverse Educators: A Manifesto?

00:02:07:01 – 00:06:22:25
Nicky
Well, in my sort of late forties, I stopped sleeping well overnight. I had until then always slept really well. My head hit the pillow at 11:00 after a full day of teaching and so on. And I’d waken at 630 ready to go, maybe not raring and ready to go every morning, but certainly ready to go. But I started waking up at about three or four in the morning with my heart racing, sort of palpitations type stuff. No real reason, you know, usual work, stress, nothing sort of new or different. But I’d put it down to work and so on. And then on one Christmas, after several bouts of antibiotics to shake off this really persistent chest infection, I also then ended up having a trip to A&E with this heart racing one early morning. It was so intense. And I went to see my nurse practitioner and she advised that I saw the GP about the impact of the perimenopause, which was news to me. And my symptoms, she said I could get some support for my lack of sleep. I was quite anxious, quite tearful. You know, several chest infections had done that to me. And she said, you know, I think some support, including HRT, would really help you. And at school, we weren’t really taught about the menopause at all. Certainly not the perimenopause. And we were taught about, you know, how to manage your periods and your cycles and how not to get pregnant and then your periods stop. Hurrah, you know? And I always thought that the menopause affected you in your fifties. A couple of medics had sort of talked about it to me briefly in my forties, but I took no notice really because I’m not in my fifties, you know, and I wish I had because I really would have better supported myself. And so I did actually start to take HRT. It is not for everybody and it doesn’t work for everybody and different things suit everybody. But it meant then that I could also make some lifestyle changes as well, because I had more energy, because I was sleeping and I got rid of the chest infection because the underlying cause was the sleeping, not the chest infection. And you know, I wasn’t self-medicating by eating and so on and drinking. And I was also referred to some CBT for the anxiety, which was really, really helpful. And you know, yes, I was a head at the time and it was really hard, but with the proper support I found my self again and had the energy and mojo back again to do those sort of lifestyle things I should have been doing all along anyway and would have helped anyway. I really thought it was really ridiculous that as somebody who is running a girls’ school and had worked in girls’ education for so much of my working life, not all of it, but lots of it. I hadn’t really heard proper mention of the menopause or the perimenopause and how we can support ourselves properly, and better through that sort of natural phase of our lives. And I wanted the girls to understand what was happening to their mothers, to their aunties, to their grannies, to their teachers as well, so that they could be sympathetic and support. Because I have a little saying, you know, ‘hormones aren’t just the preserve of the teenager,’ and they think they are, don’t they? But they’re not, actually. We’ve got phases of wonky hormones through our lives. And so I really found that I’ve raised awareness for others so that others wouldn’t feel like they were wading through treacle. The way that I felt I had at that time. And so I spoke at the Girls’ Schools Association Heads Conference in 2019 with a little bit of fear and trepidation, I must say, you know, thinking about what people might think, because there’s quite a lot of negativity, I think, around that. And I started to take advantage of opportunities to speak and write about it. And writing for the Women Ed journal and when the opportunities came up to write for the Diverse Ed book and I thought, this is fantastic because, you know, the book will go hopefully into every school in the country. And so that’s why I wanted to be part of it. And that’s what sort of motivated me was the opportunity really which I leapt at.

00:06:23:23 – 00:07:00:26
Nick
And we’re so glad that you did Nicky because it’s an absolutely fascinating chapter, your contribution has been really transformative in terms of my understanding and knowledge of this area. And I think it’s incredibly important that that knowledge is shared, but I would just want to thank you for being so open and really talking about that, because I know that I’ll be very helpful for people. And something that Yamina and I were very interested in was about the entire chapter as well. And I also found it really transformative in terms of my own thinking about age. And I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about some of those different themes that the rest of the chapter team wanted to explore as well?

00:07:01:07 – 00:08:57:10
Nicky
Yeah, absolutely. Well we wanted to look at lots of different aspects of diversity in respect to age because, you know, it’s actually a segment that has the largest number of people who experience problems, you know, in prejudices and so on. I think 26% of people say that they suffer age discrimination in some shape or form. And so there’s a real benefit particularly in education, but in workplaces in general, in having intergenerational working and learning from each other and learning from each other’s experience and so on. So we wanted to talk a bit about this, you know, age, inclusivity and sustainable careers as well, so that people are sustained throughout, throughout their career and valuing that experience and this benefit of age inclusivity, all of us learning from each other and providing those sorts of role models for experience of working through life, because our young people are going to have to work for longer, which is a great thing because it’s exciting. You know, there’s lots of opportunity. You know, they’re going to live for so much longer that actually for them to have a fulfilling enriched part of their working lives is really, really important. So we’re being role models for ourselves as well as for our young people as well. So those are sort of some of the things that we wanted to think about around that, and that links to that raising awareness around the menopause so that, you know, teens better understand their parents, the family, the teachers and so on, and are better prepared for their futures as well. Younger staff understand older staff better, you know, know what’s going on, able to help themselves and so on.

00:08:57:10 – 00:09:11:02
Yamina
Thank you so much. Nick has said it’s really transformed the way in which we’ve both been thinking about age particularly. But we also wanted to ask about some of the key challenges for people with the protected characteristic of age that your team really wants to address.

00:09:11:13 – 00:10:18:26
Nicky
And well, I think to summarise it as something, in my opinion, it’s assumption biases. You know, everybody has a view on what age and ageing means to them. And when you’re younger you can be quite frustrated. And those frustrations can sort of generalise and so the biases are perhaps a bit more emphasised, that there can be a perception that people are tired and old and past it and not receptive to new ideas and so on, perhaps not edgy enough, a bit too cranky and so on. And I think that’s why the mentoring can be so powerful and intergenerational working, because then you can address those, those assumption biases. And I think one challenge is obviously as we get older, there are impacts upon our health. And so there does need to be that sort of support and understanding of those health challenges in order that people can continue to work for that much longer and so on as well. So I think those are the key challenges, assumption biases and really those health challenges, perhaps managing them in a supportive way.

00:10:19:24 – 00:11:43:08
Nick
I love some of the ways that you as a team as well have spoken about the things that can be done, like the mentoring, the intergenerational working and the stuff that can be done. That really is a very powerful chapter and there’s so much there for us to think about. So thank you for all your contributions towards that and we’re interested in everybody’s takeaways and yours were brilliant. So I’m going to read them out and then I wonder if it would just be okay for us, Nicky, to maybe get you to reflect on these takeaways themselves from why that’s important. And so you’ve said that menopausal women are the fastest growing demographic in the workplace and their needs are often ignored or overlooked. As the combination of over forty symptoms is unique to every individual leading many women to leave the profession earlier than they might otherwise, had they been given appropriate support. After decades of stigma and a lack of education or conversation around the menopause, menopausal women themselves often do not realise that symptoms are related to the menopause and that they can be supported. Schools need to go further than they currently do to support menopausal women, raising awareness with students, staff, leaders and governors, enabling empathetic conversations to happen leading to supportive action. It is really, really powerful stuff that you’ve written about there, I would just be interested to hear a little bit more about your ideas on that.

00:11:44:01 – 00:14:44:29
Nicky
Well, the key thing is that there are over 40 symptoms of the perimenopause and the menopause. And if there’s one thing that the listeners take away, it’s that perimenopause can start on average in your forties. And so this isn’t something that we’re putting off until until our fifties. And every woman has a unique combination of symptoms. And whilst 25% of women who go through the menopause, symptoms don’t really affect them terribly much, in a third of women, the symptoms are quite severe. And then there’s everybody else in between for whom some symptoms are quite debilitating, but they’re not so severe that they may well be picked up. So there’s quite a lot of women, I think, who just sort of struggle through when they could get some support. So one key takeaway is, you know, make sure you know what the perimenopause is. Make sure you know what the symptoms are. Make sure that you understand that every woman has a unique combination of those. It isn’t a one size fits all, you know, get the policy off the shelf, sort people out and so on. Actually, there’s a lot women can do to support ourselves, and I’m really passionate about that. One of the reasons that, one of the other key takeaways, I think from this is that actually there’s an economic imperative to this. As far as I’m concerned, around poverty in old age, women live longer and they are poorer in old age. And women’s pension pots in the UK are 55% lower than men’s. And in teaching, women’s pensions are 28% lower than men’s pensions. Now some of that is because they’ve not made as many contributions when they’ve had years out to have children and so on. But some of that is because they finish work earlier or they start working part time sooner because they feel they can’t cope because of the symptoms that they have. And, you know, you quite often hear people saying, oh, it’s all too much. SLT are asking too much and I can’t cope and so on. And sometimes it’s actually not that, it’s sometimes, it’s simply we aren’t in the condition to be resilient enough because we’ve got these other things going on for us. And so I want to help women cope, to thrive and not just to survive and for them to be able to work for longer in a great, you know, resilient state so that they have a really productive work life. And I say that for me that the key takeaway is that if you support yourself well and you are aware of this, you can work for longer and it will impact your family positively in terms of financially as well as you being more positive about work and so on as well. So that’s really important to me actually. You know, financial independence for women and perhaps it’s the being a girls’ schools head, you know, or working in girls’ schools so long, I don’t know. I want to help women to be in a position where they have choice, you know, that’s what it’s about. It’s about them having choice for what they want to do.

00:14:45:07 – 00:15:22:03
Yamina
As two school teachers who also work in a girls’ school, I think that’s really, really important. And especially what you just said really resonated with me and I’m sure with Nick as well. Moving onto your commitment to the manifesto, actually, what you say is you want to raise awareness among students, teachers, leaders and governors of the impact of the menopause upon women in schools and the reasonable adjustments that can be made to create an inclusive environment supporting the retention of menopausal women. Nick and I just wanted to know if you could perhaps expand on that. Tell us more about it and how you want to galvanise actions from the readers as well as the listeners.

00:15:22:03 – 00:17:40:28
Nicky
Yeah, well, I think if you get the perimenopause support right, you will enable a woman to continue to work successfully and contribute this vast experience and wisdom to the profession as well. Plus, as I say, it will support her and her family in old age. So I want to continue to raise awareness. I’m exploring working as an associate with an organisation called Talking Menopause to bring the message more widely than education, but specifically targeting education as well, and help women realise that there is a lot we can do for ourselves if we have the right energy and the mindset to do so and we can get support to help us with that. Sometimes it does take professional help from outside of our friends and family, and there’s no stigma in that. You know, if it helps us and it’ll help the others around us as well. So I want to galvanise action from all our readers and listeners, readers of the book, listeners of the podcast, and to actually just try and understand more about the symptoms of menopause and how they manifest themselves and how people can be supported quite simply, in terms of things like being able to keep your clothes or your sanitary products near the toilet so you don’t have to march through the school with a massive bag, being nearer a toilet. If you are able to move your room during that particular time if you need it. Some women don’t need that, you know. Is there a rest area that’s available for not just menopausal women, but, you know, we make adjustments for parents when they’re new parents, we go, oh, yeah, they must be up all night and so on. Well some women, you know, could just do with a sort of rest moment at lunchtime, whatever, and that would set them up for the rest of day, or perhaps making it easier for people to get to medical appointments as well so that they can get that right support. How difficult is it to get a fan off your boss or your business manager?

00:17:42:07 – 00:18:54:11
Yamina
How easy is it for you to have wellbeing items already in the loo that people can use and which will benefit not just menopausal women but other women as well. Other people. And so, you know, it all relates back to understanding and education, I think, in order that people then can have the right sort of support for them and can talk about, you know, I don’t want menopause to be, that’s something that people sort of go, you know, and when you mention it, that people sort of say, oh, she’s talking about menopause again. I want it to be something that’s just you know, everybody talks about it and and they so that women feel that they will talk to their employer about what they need because it’s something like 70% of women won’t talk to their employer about their symptoms because there’s that stigma taboo and so on around it. So that’s what I want to galvanise action from people that, you know, menopause is just talked about among students and staff and it’s not the sort of, you know, oh, she’s on about it again.

00:18:56:04 – 00:19:54:19
Nick
But you, I think you are galvanising people and certainly raising awareness. You know, and I’ve had a lot of conversations about this and I know that we we’ve taken that to other teams and we’ve discussed it further. And I mean, no doubt that these conversations will be going on and education settings up and down the country. So thank you so much for it. It’s incredibly important. And I love the kind of some of the what I would argue in some cases, incredibly simple solutions that you’ve just provided that can really help people and talking about the individual flexible things that can be done so that’s really helpful. Thank you. And one thing that I really noticed in your chapter was that you made a point that I think is really vital about how important the menopause is to everyone. And you said for every line manager and indeed every person in our school communities, I think it’s really important. And I was just interested, if you could maybe tell us a little bit more about the kinds of things that every single person working in a school can do to better support people affected by the menopause?

00:19:54:19 – 00:20:58:10
Nicky
Well, first of all, I think by making it easy to talk about, as I said, you know, that no one cringes or shrinks or bats an eyelid when people are talking about about it so that they can be supported, that would make it more accessible for people to actually talk about what they need and also to make sure that they realise that there are these forty symptoms or more. That can be a unique combination, the unique cocktail for each woman so that there’s a real understanding that it’s unique and that, you know, what works for one may not work for another. So those are sort of, it goes back to those key things that are really in terms that, I just had a menopausal brain fog moment there Nick, could you repeat the question for me, please, just so that I can just make sure not to miss out any details.

00:20:58:14 – 00:21:10:13
Nick
Would love to. You’re doing a great job of answering anyway, but I’m just really interested about what you think that every single person needs to do in school communities to better support people affected by the menopause.

00:21:10:23 – 00:22:08:10
Nicky
Yeah, it’s basically that, as I’ve already said the talking about it, making it commonplace to talk about and making sure that people are aware of the sorts of things that could be available to them if they needed them. And most women, you know, most women, they don’t want to work part time and they don’t want to necessarily do flexible working. They just want to sort of cope and work well with the symptoms that they’ve got there and continue to do a good job. So it’s, you know, whilst for one person, it might be appropriate to say, you know, okay, you can come in later because I know you’re having a particular problem with your sleep at the moment. For others, it might be okay. You know, we can let you go at three so that you can go home and, you know, rest there. Or it might just be let’s put a rest area in for everybody, you know, that people can can use. So make it commonplace to talk about is really key.

00:22:08:10 – 00:22:56:06
Yamina
And, you know, talking about commonplace, as Nick and I have said, you know, we’ve really started to talk about it in our school. I know lots of my female colleagues have come up to me, actually, and said, oh, this chapter in the book, Nicky, your chapter, you know, it’s really interesting. Oh, my god, yes, this is exactly what’s happening to me. And now I’ve finally got a space to talk about it. And I’ve never in my career, and I’ve not been teaching for very long, but in 13 years never have I ever had anyone talk to me about menopause before. So that’s really important. Change is already happening within our our own organisation and I’m sure in many others, too. But I was curious about what we want to think about is how would we go about perhaps introducing the concept of the menopause and understanding the menopause to our young people? And why do you think it is important that they are taught about it too?

00:22:57:01 – 00:24:55:25
Nicky
Well, what I did was I gave an assembly on it and talked about the menopause and talked about the impact that it had on me and what it might have on them without being too personal, you know, with what it might be having on their parents and their teachers and so on around them. And one of the girls was overheard coming out of the assembly. She was overheard by her tutor saying to her friend, ‘Oh, that’s what’s up with my mum,’ you know? And I think if we can, you know, it’s so the simple things like, you know, in assembly or just talking about in tutor time, you know, I think it is one of those things that does need to be revisited because in the RSE curriculum, it is now mandatory part of the RSE curriculum, which is fantastic, but it is a one word mention on a page. You know, there’s hundreds of pages, so it is in danger of being crowded out by other very, very important things as well. You know, there’s been a lot of talk about consent and so on. And, you know, there are a lot of very important parts to the RSE curriculum. But I just want to make sure that menopause doesn’t get crowded out of it because it isn’t just a sort of one lesson thing that you can do, because what if you’re away for that lesson, you know, and it’s just as important for all our young people, because all young people have got, you know, mothers, aunties, grannies, whatever. So they all need to know, you know, wives, partners, whatever, you know, in the future as well. So I don’t think it’s something that’s just for girls either. It’s it’s important to them all. But simple things like talking about it in tutor time, talking about it in assembly, as well as that normal RSE spiral curriculum where it’s revisited a number of times, I think will really help young people, for it to become common parlance, really.

00:24:56:29 – 00:25:29:03
Nick
Thanks, Nicky. I think it’s really helpful to talk about that. And I’ve found it really interesting to consider how we might be able to have more conversations with young people about how people in their lives might be affected by the menopause. So thank you very much for that it is really interesting. And Yamina and I also wanted to broaden our discussion out a little bit in terms of the changes that we would like to see happen. And this is more to do with the protected characteristic of age. So in an ideal world, what kind of changes would you like to see within the school system regarding that protected characteristic of age?

00:25:30:10 – 00:27:30:24
Nicky
Well, I think a real appreciation of experience that people have and also an understanding that because somebody might have some health challenges that they have in their older age, I’m not just talking about menopause, I’m talking more generally because, you know, the older you get, the more your bones are worn. And, you know, all of that sort of stuff and you’re more likely to have health conditions and so on and develop and so developing an understanding that supporting those conditions isn’t a burden, that actually you can still get a lot of experience and wisdom from those people and that actually you get a more productive environment when you’ve got people working from different generations, there’s a real benefit to the workplace. And so helping young people realise that as well and trying to make sure that the work place is as diverse in terms of its age as is possible really, because it goes back to the fact that, you know, I don’t want people to bat an eyelid when they’re talking to older people about the issues that they are facing and for them to benefit from the experience that there is and to see that you can have a fulfilling, productive later life in the workplace as well, so that they’re going to be encouraged to want to continue to develop themselves. It’s that lifelong learning, isn’t it, engendering that love of lifelong learning with them, because that’s what work is is about. It’s not about work and grind. It’s about learning and developing yourself and fulfilling yourself. So yeah, I think engendering that is really important.

00:27:30:24 – 00:27:45:23
Yamina
I love that, not work and grind, it’s about learning and development, which is so true and then just to broaden out even more. I mean, you kind of touched upon this, but what changes would you like to see happen in wider society regarding the protected characteristic of age?

00:27:46:02 – 00:28:53:16
Nicky
Yeah, it’s interesting because there’s been, you know, touch upon menopause. You know, there’s been a bit of a backlash from the Davina documentaries, you know, in terms of people sort of saying, well, you know, but I don’t understand why we need to be so polarised for and against things. And so it is same with age in general. Why can’t we seek to understand each other rather than have to be in this position or that position and so on, so that we can argue well together and understand each other, rather than sort of having opposing views about things. So yeah, I want people to just really be curious about each other and understand each other and seek to understand for a better life really, you know, that would be great in society. I don’t listen to the news anymore. You know, I dip in and out, so I know what’s going on. So I’m not completely devoid of everything. But, you know, I want a less toxic environment in which to live, you know, in society and I’m going to be part of that.

00:28:54:09 – 00:29:35:04
Nick
And you have been. It’s been so good to hear from you today. I mean, you were talking about seeking to understand each other. And I just know that what you’ve written and what your team has written has done that. I find myself now, after having read the chapter, catching myself in terms of the language that I use and I really am trying to kind of improve the way that I think about and talk about age, because I now realise that some of the things I may have said before haven’t been what I should have said. And I certainly found it very interesting. So I’m really, really grateful to you and your whole team for everything that you’ve done for it. And thank you very much. And yeah, this morning we’ve loved speaking to you and I’ll pass on to Yamina to wrap up for us.

00:29:35:15 – 00:29:43:29
Yamina
Thank you so much, Nicky. We’ve been Nick Kitchener-Bentley and Yamina Bibi the co-hosts of the Diverse Ed podcast.

00:29:43:29 – 00:30:00:13
Hannah
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Diverse Ed podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think, so do leave us a review. We’ll be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.