Teaching women in Wandsworth

We were delighted to be the first event in this year’s Wandsworth Heritage Festival. Our poetry workshop In and Out of Education was held at Battersea Library on Saturday 20 May 2023, and we had some lovely, studious and inspiring attendees. We’d sourced some materials from the Wandsworth Heritage Service to use as prompts for writing exercises, which included fabulous photographs from Mayfield School – an all-girl’s school in the Putney area. We asked our students to imagine themselves as one of the students in a photo for one exercise, and as one of the teachers for another. Then we bent our heads down and wrote.

One of our students had English as a second language, and stalled at getting started, so we encouraged her to write in her own language, Spanish. Most of the attendees had no creative writing or poetry experience, so it was wonderful to help them make their first attempts at putting pen to paper, and rewarding to hear them all say they wanted to carry on writing.

We had some interesting discussions about access to education, the pros and cons of single sex schools, and the importance of female role models for girls – both as pupils and teachers. The importance of education was clear. Even though we all had memories about dreading certain lessons at school, we all agreed that we’d been lucky to have an education and that for some girls and young women it’s sadly never an option.

There are lots of great education-themed events lined up for the rest of the Wandsworth Heritage Festival – you can read about them and find out how to book here

And look out for more educational and fun London Undercurrents workshops in your timetable soon…