Diversity in school leadership case studies: Shewley Choudhry

"Don't be afraid to step up. Have confidence in yourself"

Shewley Choudhry is a special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) at Nottingham Primary School. She has worked in the education sector for 12 years. In 2010-11, she took part in the Aspire to Headship programme.

Shewley worked in a number of roles prior to gaining her degree and qualifying as a teacher in 1999, including working as a seamstress and as a catering manager.

She has now reached the point where she would like to make a difference beyond her class, at a whole school level.

Shewley on Aspire to Headship

“Before, I didn’t think I could do anything other than be a classroom teacher. I thought my capabilities had peaked at qualifying to teach. When I got my first promotion to be a maths co-ordinator, I thought, wow, I can do this.

"What has made the biggest change to my self-belief was going on the Aspire programme. I changed personally and professionally to such a degree, people kept asking me what I’d been doing!

"Prior to the programme, I had low self-esteem and low confidence. The assertiveness training I attended enabled me to dig deep and tease out what the underlying issues were. I realised I was letting certain things happen to me and I needed to understand why I was behaving like that and that I needed to do something about it. I allowed people to suppress me because I didn’t like confrontation.

"This course and the WebEx, 'Managing challenging people', helped me change my attitude and develop strategies to grow my confidence and assertiveness.

I realised for the first time that I had certain rights - the right to be respected - and it was up to me to make sure I got my needs and rights met.

One of the tasks was to write out my 10 greatest successes. Once I’d done this, it really started to build my confidence. Colleagues noticed that my communication was much more direct and clear. I’m no longer afraid to challenge people or express my opinion. I used to think that if I spoke up, especially with elders, it was a sign of disrespect. Now I realise that’s not true. I’m much more positive now and happier! Others now tell me I inspire them!

I’ve enjoyed other courses, such as Leadership Pathways, but Aspire, for me, was much more effective. The strong, face-to-face and practical elements, as well as the immediate feedback on leadership skills, really worked for me.

"The element of coaching, mentoring and almost counselling elements to develop me as a person in a very nurturing and supportive way, were very powerful. It was great to have so much support to assist me in furthering my career rather than just what I could do better back in school.

"The 360 degree leadership assessment was very accurate and confirmed what I already knew. It identified that confidence and self-belief were issues for me. My ratings for my skills were lower than my colleagues’ ratings of me! It was a positive experience and motivated me to address the issues raised. The new network I now have via Aspire has been great. They are all telling me to go for it!

"The two day development centre was so positive. I learnt so much. The best element was the theatre company performance and the learning triads. The leadership team activity on the second day was also really valuable. The one-to-one feedback I had was positive with the underlying message being: “Don’t be afraid to step up. Have confidence in yourself”. Everyone kept saying the same thing!

"My leadership tutor has been a really good coach. He supported me and let me just talk, which I’ve never had before. He’d just look at me and smile a lot of the time! If I went off track he would nudge me in the right direction. He also helped me to let go of some of the bitterness and anger I was feeling about some of the injustices I’d experienced in my teaching career. Mostly, I needed to talk out my feelings and decide what I needed to do to put certain things right. By the end of our sessions I put what had happened behind me, took responsibility and began to plan how to move forward.

"Before Aspire I didn’t have the confidence to apply for deputy head posts. Since Aspire I’ve started to apply and have come very close to being appointed.”