The Kate Scheme

Our alumnae community continues to connect to the School to help current students with their career choices. Alumnae in careers across the arts, science, finance, journalism, law and sport give their time and expertise back to the school community through our dedicated mentoring programme, The Kate Scheme.

The Kate Scheme matches Old Girls with industry- and sector-specific experience with students looking for advice in that area. Working together, the student and their mentor design a personalised programme which meets the student's individual needs and interests, builds an empowering partnership and hopefully an enduring friendship too.

The emphasis of the programme is on guiding our young women, inspiring self-belief and highlighting career aspirations and choices. Our alumnae mentors help students to understand the dynamics of the world of work and advise them on making a smoother transition into higher education or into a career. Old Girls share their experiences and advice, successes and failures, to support, encourage, coach and guide our students to explore broader career possibilities and to develop the confidence about what they might be able to do in the future.

“The career I’ve chosen, TV production, is a highly competitive one where jobs are found through networking rather than formal applications. I wish I’d had a mentor to turn to when the freelance lifestyle seemed too daunting, or when I was struggling to work out the best way to write my CV. So I would love to save them some time working out the ins and outs of the TV industry!”

Zenia Selby, 2012 leaver, freelance specialist factual researcher and Kate Scheme mentor