From News Shopper on line Monday 7^th November 2011

9:37pm Saturday 5th November 2011

On the 2nd of November 2011, the whole of Townley Grammar School’s year ten had the opportunity to attend the If Chloe Can Event at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, which was designed to inform teenage girls of their career options. Around 2000 13-16 year-old girls from schools everywhere, and all walks of life squeezed into the theatre, to watch a play adaptation of Esther McVey’s renowned book “If Chloe Can”, followed by hearing some of the most inspirational women in the country giving their best advice for success to the young girls in the audience.

The event began with a question session from Esther McVey herself, asking the girls in the audience about their feelings towards careers and further education. It revealed that 50% of the girls in the audience felt pressured to go to university and ‘conform’, and that only 36% of them knew what they wanted to do in the future.

After this question session, the adaptation of “If Chloe Can” began, performed by actresses from the National Youth Theatre. We saw Chloe and her three school friends making the decisions that will affect the rest of their lives, teaching the young ladies in the audience that there are different routes that the two traditional ones – A-levels and University, or marriage and babies.

Following this, the audience was treated to a panel with Jo Salter, the UK’s first female fighter pilot, Claire Young, a highly successful entrepreneur who reached the final of the apprentice in 2008, Louise Greenhalgh, the UK’s first female bomb disposal expert, Debbie Moore, the founder of Pineapple dance studios and many other very inspirational women at the top of their respective fields.

These immensely successful women shared stories from their past, and spoke of the challenges they faced – with Claire Young telling the audience that she “applied for 83 jobs”. They also shared their best pieces of advice for vocational success; “confidence comes with experience”, “take opportunities that come your way”, “keep glam and rock on” and “start your dreams young”. They also took questions from the young ladies in the audience, with one asking “how did you know what you wanted to be?” and Jo Salter replying; “I was absolutely sure of what I wanted to be…I was absolutely sure that I wanted to be a hairdresser” perhaps proving that things don’t always work out the way we plan. The mothers of the group also shared their experience on how they coped with one of the most difficult challenges a working woman can face – juggling a career and a family. Many of them dealt with this issue in the same way – by bringing their child with them – with Debbie Moore calling her studios a “great environment” for her daughter to grow up in.

After this panel finished - followed by a rapturous round of applause, of course - we got to see Chloe and her friends, twenty years into the future and how their life panned out after leaving school, whether it be nothing but uphill after finding their dream jobs, or a slippery slope of diminishing funds after putting no effort into their school work, or making any plans for their future.

It seemed that all members of the audience all found something they could draw upon and apply to their own situations – whether they were just about to choose their GCSEs or finishing school and about to make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.