Raised by two Irish parents, Angela moved to Ireland when she was just 11, and her career began shortly after when she left school just aged 16 to pursue a career in hairdressing. Continuing on this career path until at age 20, she decided to move to London, expecting to only spend a year there.
"I never left", Angela said, saying she settled down and started a family in London, and then moved out more rurally to Hertfordshire.
It was only after a career break that Angela began to work in education. When her children went to school, Angela said that "a voluntary admin role came up in the school that they were attending", applying to simply break her week up. "Things progressed from there. Shortly after, a paid admin job came up, and then after a while I went on to complete my School Business Professional Diploma".
Once she had completed her diploma, Angela then became a School Business Manager across a federation of schools.
Angela continued to work in schools for 17 years, predominantly in Lower Schools in Central Bedfordshire. When she decided to pursue a sector outside of education, she found herself working at an IT company but felt she lacked a sense of purpose in her job. Only when Angela was on holiday, namely on a beach under the Mauritian sun, did she see the vacancy for the Operations Administrator at St Chris. She's been with St Chris now for three months!
"When you work in schools, a lot of people will ask you: what do you teach? But there's actually a lot more to schools than teaching. Everyone doing their job, everyone underpinning the school and its progress, adds to the value of education," Angela summarised, saying she was most passionate about being part of giving children the best start to life possible."
Each role comes with its own challenges, and Angela has been getting to grips with her role over these past three months: "I'm still finding my feet in my role here, working alongside Paul (Operations Manager) has helped me understand the role and what is expected form me to aid the smooth running of the operations department. But the best thing about my role is working alongside all the different teams and learning about the different responsibilities of each team. On the flip side, the challenge is learning everyone's different working styles and understanding what people need from me to facilitate them doing their job to the best of their ability. Lettings at St Chris is huge, and that's been a learning curve. In previous roles, there's been very little lettings, but here it's massive."
When asked to summarise the culture at St Chris, Angela described it as "laid back. It's really friendly, everyone comes across as quite relaxed. I love the fact that students call everyone by their first names. The informality of [St Chris] is really nice; it doesn't feel like there's a hierarchy, and I really like that culture, yet there is respect for those in authority. I also love that everyone's opinion is valued and considered."
We cannot wait to see what Angela achieves in her role as the academic year progresses.