‘I feel so energised to be able to be a part of so many young women’s journeys’

Vanetta Spence – better known as Ben to pretty much everyone – can’t rave about her students enough.

The new head teacher of Montpelier High School is fresh to the job, having taken up the position in May this year, leaving her previous role as principal of May Park Primary School in Eastville.

Her energy and enthusiasm for the job is palpable when she meets me at the school during the summer holidays. Usually the halls would be teaming with students, but today it is quiet.

We meet in Spence’s office on A Level results day. It’s a grand room full of antiques and dusty books, which she is temporarily occupying until she is moved to a smaller, less grand office.

In the corner of the room is a table full of refreshments of all kinds, ready for students when they come and visit, and artwork from students and global artists is dotted around the antiquated space.

Spence’s office reflects the wider changes that the school she has inherited is going through. Montpelier High School has occupied a steady position in the local news in recent years.

The school changed its name from Colston Girls School in September 2021, and a commemoration of this process is memorialised in a wonderful mural that spreads across the school’s main atrium.

A mural in the school’s main atrium is an ode to the students who worked together to create a new name and identity for the school – photo: Montpelier High School

And yet its reputation has also been tainted by a damning Ofsted report, which the school is continuing to try and crawl back from.

In this sense, you’d think Spence would be acutely aware of the weight of her new role, but she seems completely unphased, something that perhaps lends itself perfectly to her achievements.

“When the job for Montpelier High came out, I really felt like I had something I could give – to the school, the students and the staff,” she says.

“I see the Ofsted report as an opportunity. It gives us really clear things that we need to work on. I don’t find that daunting. I care about the potential of the school and the students.”

Montpelier High School is made up of just under a thousand students, of which years seven to eleven are girls, with a mixed sixth form.

Spence is hugely excited about this dynamic: “Being in an all girls school, apart from sixth form, I’m able to be surrounded by such powerful women,” she says.

“I found that a really exciting and unique aspect that this school has to offer. I feel very energised by being able to be a part of so many young women’s journeys.”

Spence is passionate about empowering her students, and she sees her role as one in which she creates an environment that allows her students to flourish on their own terms.

“I see my role as a woman leading this school as to really amplify those voices,” says Spence.

“We’re going to harness this amazing trailblazing energy and we’re going to do something really great with it,” she says.

Spence is also her own trailblazer, something she hopes will help her in her role as head: “I am myself from what would be classified as a disadvantaged background. I want to be a lens for that and have conversations about diversity and inequality,” she says.

“Being a black headteacher from a disadvantaged background, I will see things differently.” (Spence is also studying English Literature at the University of Bristol alongside her teaching, as well as being a mother to three children – all in a day’s work eh?)

Vanetta Spence with her students on A Level results day – photo: Montpelier High School

Spence sees her position as part of the school’s changing identity as it continues to move away from its past.

“We need to think about how the history of this school fits with where we are now. We are a multicultural school. The changing of the name was not an erasure of our past but a recognition that we have become something new.

“The next step is something new again, the school having its first black headteacher, and its first female black teacher. All of these things are movements towards a new identity for the school.

“The girls have done an amazing mural, with the phoenix as an emblem. I think it’s quite beautiful that we have something so magical and fiery coming out of the past.”

Before I leave, I ask Spence what advice she would give to her students. “Keep saying yes to all the opportunities that come your way,” she says. “And think about how you’re going to do it after!” she laughs.

“Today on A Level results day, I’m just blown away by the achievements of students. I’ve been told by the students I tell them they’re amazing a lot. But I do feel like I’m just here to prep the ground and watch their amazingness.”

And with that, I leave Spence’s office, assured of her ability to propel the school into an exciting future.

Main photo: Mia Vines Booth

This feature originally appeared in the latest Bristol24/7 quarterly magazine, available free across our city

Read next:

• New headteacher appointed at ‘troubled’ Montpelier high school
• Montpelier High School remains ‘inadequate’ with ‘serious weaknesses’
• Montpelier High School pupils reflect on schools new name

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