Roedean School awards the King Constantine Medal to Marj Brown

Posted: 10 August 2018

Roedean School awarded their King Constantine Medal to teacher and head of the History Department Marj Brown who has given voluntarily and generously of her time to enrich pupils and staff both at Roedean, and in under-resourced environments. Her enthusiasm and example inspire many pupils to grasp social issues, and contribute to the well-being of others.

Marj is responsible for introducing the Model United Nations Programme to Roedean, and her continued leadership of this initiative is exceptional. Marjorie is a former human rights activist, and now teaches history to girls of Roedean and encourages critical thinking and global citizenship. Her students have gone onto represent South Africa at youth forums, the Paris Climate Talks, and various Ivy League universities.

She is Lambs House Social Responsibility Co-ordinator, linked with NOAH, a community school in Yeoville, which later evolved into The Link Reading and Numeracy Project. Marjorie is committed to tackling the literacy issues within South Africa and has twinned well-resourced schools with 60 under-resourced schools through a local literacy quiz, called Phendulani. This project has an impact on hundreds of lives, every year, since 2007. The teachers involved from these local schools benefit from free books donated by publishers, and the effect of an entrenched reading culture is palpable in many schools, not least in the lives of the children themselves.

Marj has also been named one of the 10 best teachers in the world and shortlisted for the 2018 Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize – the most prestigious accolade for teachers worldwide.

“I think that teaching is a profession where the act of sharing information, facilitating critical thinking, and a growth mindset, is one of the greatest contributions possible to the future of a society,” says Marj  “It is an immense privilege and responsibility to interact with youth – emotionally and intellectually – to restore hope in inter-generational bonds, and to break down cultural and any other barriers that prevent pupils from understanding and reaching out to others. All this creates a more just and equitable global community.”

“We are delighted to award the King Constantine Medal to Marj,” says Sandy Murray, Roedean’s Round Square Rep “her passion to embed the Round Square IDEALS in the ethos of Roedean is highly valued.”