Last week, International Women's Day was marked up and down the country.

It is a chance to recognise and celebrate the achievements of women locally, nationally and internationally and the work that has been done and continues to be done to ensure women have the same rights as men. 

To mark International Women's Day locally, I asked women and girls who are connected to Warwick, Leamington, Whitnash and the villages, to share a piece of advice with the next generation of women and girls. It was an inspiring exercise, and I am grateful to all those who took the time to take part. 

If you would like to read the pieces of advice, you can see them on my website.

I dropped into the FA's Biggest Girls Football Session Ever event at Newbold Comyn Leisure Centre last week where girls from local primary schools were enjoying a day of football. I was massively impressed by the teachers coordinating it and the students from Campion School who have been trained as sports leaders and were running the sessions. 

The students ranged from Year 7s to Year 10s and were running the sessions with real skill and confidence.

A great experience for them and for the younger pupils. Much credit to all involved and brilliant to see so many genuinely enjoying being active and playing football.

Elsewhere, I had the opportunity to visit two of our local secondary schools: Aylesford and North Leamington. 

At Aylesford, it was good to catch up with the interim headteacher, Mr Gilbride, and to receive an update on the asbestos issue. This had a real impact on the school, but it is welcome to hear that work to get the impacted part of the site back up and running is underway. 

By coincidence, my visit coincided with World Book Day, so I saw some of the amazingly creative costumes being sported by pupils and teachers in the Primary School! I have much admiration of the parents and guardians that managed to create some masterpieces.

I also caught up with Mr Lowdell, headteacher at North Leamington School, for a general update. It was welcome to hear that the school continues to receive plenty of interest from pupils looking to join the community in year 7 and that they currently have their biggest sixth form ever. 

Ensuring young people know that I not only represent their parents and guardians but also, they themselves, is very important to me and I welcomed the opportunity to have a Q&A session with Year 12 politics students at North Leamington.

They asked some really insightful questions about the key issues of our time and rightly had some good follow-ups to my answers. Great to see them so engaged with politics. 

As always, please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any issues or concerns you would like to raise with me. I can be reached at [email protected] on 01926 882006.