Geraldton teacher Pip Rumble is determined to break down barriers for regional women and girls to be educated

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus — but Pip Rumble shines brighter than the sun in her bid to kick down doors so girls in the regions feel empowered in their education. Geraldton born and bred, Mrs Rumble moved to Mullewa when she married her husband — a farmer. The pair soon had two sons and Mrs Rumble would realise a gaping hole in regional family life. “If you’re in a rural or regional area, having access to daycare is often not there, or it’s not at the same level,” she said ahead of International Women’s Day on Friday. With two sons, then aged 18 months and six months in tow, and aged 22, Mrs Rumble started a family day care service to provide some reprieve for mothers in the area. Two-and-a-half years later, she knew this was where her passion lay, enrolling to study primary school teaching at Geraldton Universities Centre. Mrs Rumble rallies against the traditional expectations engrained into the regions of “women raise the kids, do the cooking and the cleaning.” “That can be a huge barrier. And then, for me as a mature aged university student, that was a huge challenge . . . I was literally raising three children,” she said. “I felt like I was too dumb to do university, I thought that I just wouldn’t succeed. I really doubted my ability to do it.” Despite her lack of self-belief, Mrs Rumble went on to win two high achiever awards during her three-year degree. Now teaching a Year 4 class at Wandina Primary School, she is determined to let young girls know their worth, and the belief that maths and sciences are only for boys is now redundant. “If you’re enabling students, especially the ones that find it tricky, empowering them and making them feel capable you’re breaking down some of those gender gaps especially in maths and science,” she said. “I feel really lucky because I have the ability to do that within my classroom.” Mrs Rumble believes role modelling female success is vital. “Making sure girls actually see that and see they have career opportunities, or long-term goals in that space, really encouraging them and empowering them to feel like that could be me, I could do that,” she said. The mother-of-three draws from a book called Half The Sky and says it inspires her work day-to-day. “If you don’t empower women and girls, you can only see half the sky. Like you’re not actually getting everything you could, you’re not going to get everything out of life or society,” she said. The importance of laying the groundwork now is already evident she said, as we see the baby boomer generation retire and a big skills shortage emerge as a result. “If we’re empowering women and girls to study, whether it be straight after school, or later in life, we’re going to be filling more of those gaps,” she said.