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Single mum gives up £900 a month to follow her dream

Alice CunninghamSuffolk
Eastern Education Group A woman with dark long hair smiles at the camera. She is wearing a dress with thin shoulder straps. She is standing outside and there is a car park behind her.Eastern Education Group
Sadie French said she hoped to inspire other women to take risks

A single mother took a £900 a month pay cut so she could follow her dream of gaining a degree in psychology and criminology.

Sadie French, 30, who lives in East Anglia, faced a troubled childhood and had struggles in adulthood that meant she had to leave her home with her daughter.

While she had a finance job, she decided to risk her career and retrain at West Suffolk College in Bury St Edmunds from where she had recently graduated.

"I'm a single mum from a troubled childhood and a once broken and lost young adult – people probably looked at me and thought, she isn't going to go anywhere – but I have," she said.

"I chose to change my narrative and rewrote my story into something beautiful and something I'm proud of."

After going back to college two days a week, French worked part-time at her daughter's school and did some other part-time cleaning jobs.

She initially went back to college on an Access to Higher Education programme before she started her degree as part of the University Studies at West Suffolk College.

Her story was highlighted at a ceremony for more than 150 graduates at St Edmundsbury Cathedral on Saturday.

Eastern Education Group A woman with long dark hair holds her degree certificate in her hands in front of her. She is wearing a black cap and graduation gown. Eastern Education Group
French enjoyed her graduation ceremony recently at St Edmundsbury Cathedral

"I had a good job and by starting a new course, I knew I would be £900 a month worse off," French continued.

"Coming out of that security net was scary, but I knew it was necessary and I wanted it more than ever.

"I was determined to make education work and give my daughter someone to look up to."

French recently graduated from her degree at a ceremony at St Edmundsbury Cathedral and received the 2026 University Studies at West Suffolk College Outstanding Personal Progress Award.

She now teaches in a school, supporting psychology and sociology lessons, and will be starting a master's in psychology in the future.

Over the summer she also completed a counselling course and hoped to one day open her own practice.

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