A former headteacher who has made it her mission to teach the world about the Holocaust and other genocides has been given an honorary doctorate.

Dame Helen Hyde, who worked at Watford Grammar School for Girls, was given the degree by the University of Hertfordshire.

She uses her family's story of how they fell victim to the Nazi regime during the Second World War to educate others.

The award was presented at St Albans Abbey on Saturday.

She said: “I feel honoured and humbled by this award. It celebrates the work I have done but more importantly it spurs me on to continue to try to make a difference, to take action to help create a better tomorrow and to help those less fortunate than me, regardless of race, colour or religion."

Dame Helen was appointed headteacher of Watford Grammar School for Girls in 1987 – one of the youngest women to be appointed to such a position at the time – which she held for nearly 30 years.

Under her leadership, the school received four Charter Marks and was the first school to receive the new customer service excellence award in 2008, among a number of other recognitions and awards.

Having spent her career teaching people to help others, Dame Helen left the school in 2016 to co-found Refugees to Recovery, a charity that welcomes and settles refugees into the Watford area and in refugee camps in Europe.

Dame Helen is also known for her inspirational work in Holocaust education.

She is a trained Holocaust educator and a Fellow of the Imperial War Museum.

Having lost some close Jewish family members in Nazi death camps, Dame Helen shares her family story and organises conferences and educational visits to memorials, museums and concentration camps in Germany and Poland.

She is a trustee of a number of Holocaust related organisations and in 2013 became the first chair of the government’s newly established Holocaust Commission Education Committee, which was put in place to ensure a permanent British memorial to the Holocaust and ongoing educational resources.

Working with Holocaust survivors led to Dame Helen’s interest in more recent genocides and in Rwanda in particular.

She is an active patron and co-director of the Rwandan Sisterhood, which brings together Rwandan women uprooted by the 1994 Genocide and raises funds to provide ‘Mama packs’ to expectant women in Rwanda and other African countries, designed to help protect both mothers and babies.

As a result of her commitment to helping others, Dame Helen was awarded a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2012 for her services to national and Holocaust education.