At the age of 16, Miss Madden became a student at the Westoe Secondary School. She left in 1914 at the age of 21, and in the time before attending college, she took a series of temporary teaching jobs at various infants schools in South Shields - Stanhope Road Infants for two weeks in January, 1915, Barnes Infants (3 weeks), St Marks Infants (1 week) and Baring St Infants (4 months).

After the summer holiday in 1915, she went to the Salisbury Diocesan Training College to training as a teacher, leaving in 1917 with her Board of Education Certificate, and in December 1917 took her first full-time teaching post at Westoe Boys Elementary School.

After ten years, on 13th September, 1927, she moved to the South Shields High School, where she stayed, through the move to Harton, until 1939, when she left to take up the job of Assistant Mistress at the Harton Infants School. But 18 months later, on 20th January, 1941, she was back at the South Shields High School for Boys for a further four years, leaving in 1945 to take up the job of Headmistress at Gilbert Street Infants School, South Shields.