from the Head
As I write, there are just a few more weeks of my 17th and final
year as Head of Sevenoaks. When I started in September 2002,
the Upper Sixth who finished this year were only one year old and
most of the younger students weren’t yet born. Maths experts tell
me I have been Head for nearly 5000 Sevenoaks students, and I’ve
taught something like 1224 lessons of IB Higher Level English.
Getting on for 4000 Sevenoaks students have gone on to the
world’s best universities and interesting jobs, and about 180
different combinations of nationalities have passed through the
school during my time. I’m told I’ve served up 612 breakfasts
to school captains for our regular Saturday morning meetings,
including some favourite recipes: muesli bread, banana bread and
blueberry cornmeal pancakes!
A point of change such as this gives pause for thought and
prompts reflection on the school’s development, so I have read
with great pleasure the new history of the school written by my
first Undermaster (as the Senior Deputy Head used to be called),
Mike Bolton. Fuller details of the story he tells of the school’s
growth through the 20th century from a small day and boarding
school for boys to international leader in independent global
education can be found in the Alumni pages.
Mike’s book finishes in 2002 and, as I reflect on my time at the
school since then, several memorable events spring to mind. Two
of the most dramatic were to do with world events that happened
in the school holidays, involving trips, which mean so much to our
pupils. In 2010 the global outbreak of swine flu led to one of our
PROMO service trips being impounded in a Romanian orphanage
by the authorities. Luckily, but typically for Sevenoaks, the British
Ambassador in Romania was a Sevenoaks parent and chartered a
plane for our students to fly back to Biggin Hill where they arrived
in padded, medically secure, infection-free boiler suits. I gave
them all Kafka’s The Trial, as a literary comment on their brush
with bureaucracy.
Another adventure was when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull
erupted later in the same year. All international flights were
grounded and Helen Tebay and Jon Drury, the Head of Russian,
had to bring 11 Lower Sixth pupils home on a 50-hour journey
of the kind people made in the 19th century from Moscow via
Kiev, Warsaw and Berlin. It was pretty awful at the time, but those
students were very struck by being on an old sleeper train out of
Poland full of Ukrainians telling emotional tales of the privilege
of free movement across East and West Germany. Recalling those
events prompts thought about what might happen in Europe in
terms of free movement and visas for this generation in the
years ahead.
Perhaps the most electrifying moment of my time at Sevenoaks,
or indeed at any school, was sitting in the Pamoja Hall in 2011
and hearing the spine-tingling words, ‘Sevenoaks School, this is
Houston.’ We were in live satellite contact with astronauts on the
International Space Station as it moved 238 miles in the air above
Sevenoaks School.
Sevenoaks is a truly distinctive school with an ingrained ethos
which I know will flourish and find new expression over the
coming decades. The teaching and support staff at Sevenoaks are
an amazing team of talent, expertise and dedication; powerful
champions of that ethos.
As I face and embrace a new educational challenge, I know how
lucky I am to have had such a fulfilling life at Sevenoaks. I was the
first woman to be Head of Sevenoaks and will be the first woman
to be Chief Master of King Edward’s School, Birmingham, the
most important school in England’s second city, with a significant
national identity. It also feels the right time to pass the baton
to a new leader, as we have completed the first chapter of the
strategic vision for the school, Horizon 2020, ahead of time and
are now looking to Horizon 2032, the school’s 600th anniversary.
Teaching IB Higher Level English here will always remain an
exhilarating highlight, alongside witnessing our students play
sport, perform in plays and concerts, debate, create wonderful art,
throw themselves into community activities. This is what will stay
with me most vividly.
SEVENOAKS SCHOOL 2018-2019
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