I feel very privileged to be Principal of The British School of Beijing, Sanlitun. From my first visit to the school I could sense the warm and caring ethos and see the clear commitment to ensuring that each and every pupil in the school from Pre-Nursery through to Year 6 feels valued and supported.
As a parent to three, now grown-up, boys myself, I know only too well that the first tentative steps of school life can be challenging to say the least, especially for parents(!), and the daily reassurance of kindly, experienced teachers was a tremendous comfort to my wife and I. I was delighted to find that same approach throughout BSB Sanlitun.
I have been involved in Primary and Nursery education since the mid-1980s, first as Director of Music in two prep schools in the south-west of England and then in a large London day school. From there I moved into prep school headship as headmaster of a school in Melrose in the heart of the Scottish Borders. After 12 happy years there, we moved to East Anglia in England where I was head first of a traditional boarding prep school and latterly the prep and pre-prep departments of a large all-through independent school in Suffolk.
My desire to work in a school environment where creativity and the development of pupils’ learning skills were embedded into the DNA of the curriculum, and where kindness and ambition underpinned the school’s values led me to look at the work of Nord Anglia and eventually to BSB Sanlitun. It was an easy decision to make when I was offered the chance to
lead this wonderful school.
Out of school, you are most likely to find me either hacking my way round a golf course, following the fortunes of the England Cricket or Rugby teams or trying to compose a musical extravaganza for a school production!
