Principal, St Clare’s, Oxford
Andy has been the Principal of St Clare’s, Oxford since January 2017. He has more than twenty years’ experience of leadership in independent education including eleven years as Head of two other well-known schools: The Royal Grammar School, Worcester and King’s College, Madrid. Andy was Chairman of HMC (Headmasters and Headmistresses’ Conference) West Division in 2010-11, and a member of the HMC/GSA Universities Committee 2012-14.
Andy read English at Brasenose College, Oxford and then did a
Postgraduate Certificate in Education at King’s College, London. He also
has a master’s degree in Victorian Studies from Birkbeck College,
London. Andy began his teaching career in London (Mill Hill School and
Haberdashers’ Askes’s) and became Head of English at Highgate School.
After that, he became Deputy Head of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford
before moving to Worcester in 2005. Andy has always had a strong
impulse to get out of his comfort zone. As well as living and working in
Madrid, he also taught in a small international school in Bangkok,
Thailand for a year in the early 80s and was a Fulbright Exchange
Teacher at the Greenhill School, Dallas, Texas in 1990-91.
Andy speaks French and Spanish with gusto but only moderate fluency,
and his wife Jacky and four children are far stronger linguists. He
enjoys travelling, reading, hill walking, most sports, cooking and going
to the theatre. He has directed and acted in quite a number of plays
over the years. Having played Orsino and Malvolio in different
productions of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night a number of years ago, he
feels that his destiny is to play Sir Toby Belch.