School Governors
Mrs Helen Batchelor BSc
- Chairman of Council
- Finance and General Purposes Committee
Helen Batchelor is a Director and Head of Leadership & Organisation Development at Rothschild, one of the world’s leading investment banking organisations. Prior to joining Rothschild in 2001, she spent six years as a management consultant with Kinsley Lord (part of Towers Perrin) working with large organisations helping them to facilitate complex change. Previously, Helen was a Director at Burson-Marsteller, a leading global public relations and communications firm for ten years, and before that she was a Graduate trainee at A C Nielsen, the global market research firm. She graduated from the University of Surrey in 1983.
Helen is a Headingtonian, having been a pupil at Headington School from 1968 to 1978. She became a Governor of Headington school in 2004.
Dr Adrian Banning MB BS FRCP MD FESC
- Vice Chairman of Council
Adrian Banning is a Consultant Cardiologist and Chairman of the Cardiac Directorate and at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. He graduated form St Georges Hospital London in 1987 and was awarded an MD in 1997 after studying at the University Hospital of Wales. Adrian moved to Oxford in 1995 and his particular specialty is interventional cardiology. He has an international reputation in the use of coronary stents and the application of transcatheter valve technology.
Adrian became a Governor of Headington School in 2006.
Mrs Caroline Bevan BSc ACA CTA
- Chairman of the Finance and General Purposes Committee
Caroline Bevan is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor who is also an old girl of Headington. After leaving Headington Caroline attended Southampton University and she then qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1987 with Arthur Andersen and worked for them until 1993 as a Senior Tax Manager. With the arrival of her first daughter she took time out to be with her young family. Caroline now works with her husband running a VAT consultancy practice and providing management accounting advice. Caroline was previously a Governor of another Independent Girls’ School prior to becoming a Governor of Headington School in 2004.
Caroline is an enthusiastic supporter of all girls’ education and as an ex-boarder herself, is keen to promote boarding life at Headington.
Mrs Debbie Dance MSc MRICS
Debbie Dance has been the Director of Oxford Preservation Trust since 1999, a successful Oxford based charity which owns over 800 acres and buildings in and around the City. She has an established career in the built environment beginning as a commercial property surveyor in the early 1980s. She went on to gain an MSc in Historic Conservation (distinction) at Oxford Brookes University, and has completed a number of successful projects including the regeneration of Oxford Castle.
Debbie holds a number of national roles, and is currently Chair of the English Historic Towns Forum (October 2009), a Trustee of the Churches Conservation Trust and is national conservation judge for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors International RICS Property Awards. She is past chair of the UK Association of Preservation Trusts, and member of the Heritage Lottery Fund South East.
Debbie went to school in Oxfordshire and has lived locally for many years. She became a Governor of Headington School in 2006.
Dr Anne-Marie Drummond MA DPhil
Dr Anne-Marie Drummond is Head of Administration for the Humanities Division in the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Lincoln College, where she was Senior Tutor from 2000 until 2008. Anne-Marie has also worked in University administration at the Universities of Aberdeen and Southampton. She read Literae Humaniores at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and completed her DPhil in Latin literature at Oxford in 1984. She held a college lectureship at University College and also a Junior Research Fellowship at St Hildas before moving to the continent, where she lived in Germany and Holland for eight years, before taking up her post in Aberdeen.
Anne-Marie became a Governor of Headington School in 2010.
Dr Katya Drummond MA Oxon PhD
Katya Drummond is a Student (fellow) in Modern History at Christ Church, Oxford. She has published on the military and political history of Russia and Russian émigrés. She was educated at the Perse School for Girls, Cambridge and read History and Modern Languages (Russian) at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, which was followed by a PhD at Darwin College, Cambridge. She has been teaching at Oxford since 1984, first at Balliol College for 3 years and subsequently at Christ Church.
Katya was a Governor of Portsmouth Grammar School for 14 years and became a Governor of Headington School in 2004.
Mr Christopher Harris
- Chairman of the Development Committee
- Finance and General Purposes Committee
- Headington School General Charitable Trust
Christopher Harris is Executive Chairman of London & Metropolitan, a property development and investment group, which since its formation in the early 1980s has been involved the development of over 10 million square feet of commercial real estate throughout the UK and Europe. Significant projects include the European headquarters for Merrill Lynch in the City of London, the worldwide headquarters of Grand Metropolitan in St James’s Square London, together with retail outlet villages in Bicester, Barcelona and Kildare, Ireland.
Prior to joining London & Metropolitan Christopher was an associate partner in the London office of Jones Lang Wootton, where he worked between 1971 and 1983.
Christopher became a Governor of Headington School in 2003.
Mr Steven Harris
- Finance and General Purposes Committee
Steven Harris is CEO of Circassia Limited a business developing products for allergies. Prior to that he was a founder member of the management team that built Zeneus Pharma, following the acquisition of Elan’s European pharmaceutical business. Over a two-year period the business was restructured, refocused and turned around, and with Steven initially as CFO and subsequently promoted to CEO, Zeneus was acquired in 2006 by US pharmaceutical company Cephalon. Prior to Zeneus, he spent 7 years at PowderJect Pharmaceuticals Plc as CFO, where he helped grow the business from a small loss-making private biotechnology business to a fully integrated and highly profitable publicly-quoted company. PowderJect became the fifth largest vaccines business in the world and was acquired by Chiron for $1 billion in 2003.
Steven is a Chartered Accountant by training having qualified with PriceWaterhouse in 1990. He became a Governor of Headington School in 2009.
Lady Nancy Kenny
Lady Nancy Kenny has been Director of Alumni Relations for the University of Oxford since 2003. Prior to that she was Development Officer at the Refugee Studies Centre, also at the University of Oxford. Much of her previous career was spent in musical activities, teaching piano at New College School and performing as a singer. She has been Chairman of the Friends of the British Library, served on the Board of the International Rescue Committee, been Secretary of the Music Libraries Trust, and chaired the committee which raised £3.8 million for the University of Oxford’s first swimming pool. She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Oxford Philomusica Orchestra.
Nancy was born and educated in the US, where she attended Vassar College. During a Vassar Madrigal Singers tour of Britain in 1965 she met an Oxford philosopher whom she married in 1966. She has lived in Oxford ever since and became a Governor of Headington School in February 2010.
Mrs Lorraine Kingsman
Lorraine Kingsman is an Education Consultant and School Improvement Partner. She works in primary schools across Oxfordshire, supporting the development of leadership and all areas of pupil learning. She is an experienced trainer and public speaker and is actively involved in the work of the Association for Achievement and Improvement through Assessment. Prior to this role she was, for ten years, the Headteacher of Horspath Church of England Primary School, leading the school through two very successful Ofsted inspections. Previously she was a primary school teacher. She graduated from the University of Oxford with a Bachelor of Education degree in 1974.
Lorraine has developed active and very productive links with Headington Preparatory School over the last two years, through consultancy work. She became a Governor in 2009.
Mr Geoffrey Paine JP FCA
- Chairman of the Headington School General Charitable Trust
- Finance and General Purposes Committee
Geoffrey Paine was educated at St Edward’s School, Oxford. On leaving school he joined the Army and served with the Royal Artillery. He then joined the Oxford firm of Wenn Townsend as an Articled Clerk and retired forty two years later in 1997 as Senior Partner.
Geoffrey was associated with the Family Health Service Authority for 23 years, and for 8 years was on the Oxfordshire Area Health Authority. He was President of the Thames Valley Society of Chartered Accountants 1967-68 and a member of the Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales from 1979 to 91.
Geoffrey currently chairs the Oxford Pensions Committee. He is a Justice of the Peace for the City of Oxford and has been Chairman of Oxford Round Table, President of Oxford Rotary Club and President of the Clarendon Club. He is also a Trustee of the Culham Educational Trust. Geoffrey became a Governor of Headington School in 1992.
Miss Margaret Rudland BSc
Margaret Rudland was Head of The Godolphin and Latymer School from 1986 until December 2008. She has also taught Mathematics at Godolphin and Latymer School between 1969 and 1972 and subsequently worked as a VSO in Nigeria. At St Paul’s Girls’ School, from 1972 to1983, she became Head of Mathematics and Second Mistress, moving to Norwich High School as Deputy Head. In 1996 she was President of the Girls’ Schools Association, having previously chaired the Education Committee. She has represented the independent sector on the General Teaching Council, been on the Board of UCAS and a Council Member of UCL.
Margaret is currently a Governor of several schools in the UK, as well as in Paris and Prague and is also on the board of the English Speaking Union. Margaret became a Governor of Headington School in 2008.
Company Secretary: Mr John Clarke BA of Maitland Walker
Clerk to the Council: Mr Michael Clarkson MSc, CEng, MIMechE, MAPM, FCMI
All correspondence for the Governors should be sent via the Clerk to the Council to The Bursary, Headington School, Oxford, OX3 0BL.