CROYDON IN CRISIS: Borough’s biggest landowners begin search for new head for £24,000 per year private school. By STEVEN DOWNES
On his way out: Chris Ramsey
The shock announcement of the departure of Chris Ramsey as Whitgift’s headmaster is “a great shame for the school”, according to the charity foundation which runs the £24,000 per year private boys’ school in South Croydon.
The Whitgift Foundation this afternoon confirmed Inside Croydon’s exclusive story that Ramsey is to leave the school in July.
Ramsey is the second head teacher at a Whitgift Foundation school to decide to leave their jobs this year, following the announcement last autumn of the retirement of Jane Burton as head at Old Palace girls’ school.
In a statement issued by the Foundation, they also confirmed that Ramsey is to take up a new role as “head at an international school”.
They said: “The opportunity to run an international school overseas, which as a linguist he has always wanted to do, has come unexpectedly, and it is a great shame for the school, but it is an enormously attractive move for Chris and one which governors have agreed he should take.”
The statement continued: “Chris has hugely enjoyed being head, and the school has been fortunate to have his exceptional leadership in setting a vision, guiding us through covid and continuing to develop and improve the school. There will be time later to thank him properly for his achievements, but in the meantime, Chris is fully committed to leading the school until the end of the summer term.”
The Whitgift School governors have moved quickly to name Andrew Halls as interim head from September 2024 until a permanent headmaster can start, which they anticipate to be not before the summer term 2025, in 16 months’ time – another indicator that this neither a planned nor necessarily an entirely smooth transition.
Interim head: Andrew Halls takes charge from September
“Whilst it is a competitive market, [the governors] are very confident that there will be a number of very strong candidates who will want to lead the school through its next phase,” the Foundation said.
Whitgift School has an annual turnover of close to £35million in pupil fees alone.
In a lengthy career, Halls (who read English at Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, graduating with a double first) has been an English teacher at Whitgift and deputy head at Trinity, the Foundation’s other boys’ independent school, as well as head at Magdalen College School in Oxford and at KCS Wimbledon, for 13 years to 2021. He was awarded an OBE in 2020 for services to education.
“We believe him to be an outstanding school leader and that he will be a superb addition to our rich history of excellent headmasters,” the Foundation statement said.
Read more: Another Whitgift shock as second head teacher decides to quit
Read more: Former Whitgift teacher given 4-year sentence for child abuse
Read more: Chief exec stands down from struggling Whitgift Foundation
Read more: Falling rolls and rising fees: how Old Palace got squeezed
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