New Headteacher for SCD
Mr Toby Sutherland was last week appointed as Headteacher of Â鶹Éçmadou and will take up his post in January 2018. The Trustees made the decision to recruit a new Headteacher to enable them to appoint Dr Valentine to the role of full time Executive Headteacher of the Danes Educational Trust from January 2018. The Danes Educational Trust currently comprises St Clement Danes and Croxley Danes School and its aim is to provide first class education within the locality. Dr Valentine’s role is to have strategic oversight of all schools within the Trust.
This is an exciting development for the St Clement Danes community. Mr Sutherland, a popular choice with governors, staff and students, will provide day to day leadership of the school from January, having been Deputy Headteacher at Â鶹Éçmadou since September this year. Prior to this, he worked at Queen's School, first as a Business and Economics teacher, then in various promoted roles before becoming Assistant Headteacher in 2008 and Deputy Headteacher in 2014. Speaking shortly after the announcement, he said: “It is a huge privilege and honour to lead this exceptional school into a new and exciting period of its long existence. I am humbled by the decision which has been made and excited at the prospect of working with our fantastic students, staff and governors over the coming years to build on Dr Valentine’s superb legacy at the school.”
Writing to parents after the appointment, chair of the Danes Educational Trust, Rosie Faunch, said: “I would like to take this opportunity to record my thanks to Dr Valentine for leading St Clement Danes for the past 20 years. Under her leadership the school has gone from Good to Outstanding to ‘World Class’. To pick just one statistic, in 1999, 59% of students achieved 5A*- C at GCSE; in 2017, the results were 89% 5A*- C with English and maths. However, the school is much more than the results it achieves or the labels it is given by OFSTED and others. As Dr Valentine has said on a number of occasions, St Clement Danes is ‘probably the best school in the world’. This is down in no small part to her leadership and we wish her well as she seeks to make the Danes Educational Trust and all of its schools similarly world class.”