New head who believes in working closely together

THE new headteacher at St Mary’s Preparatory school in Henley believes in creating opportunities.

Stephen Blundell, 37, took over from Rob Harmer at the start of term following his departure after 21 years at the school in St Andrew’s Road.

He was previously the deputy head at Wetherby Preparatory School in Marylebone where he worked for nearly 10 years.

Mr Blundell, who is married to Georgie and has two children, wanted to make the step up to leading a school after they moved from Putney to Beaconsfield in 2022.

He said: “When we moved out of London I wanted to be a head and when the job at St Mary’s came up, it was the perfect fit for me and my family.

“You get a gut feeling when you walk in. It’s a lovely school, it’s kind, it’s happy and I really felt a synergy towards it while at the same time I felt that it was a school that I could add a lot of value to.

“The big thing about this school is every child plays together at break time and every member of staff knows every single child. The children are academically curious, they’re sporty, they’re theatrical and they’re musical.

“I really love practical education and am really passionate about this age group of children because there’s no real exam stress in terms of GCSEs and A-levels. There’s an intense love of learning and they do loads of different activities.

“The community that has been built within the school and the parents is really positive and it’s just lots of fun. That makes the big part of my job easier, which is to prepare the children to send them to senior schools and the right senior skills when they leave here.”

Mr Blundell went to Rossall School in Lancashire before going to the University of Sheffield to study for a bachelor’s degree in history. Afterwards, he joined Chesham Preparatory School as a history teacher where he worked for five years.

While there he joined a graduate teacher programme at the University of Reading after which he joined Wetherby Preparatory School where he moved up the ranks to become its deputy head. In 2022 he completed a master’s in education at the University of Buckingham.

Mr Blundell said: “I’ve always been in prep school education although I am secondary trained. Both paths were open to me. I’ve always worked in schools up to Year 8 and this is the first school that has a Year 6.

“Coming into St Mary’s my job is to ensure that the academic standards are really high, that the sporting standards are really high and the creative art standards are really high. The school has got to be seen as the place to send your child if they are really academic but also if your child needs extra support.

“When you join a prep school, you should be afforded every opportunity you can and, when you find out what you like, you then have an option of pursuing that further. While most might not know what they like when they join, they will at some stage realise this.

“If a child finds suddenly that they are interested in the arts or origami or whatever it is, the school will be there to really push that and enable them to do that as much as possible. Having the opportunity to do that is a key ingredient of prep school.”

Mr Blundell said he had been looking forward to becoming a headteacher and making a difference.

He said: “Not everyone likes stepping away from teaching but, at the same time, you can have so much more added value as a head. The best part of being a head is being with the children.

“I’ve introduced the Kindness Cup, an initiative where one child a week will get the award for something that they have done and they get nominated by teachers or children. That’s the best part of my week.

“There are also birthday celebrations with the head every month. In my first month, it was for all the children who had a birthday in August and September. They will sit with me, have a birthday cake and we’ll have a chat. Those things are so nice.”

Mr Blundell also wants to engage the parents more with school life. He said: “I think post-covid there is still a little bit of a hangover of parents not being on site as much. We’re introducing half termly breakfast concerts where the parents can watch.

“We also open the gates a little bit earlier so the parents can come in and sort of play and mingle in the playground. At prize-giving this year, the parents will be watching so it’s just about engaging the parent body.

“We’ve got a very, very supportive parent body but sometimes in schools, and this is not here, just sector wide, the parents are left a little bit at the door. I want to have that engagement between the parents, the school and the children to be as strong as possible.”

Mr Blundell is also a governor of Holtspur primary school in Beaconsfield, which is not an independent, ane believes both sectors can learn from each other.

He said: “I think there’s a huge crossover that needs to happen between the state and the independent sector. Both have got a lot to teach and learn from each other and I would look at the sharing of facilities, teacher training and enabling greater diversity in children’s lives.

“I would also look at community engagement. I just don’t think that there’s that connection between the two enough.”