Senior leaders at St Mary's

Meet our Senior Leadership Team. Led by Charlotte Avery, this experienced team oversees all aspects of delivering our strategy. 

Of course, they couldn't achieve this without our brilliant teaching and support staff, as well as the expert guidance of our Governing Body.

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  Charlotte Avery

  Headmistress

  St Mary's is about achieving academic excellence alongside a much wider set of values and attitudes ...

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  Headmistress

  Charlotte Avery

  "I am proud to lead a school where success is not limited to exam results; rather, it is about achieving academic excellence alongside a much wider set of values and attitudes that sit at the heart of our School ethos."

  Charlotte joined St Mary’s as Headmistress in 2007. Educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School and St Anne’s College, Oxford, Charlotte holds an MA in Education Management and a National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH). She is also a former President and Vice President of the Girls’ School Association and a passionate advocate for the advantages of an all girls’ education.

  Charlotte’s teaching career began over 26 years ago, teaching English and Drama at Newstead Wood, Orpington, followed by South Hampstead High School, before transferring to Norwich High School, GDST, as Head of English and Drama and subsequently Head of Sixth Form. In 2004, she was appointed Deputy Head (Pastoral) at Highgate School and oversaw its successful transition to co-education and the transfer of Senior School entry from 13+ to 11+. 

  Formally a member of the Ministry of Defence’s Research Ethics Committee and Governor for a Church of England primary school, Charlotte is currently serving as a Governor at St Bede’s Inter-Church School, Cambridge, Mill Hill Independent School and Haileybury Independent School. She is also a Council member representing the independent sector for the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).

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  Aodain Fleming

  Deputy Head - Pastoral and Boarding

  I always remind our students, that they are valued because they are unique and that as such our school is a different place because they are here with us.

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  Deputy Head - Pastoral and Boarding

  Aodain Fleming

  I have always felt very lucky to work in a school where the girls and staff value what the school stands for so much. They don't necessarily know it when they arrive, but they certainly understand it when they take it into the world with them at the age of 18. I feel that there is something almost undefinable about our community which is fundamental to what makes us different.

  Aodain Fleming is the Pastoral Deputy Head at St Marys Senior School. What that means on a day-to-day basis is that Aodain looks after girls with the help and guidance of a wonderful team of tutors, Heads of Year and dedicated support staff such as the nurses and counsellors.

  Aodain first joined the school’s RE department 21 years ago and since that time has been Head of Years 7, 11 and our Sixth Form before becoming Pastoral Deputy Head. This means she is in charge of everything from attendance and punctuality, to uniform and discipline through our dedicated and keen staff. She is also the Senior School's Designated Safeguarding Lead to ensure the staff and girls are aware of important matters surrounding safegu​arding issues. 

  Aodain says she always felt as if she was coming home, when she first arrived here in 1998 because she had first met St Mary's girls when she was 16 on her very first trip to volunteer in Lourdes when many of them became her friends. To then come to work in a community which values each individual in the way we try to do, is really important for her as a teacher, she says.

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  Kate Latham

  Director of Teaching and Learning

  Here we don't reinforce society's stereotypes that girls find maths and science more challenging. St Mary’s girls understand that all pathways are open to them.

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  Director of Teaching and Learning

  Kate Latham

  To counter any suggestions that some children are naturally more able than others, we encourage our girls to develop a ‘growth mind-set’. We talk about laying down new neural pathways and the endless possibilities of each human brain and, by doing so, we erase the limitations imposed by having a ‘fixed mind-set’.

  Kate Latham is our Director of Teaching and Learning here at our Senior School. This means she oversees what happens in the classroom both in terms of core and extra curricular learning.

  Kate's daughter is a St Mary's alumna and is now a choral singer committed to improving opportunities for women in the world of Music about which she feels very strongly. As such Kate really sees the legacy of enabling young women every day.

   

   

   

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  Stephen Seidler

  Deputy Head – Academic and Staffing

  When I came for my interview at St Mary’s, I knew I wanted to teach in a school like this. Not only did I accept the offer of a job without question, but my wife and I chose St Marys as the right place for our daughter to be educated.

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  Deputy Head – Academic and Staffing

  Stephen Seidler

  I have been at St Mary's for 13 years. One of the reasons why I feel at home is because I was educated in a school run by religious order for men called the Jesuits. when Mary Ward founded her congregation she wanted it to be very closely modelled on the spirituality and way of life of the Jesuits. The way we go about doing things at some areas is a very familiar landscape for someone like me.

  Stephen Seidler is the Senior Deputy Head in the Senior School. His main areas of responsibility are for staffing and the curriculum. In his role, Stephen gets involved in pretty much everything that goes on in school! 

  Stephen started out as a Religious Studies teacher by training, and also completed his MBA with the Open University. In recent years he has started teaching Business Studies in the Sixth Form and will shortly be teaching that subject exclusively.

  There are many things that Stephen loves about St Mary's but one story sums them up. Thirteen years ago, when I came for my interview at St Mary’s, I sat waiting in the Cortile when there was a lesson change over. The way the girls were moving from lesson to lesson in a very evidently happy and spirited way made a deep impression on me and I knew I wanted to teach in a school like this. It made such a deep impression on me that not only did I accept the offer of a job without question, but my wife and I chose St Mary's as the right place for our daughter to be educated.

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  Emma Hall

  Assistant Head: Director of Studies and Academic Registrar

  There is nowhere else I would even consider sending my daughters but St Mary’s School, Cambridge...

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  Assistant Head: Director of Studies and Academic Registrar

  Emma Hall

  "There is nowhere else I would even consider sending my daughters but St Mary’s. They are happy, known and cherished as individuals and challenged to be the best they can be in all they do. What more could a parent ask for!"

  After gaining a first class Mathematics Degree from Manchester University, Emma attended Oxford University to complete her PGCE teacher training. Over the past 20 years, she has taught in all boys, co-educational and all girls environments. Prior to joining St Mary’s School, she was Head of Mathematics for eight years.

  At St Mary’s Emma has progressed to become our Assistant Head: Director of Studies and Academic Registrar. She enjoys all aspects of her varied, challenging and fulfilling roles, which all share a common theme of placing students at the forefront of everything she does.

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