Haileybury appoints Ruth Sullivan as Deputy Master

Haileybury has announced the appointment of Ruth Sullivan, the school’s current Acting Head of Geography, as Deputy Master from September 2012. Ruth will take over from Rob Turnbull (Second Master), who retires in July. Ruth is the first woman in Haileybury’s history to be appointed as deputy head.

Prior to her current role at Haileybury, Ruth has been a housemistress (at St John’s, Leatherhead and Glenalmond College), Head of Geography, Head of Geology, Head of Outdoor Pursuits, Director of Staff Development, Head of Sixth Form and a member of the Senior Management Teams at both The Queen’s School, Chester and Glenalmond.

She completed her first degree in Geography at Edinburgh (BSc) has a PGCE from Moray House, an MSc in Demography and Health from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and recently submitted her PhD thesis to the School of Tropical Medicine in Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology.

Ruth coaches netball, is a qualified MLTB mountain leader, a computer software trainer and has taken numerous Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award Expeditions to such places as the USA, Morocco, Scotland, Iceland and Norway. She also trained the first-ever "all-girls" Scottish Islands Peaks Team (a 72-hour sailing and fell running extreme event).

On a personal level she has run several marathons for charity and has climbed Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro and has trekked in the Vietnamese Highlands, Argentinean Andes and around Bolivia for a month. She was selected by the Independent Schools Council in 1999 to represent independent schools in their National Teacher Recruitment Campaign.

With Ruth’s appointment, the nomenclature of Haileybury top three Senior Leadership roles will change: Charles Monk, currently Senior Master, will become Deputy Head (Co-Curricular) while Simon Smith, Director of Studies, will assume the title of Deputy Head (Academic).

"I greatly look forward to Ruth joining the Senior Leadership team in due course and wish her all the very best in her new role," says Joe Davies, Master of Haileybury.