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Richard Backhouse
Berkhamsted
United Kingdom
Richard Backhouse has been Principal of Berkhamsted Schools Group in Hertfordshire since January 2016. Berkhamsted is a family of six schools which operates as a ‘diamond’ model combining both single-sex (11-16 years) and co-educational teaching (3-11 years and 16-18 years). The Group also has a satellite Prep school in Buckinghamshire, Heatherton, which provides a co-educational nursery class (3-4) and single-sex education for girls aged 4 to 11.
Richard is the current Chair of the HMC (the Headmasters' & Headmistresses' Conference is a professional association of heads of the world's leading independent schools). He was a boarder both at Cheam School, and Marlborough College, where he won an Exhibition. After a year working on a kibbutz in Israel, in a hotel in the French Alps, and running a bar in his home town, he read Economics at Cambridge, expecting to go on to be a journalist. Experience acting as a ski guide for school children and teaching sailing in the summers for a charity gave him a sense of the value of teaching, and so he went to Oundle School in 1990, expecting to teach only briefly before returning to university to do a PhD, but stayed for six years before moving to Bradfield College. At these schools he variously taught Economics, coached rowing and football, ran a Christian Union, and acquired managerial and leadership experience both running a boarding house and as Director of Pastoral and Extra-curricular activities. In 2005, he was appointed Principal at Monkton Combe School – an all through group – where he developed the scope and depth of the pupils’ opportunities and achievements. His interests include skiing, playing golf (badly), reading, and supports Southampton FC.
Richard is the current Chair of the HMC (the Headmasters' & Headmistresses' Conference is a professional association of heads of the world's leading independent schools). He was a boarder both at Cheam School, and Marlborough College, where he won an Exhibition. After a year working on a kibbutz in Israel, in a hotel in the French Alps, and running a bar in his home town, he read Economics at Cambridge, expecting to go on to be a journalist. Experience acting as a ski guide for school children and teaching sailing in the summers for a charity gave him a sense of the value of teaching, and so he went to Oundle School in 1990, expecting to teach only briefly before returning to university to do a PhD, but stayed for six years before moving to Bradfield College. At these schools he variously taught Economics, coached rowing and football, ran a Christian Union, and acquired managerial and leadership experience both running a boarding house and as Director of Pastoral and Extra-curricular activities. In 2005, he was appointed Principal at Monkton Combe School – an all through group – where he developed the scope and depth of the pupils’ opportunities and achievements. His interests include skiing, playing golf (badly), reading, and supports Southampton FC.