6. What Are Schools For?

After joining the Oxfordshire Education Authority in 1950s and serving as Chairman of the Music Sub-Committee, Mary was approached to become headmistress of Oxford High School (OHSG), an independent school for girls. She was appointed in 1966 despite minimal teaching experience. She stayed in this post for six years, making an immediate impact by her decisive style of leadership and distinctive dress. Successful in arranging for inadequate teachers to leave, she took particular interest in the school music curriculum, learning to play the horn to fill a gap in the school orchestra. She involved sixth formers in the development of school policies and is remembered by ex-students interviewed by the author as ambitious for and highly encouraging to them. She took a number of vulnerable students into her own home. She dealt capably with the problems arising from the increasing use of illicit drugs and earlier sexual experience during the permissive 1960s. She left OHSG in 1972 ostensibly to support Geoffrey in his new role as Principal of Hertford College, but also so that she could concentrate on writing a new philosophical book, Imagination (1976). After leaving the school, she wrote prolifically on secondary education, especially in Schools of Thought (1977) and A Common Policy for Education (1989). The content of these books is described as well as their reception by contemporary philosophers.