New education chief returns to Nottingham

The new Director of Education for the Diocese will return to the city where she went to school, when she begins her new role in September 2010.

Claire Meese, who currently works as a lay chaplain at a Conference Centre in North Devon and a part-time Ofsted inspector, will head up the Education team for church schools, youth and children’s work and university chaplaincy for the Church of England across Nottinghamshire.

She said: “This new role will enable me to bring together skills and experience I have gained through both my work in schools and in various Christian and church organisations. I am genuinely excited and motivated by the opportunities available through church schools to model, demonstrate and share Christian faith.”

After studying at Nottingham Girls High School, Claire went on to study theology and Religious Studies at Leeds University, before training as a teacher. She worked as a teacher  in a number of primary schools in Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham, Warwickshire, Cambridge and Sheffield, and was appointed as a Deputy Head teacher at St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Handsworth, in Birmingham in 1996.

Claire said: “Every school I have worked in has offered me unique, rewarding and challenging experiences in its own way. Particularly precious to me, was my time spent working in two church schools in Birmingham. It was in these, that I experienced first-hand, what it is like to work in schools that are characterised by a powerful sense of belonging, which is rooted in shared values and a desire to develop everyone’s faith.”

Her first headship was in Warwickshire, where she worked to bring the school out of special measures. More recently she was Headteacher at Killamarsh Nursery and Infant School in Derbyshire. Her latest appointment at Lee Abbey Christian Conference Centre, has involved working alongside her husband Dudley, who is also a chaplain, working with children and young people visiting the centre for youth camps and activities.

Claire said she is looking forward to the challenges of the new post helping schools work out what it means to have a distinctively Christian ethos whilst at the same time being inclusive of children and young people from all faith backgrounds and none.

She said: “I was originally brought up in and around Nottinghamshire and as a young person came to faith through the work of CYFA ventures that I used to attend on the Isle of Man and Felixstowe with others from around the Nottingham area. My husband also began his teaching career in Nottingham before moving into church work. We are therefore looking forward to returning to Nottingham and rediscovering old haunts!”

Outside of work, Claire enjoys travel and visiting different places – particularly sunny ones!

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