Samantha Price will be the next headteacher of Cranleigh School in Surrey, its governors have announced.
Mrs Price, current headmistress of Benenden School, is also a strong advocate for girls’ education and last year served as president of the Girls’ Schools Association and was listed as one of the UK’s best headteachers by the Tes.
She has a degree in art history, criticism and conservation from the University of Edinburgh.
Samantha Price will join Cranleigh in September 2024, following a decade at the helm of Benenden, during which she delivered an ambitious programme of building and development for the school, including the introduction of the Benenden Diploma, and offered places to day girls for the first time.
She will replace Martin Reader who has been head at Cranleigh for the past nine years.
Mrs Price hit the headlines in November 2021 in her speech to the Girls’ Schools Association conference where she said it was unfair to criticise the current generation as “woke”.
They were, she said, “simply young people who care about things: about causes, about the planet, about people. It ultimately comes down to something very simple: being kind.”
Chair of Cranleigh’s governing body, Adrian Lajtha, said: “We are delighted with the appointment of Samantha Price as our next head and we look forward to welcoming her to Cranleigh.
“We’d like to express our deep thanks for everything that Martin and his leadership team have achieved over the last nine years and we look forward to celebrating those achievements with our community over the coming twelve months. We had a fantastic field of candidates, attracted by the high profile that our school currently enjoys, and we are excited about the next stage of Cranleigh’s journey as one of the UK’s pre-eminent co-educational boarding schools.”