Clarissa Farr

Clarissa Farr has been involved in education since she was born – and before that too. The daughter of a dancing teacher and the granddaughter of a primary school headmaster, she and her family were steeped in the world of schools. She read English at Exeter University, completing an MA there on the novels of Henry James, before training as a teacher in Bristol. She taught at Shatin College, Hong Kong and Leicester Grammar School, before taking up the position of Deputy Head of Queenswood School, Hertfordshire. Four years later, at the age of thirty six, she became Principal. In 2006, she left Queenswood to become High Mistress of St Paul's Girls' School.

She has served as Chairman of the Boarding Schools' Association and President of the Girls' Schools' Association, and is currently a governor of The Royal Ballet School and Winchester College. She also serves on the boards of The African Gifted Foundation and of the British Museum. In her spare time she enjoys running, reading, and, most of all, arguing amiably with her university-age children while chopping vegetables in the kitchen at home.

Her first book, The Making of Us: Why School Matters, is published by HarperCollins.

Agent: Patrick Walsh