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The Master of Magdalen College School, Dr Timothy Hands, is a Londoner. He comes from a family of teachers. An ancestor was Schoolmaster on HMS Victory in Napoleonic times, and Dr Hands' father left teaching in the independent sector to become head of one of the country's largest and most innovative comprehensive schools.
Tim Hands was educated in the state sector and read English at King's College, London. He subsequently did research at Oxford, where he became Senior Scholar at St. Catherine's College, and then Senior Scholar at Oriel College, where he was also for a time a stipendiary lecturer. In 1986 he began teaching at King's School, Canterbury, where he subsequently became a Housemaster, and in 1994 moved to become Second Master at Whitgift School. |
From 1997, Dr Hands was Headmaster of The Portsmouth Grammar School, one of the country's leading co-educational schools. The Good Schools Guide, which called the position "the toughest job on the circuit", described Dr Hands' time there as "phenomenally successful". Particular achievements included broader access, raised academic standards, improved facilities and an ambitious extra curricular programme, embracing national sporting titles for boys and girls in a wide range of sports, and an outstanding provision for the Performing Arts, which involved several pan-city partnership schemes.
Appointed Master of Magdalen College School in January 2008, Dr Hands saw the school top the A Level league tables that summer, with an AB percentage of 99.6%, which still stands as a record. In recognition of its all round achievements, the school has since won the Sunday Times Independent School of the Year Award for a record breaking second time.
Dr Hands teaches poetry to all MCS Sixth formers studying English A Level. His current research interest is in Shakespeare Performance Studies, but his publications are chiefly concerned with the 19th century novel, especially Thomas Hardy, about whom he has published three contrasting books.
As a state school educated Cambridge reject, and the child of parents who were only enabled to attend university as a result of parental sacrifice and scholarship support, Dr Hands has a particular interest in the relationship between the state and independent sectors and in university access and admissions. He has served on a number of Government and Independent School Committees and he has recently been elected to a second term as Co-chair of the HMC/GSA Universities Committee. In his spare time, Dr Hands is a keen listener to music and spectator of sport, especially rugby and cricket. He has been a Trustee, and Member of the Council, of Portsmouth Cathedral, a Trustee of several local museums, and charitable and sporting organisations. In 1999 he founded the Portsmouth Festivities, becoming Chairman of the Board of Directors in 2004. He remains one of the Festivities Honorary Patrons.
Dr Hands is married to a solicitor, Jane, who read Classics at Oxford: they have two children, Nicholas and Edward, who are both keen sportsmen.
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