SE CHRONICLE 684

14 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Virginia Macgregor What do you do at Teddies and how long have you been here? I’m the new Director of Wellbeing. I’ve just started at Teddies – though my brother was a pupil here in the ‘90s, so I did occasionally come through the gates as his little sister. Tell us a little about your role and your aims for the next year or so. My job is to make sure that every part of school life is supporting the wellbeing of pupils and staff and to involve parents in our wellbeing conversations too. I’ll be launching a new Wellbeing Curriculum for each year group. I have big ambitions for wellbeing at Teddies. I’d like us to be at the forefront of adolescent wellbeing research and practice. We’ve already been working with Yale’s Center of Emotional Intelligence in the US and with Compassion Matters, a wellbeing non-profit linked to Oxford University, whose patron is the Dalai Lama. We’re about to launch The Wellbeing Hub, an online platform to support parents, staff and pupils in all areas of wellbeing. I also hope that in the coming year or two, we’ll hold a wellbeing festival at Teddies, where we’ll bring together the most important voices in the field of wellbeing. Tell us about your career so far. I started as an English teacher at Haileybury, which is where I fell in love with working in boarding schools. I was soon a resident tutor and Assistant Housemistress and then had the privilege of running a boarding house for a maternity cover. I went on to be a Housemistress both at Downe House and at Wellington College. On the English teaching side, I have a particular passion for teaching the IB and I’ve always taught creative writing too. Beyond the classroom, I’m a published author. I’ve written two books for young adults and five for adults. My novels tackle some of the most important questions of being alive and so overlap with my interest in wellbeing. Who or what inspired you to become a writer? Many hours spent reading with my mother in her double bed when I was little. Stories felt magical, like a refuge and also like a way to understand the world better. As soon as I found out that there was a thing called an author, responsible for crafting these Teddies is at the forefront of co-education, which is one of my passions. I believe that boys, girls and young people of any or no gender identification, benefit from living and learning together and that this togetherness builds mutual understanding, compassion and respect. I’m also a big fan of the IB. And I have a deep respect for any school that prioritises wellbeing. What are you looking forward to about being in Oxford? I look forward to seeing my home town through the eyes of my children. The culture. The history. The beautiful buildings. The palpable commitment to learning. The gorgeous surrounding countryside. stories, I knew that was something I wanted to do. What made you want to work at Teddies?

What do you do in your spare time? I love to write, to walk, to swim, to do yoga, to meditate, to read, to go to the theatre, to cook and to spend time with my

husband, my children, and our many cats. Best advice you’ve ever been given?

When I was 22 I did a counselling course and came across the work of the psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl. His advice on how to lead a good and ethical life, on how to choose how to respond to any given situation rather than being a reactor, accompanies me through each day: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor E Frankl Which book would you take to a desert island? The collected works of the picture-book writer, Julia Donaldson, because it would remind me of my children, whom I’d miss terribly, and with whom I’ve spent hundreds of hours reading these stories.