A HEADTEACHER who saw her school welcome boys for the first time in its 150-year history is moving on.

Lynne Renwick, headteacher at Our Lady’s Abingdon, will take up a new post at Durham High School in September after eight years in charge.

During that time, the independent Catholic school merged its junior and senior schools, devolved from the Sisters of Mercy who founded the school, and became a co-educational senior school.

Mrs Renwick said: “I sometimes feel that I haven’t just done one headship, I’ve done two or three.

“It’s been a fantastic experience and I have worked with some incredibly able and talented governors and staff in school.”

The school, which has 375 pupils in its senior school and 100 juniors, opened its doors to boys in the senior school for the first time in September 2009.

There are now 67 boys in the ranks and Mrs Renwick said the transition had been her most challenging time at the school.

She said: “Successfully steering through the change to co-educational status meant a lot of physical changes to the building, recruitment of new staff and putting in place a new curriculum, but I think it’s gone very well.

“We pride ourselves on being a family school and it seemed like the right thing to do.”

Her new post is at a girls’ school. She said: “My feeling is one is not better than the other, you have good co-ed schools, and good girls schools, it’s all about being good schools.”

She will be succeeded by Stephen Oliver, 48, who takes up the post on September 1.

Mr Oliver comes to the school from St Benedict’s, Ealing, where he was deputy headteacher.

He plans to move to Abingdon with his wife, Caroline, and three children, Felix, five, Anton, three, and Sophie, nine months.

He said: “It’s a wonderful school with an academic record which has moved to co-educational.”

Mr Oliver said he was attracted by the co-educational background, the age range catered for and its Catholic ethos.

He said: “I would like to work to ensure the co-education is moving forward.

“At the moment, in Years 10 and 11 there are no boys, so it will be working the boys through those two years and making sure it goes smoothly.”

He was keen to widen access to families who might otherwise not be able to attend the fee-paying school.

He said: “To be able to offer bursaries to families that couldn’t otherwise afford independent education is very important, so that would certainly be something I would be looking at.

“The school already does that to an extent but it would be good to widen it.”