The PTI are saddened to announce that Bernice McCabe OBE passed away early yesterday morning following a thirteen-month battle with brain cancer.
Bernice was diagnosed with grade 4 glioblastoma, the most common and most aggressive type of brain tumour, in January 2018.
As well as being Headmistress of North London Collegiate School for over 20 years, Bernice was Co-Director of The Prince’s Teaching Institute (now known as the PTI) which was founded by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2006 following Bernice’s work in setting up The Prince of Wales Education Summer Schools in 2002.
Bernice advocated passionately for more high quality teacher training. Her vision for the PTI helped create a network of teachers, departments and schools focused on promoting subject rigour and depth, enhancing teachers’ subject knowledge, encouraging subject related extra-curricular activities, and establishing links between and within schools.
Bernice McCabe and HRH The Prince of Wales meeting Maths teachers at the PTI Schools Programme Day, 2011.
Chairman of the PTI Keith Breslauer said: “The world has lost a bright light. However, she leaves an impressive and important legacy. Bernice has influenced thousands and thousands of young people and thousands of teachers, and so her greatness multiplies across over a million plus people. On a personal level, my family was influenced for the better by her teaching and guidance.”
Co-Director of the PTI Chris Pope said: “The country has lost one of its greatest educationalists. She believed passionately that every child, whatever their background or ability, deserved an excellent education. From her long experience in teaching, she came to understand that this means having schools where every teacher is passionate and knowledgeable about the subject they teach, and that through their skill as empowered professionals they would pass on this love of subject to their students. The success of this philosophy is evident from the schools that she led, latterly North London Collegiate School which became a beacon of international excellence under her leadership. This vision was present at the first Prince of Wales Education Summer School in 2002, and the country will continue to benefit from her legacy as this philosophy will remain at the heart of all the PTI’s work.”
A full obituary of Bernice McCabe and an online condolence form are available on the NLCS website.