Sandra Stalker obituary

My mother, the educationist Sandra Stalker, who has died of cancer aged 78, was not an academic expert on Shakespeare, Byron, Eliot, Yeats or Dylan, but she understood them intimately. In a classroom or in casual conversation in a pub she could explain how great literature impacts civilised societies and our shared humanity. She was one of nature’s great teachers. From the early 1970s onwards Sandra taught at schools in Warwickshire, and around 1989 was appointed head of the Harris school, Rugby. A keen rugby enthusiast, she took particular pride in leading the school to the English Schools Sevens final in the mid-90s, finishing runners-up to Dulwich college after defeating several other leading public schools. Most joyful of all was parking the borrowed 23-seater Rugby Town “Fun Bus” alongside the massive luxury coaches of those schools. While at the Harris school, Sandra became senior examiner in English literature A-level for the Joint Matriculation Board. On leaving the school in 1999, she took up consultancy work. Earlier in her teaching career, a Fulbright exchange had taken her to Coon Rapids, Minnesota, in 1977–78, and in 1999 she returned to the US as education adviser to