One of the country's leading education campaigners and the former headmistress of top city school King Edward's VI High for Girls has died aged 97.

Jean Wilks ran the independent school for 13 years from 1964.

She was also president of the Association of Headmistresses from 1972 to 1974, governor of the Schools Council in the 1970s, served on several university committees and received an honorary doctorate from University of Birmingham in 1986.

On her retirement from King Edward's, she received a CBE.

Yet Miss Wilks, born in Wanstead, East London, was no all-round student superstar as a young girl.

She was placed in a remedial class at North London Collegiate School after registering six per cent in a physics exam.

She went on to read English at Somerville College, Oxford, where she attended lectures by CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.

Miss Wilks began her teaching career during the war years, sometimes using a Bible, pencil and scraps of paper in air-raid shelters.

Her influence on King Edward's was profound. Miss Wilks broadened the sixth form curriculum, controversially kicked-out sixth form uniforms and tirelessly battled for state-funded placements at the school.

Those educated free under the Direct Grant Scheme during her tenure included actress Lindsay Duncan, neurology pioneer Anita Harding and journalist Sally Jones.

Sally said: "Although self-contained, scholarly and seemingly austere, she was approachable, enlightened and personally generous.

"Without being soft or gullible, she believed the best of people and was perceptive enough to recognise talent and intelligence among her more lively and rebellious pupils as well as the diligent."

She recognised having a boys' and girls' school on the same site in Edgbaston with the same governing body provided the advantages of co-education.

In a move that ruffled feathers, Miss Wilks encouraged co-operation between the two King Edward's.

In a tribute to that pioneering spirit, senior boys and girls from both schools performed Faure's Requiem to mark her retirement.

Miss Wilks, who never married, spent her last years in Oxford, cared for by friend Joyce Stevens, former head of PE at Kings Edward's.

A memorial service takes place at Somerville College, Oxford, at 2.30pm on November 1.

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