Former headteacher: Tristram Hunt's perception of nuns as unworldly is outdated

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‘I think quite rightly Cristina [Odone] rounded on his remarks which were ignorant...I don’t think Tristram has any experience of nuns' said Sister Frances Orchard, former head teacher of St Mary's Ascot School of the congregation of Jesus, founded by Mary Ward. 'His experience on nuns is in the media where they are portrayed as simpering and not up to date with what is going on in the world today'. 'A good teacher is not necessarily a good teacher that has been through teacher training college... it is having the ability to think independently, to be logical, analyse...it is a quality which is irreplaceable'. 'I wouldn’t have employed anybody in the 80s and 90s who wasn’t a qualified teacher but they had to have an affinity with the values that we had in the school that we were running'.