Lewis Faulkner

As a full boarding school, Malvern provides care and support around the clock. Ensuring this environment feels like a genuine home away from home is the responsibility of our Deputy Head, Lewis Faulkner, whose role is both wide-ranging and essential to daily life at the College.

Lewis’s day starts long before the school wakes. At 5.30am he can be found running along the Malvern Hills, an accomplished athlete who has reached podiums in races from 5km events to ultra-marathons. His commitment to the outdoors reflects his belief that wellbeing, balance, and resilience underpin effective learning. As a student, he discovered that time outside the classroom – doing what you love and having space to reflect – strengthens one’s ability to thrive within it.

A Biological Sciences graduate from the University of Oxford, Lewis briefly considered the Royal Marines before realising his true calling lay in education. That conviction grew during a voluntary teaching placement in a South African township school. Before joining Malvern in 2017, he taught in Manchester and spent thirteen years at St Edward’s, Oxford, where he led the Biology Department, helped introduce the IB, and served as a boarding tutor and Housemaster to 60 boys.

This blend of academic leadership and pastoral experience shapes Lewis’s work at Malvern. He firmly believes that strong academics must be matched by character; kindness, courage, collaboration, and curiosity – values at the heart of the Malvern Qualities. A former boarder himself, he understands both the challenges and the opportunities of boarding life and brings that empathy to every pupil he supports.

Lewis’s remit includes safeguarding, counselling, discipline, compliance, inspection preparation, and the Life Skills programme. He works closely with our medical and safeguarding teams, as well as with pupil mentors, College Prefects and Heads of House, meeting weekly to ensure the pupil voice remains central. Working directly with pupils, and watching them grow into young adults who support one another, is one of the most rewarding aspects of his role.

An adventurer at heart, Lewis has cycled across Spain, France, and Scotland, and plays an important part in the smooth running of the Ledbury Run each year. Yet nothing matters more to him than the wellbeing of the pupils in his care. His energy, compassion, and integrity make him not only a key figure in our pastoral system, but a role model for humility, collaboration, and community spirit.