Exclusive: Meet Naomi Williams: South View School’s New Principal

April 24th 2025

Meet Naomi Williams: South View School’s New Principal

First interview with Principal Naomi Williams as she takes on leadership of SVS.
What parents can expect from SVS as it gears itself up for the next decade.
South View to further strengthen its technical expertise in BTEC subjects.
South View warmth, inclusiveness, connections and community placed centre stage.

By: Tabitha Barda

Published: 23 Apr 2025 Updated: 23 Apr 2025

South View School Dubai announced the appointment of Naomi Williams as its new Principal on Friday 18th April 2025 following the departure of former Principal David Flint, who is returning to the UK on compassionate grounds. SchoolsCompared.com was exclusively invited to meet Ms Williams on her first official day as Principal, where we were lucky enough to spend some time getting to know the woman behind the title...

When we meet Naomi Williams on the first day of her appointment as the new Principal of South View School, it is clear that she is ready to hit the ground running. Dressed down for Friday in school-branded sportswear and trainers, she exudes pedagogical passion and excitement for her new role, paired with an approachable, down-to-earth warmth. This is not a Principal who intends to stay locked up in her office away from the day-to day. Rather, Ms Williams is a highly engaged leader who fervently believes in the power of community for binding a school together - and she's committed to rolling up her sleeves and building that connection every single day:

“I try very hard not to be office-bound. I’m in classrooms, I’m at the gate, I’m on the playground. You can’t lead a school unless you understand the daily rhythm of it — and you can’t understand that if you’re behind a desk.”

Ms Williams steps into the role following Mr David Flint, who served as Principal of South View School from February 2021 until April 2025, when he stepped down for family reasons. Although she admits that the timing of the promotion came as a surprise at first, it marks a natural next step for this accomplished education leader, who has already spent three years at South View as Vice Principal and whose vision and talent are already woven into the fabric of the school:

“I know the school really well. I know our teaching staff and support staff, I know our parents and pupils, and I know the community. It’s a really natural transition.”

Ms Williams brings 25 years of experience in education and has held leadership roles since 2018. Her path has taken her across the UAE and the UK, including roles at Repton Al Barsha and a prep school in Reading, where she returned during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most recently, back in the UAE as part of the Senior Leadership Team at South View, she had been overseeing the teams responsible for inspection preparation, curriculum development and teaching and learning, making her perfectly placed to take this next step in her leadership journey. Ms Williams explains:

“I’ve been in Dubai for 11 years, and I’ve been in education for 25 years. I’ve worked in leadership roles for a very long time, and it’s one of the most important things to get right—that everyone has a common strategic goal to work towards and knows how to get there.”

Leadership from the ground up

Ms Williams is intentional about the kind of culture she wants to nurture — and it's one that evolves from the bottom-up through partnership and discussion, rather than imposed from on high:

“As a leader, you can’t go into a place and go, ‘This is the culture I want to create.’” You observe, you orientate, and then you act.”

At South View, she says, that cultural foundation is already strong:

“The existing culture here is 100% supportive. And that makes all the difference.
“If you have a supportive culture, it means you can pretty much go in any direction you want — because if that support is there, people will go with you. They may not always agree, but they’ll stand behind you if they understand the direction.”

Even with the responsibilities of school leadership, Ms Williams remains firmly grounded in the classroom. She continues to teach every week — a decision that reflects her belief in being present and connected to students.

“I’ve worked in leadership for a long time. But I’ve never wanted to lose touch with the reason I started: the students. It’s very easy to become operational, especially in a big school. But to really understand your school, you have to be in it.”

Her weekly Friday lessons are a deliberate, strategic choice — not just symbolic, but deeply practical.

"Often, teachers are best at teaching the subjects they had to work hardest to understand."

“It gives me a window into what our students are experiencing — how they’re learning, what they’re thinking, how the curriculum is landing.”

Fittingly, she chose to teach maths — not because it was her strongest subject, but because it once challenged her as a learner.

“I struggled with it at school. And I think that helps. Often, teachers are best at teaching the subjects they had to work hardest to understand.”

Community and Wellbeing

South View School has always positioned itself as a warm, inclusive school with a strong neighbourhood spirit—something that continues to set it apart in Dubai’s competitive education landscape.

It’s a philosophy that deeply resonates with Naomi Williams, who speaks with conviction about the value of connection, visibility, and shared purpose in education. For her, community and collaboration are the cornerstones of both her leadership strategy and personal ethos:

"I really value working as part of a team. There’s something deeply satisfying about getting a group of people moving in the same direction, working towards a common goal. In a large school like this — the biggest I’ve ever led — that shared sense of purpose is essential."

That same ethos of support extends to both staff and student wellbeing:

“We place a huge emphasis on staff wellbeing. Our school counsellor is amazing, we have a Wellbeing team consisting of qualified Level 2 and Level 3 counsellors, and we’ve really built a culture of listening, openness, and support.”

Happy staff equals happy students, and it’s that same commitment to emotional safety that underpins South View’s pastoral care — something Ms Williams believes is foundational to any successful school:

“One of the things that’s always been highlighted when we do well as a school is our pastoral care. The welfare of the students has always been a top priority. We’re still a relatively young school, but we’ve said from the beginning — get the foundations of pastoral care right, and the academics will follow.
“When students feel safe and secure in their learning, they’re able to take risks. They become more resilient, more willing to persevere — because they feel cared for. And we’ve really nailed that here.”

Since opening in 2018 with just FS1 to Year 8, South View School has grown steadily and purposefully, with its final year group — Year 13 — added in September 2024. Today, it offers a full British-curriculum education, in a setting that combines academic rigour with emotional support.

Ms Williams is particularly interested in ensuring that the curriculum reflects the diverse ways in which students learn. As part of this, she hopes to further develop the school’s BTEC pathways at post-16 — an area she sees as crucial to meeting students’ varied strengths and aspirations.

Another key hope for her time as leader of South View is for the school to continue to nurture lifelong learners - an attribute she has recently embodied through her own academic growth. In 2020, she completed a Master’s degree in Psychology at Reading University during her time back in the UK. This new scientific qualification deepened her understanding of stress, cognition, self-esteem, social media, and adolescent development. It also reshaped her approach to leadership:

“It’s made me much more aware of myself, and also of others…
"I’ve always been quite an empathetic leader, but I am even more so now. I now really understand the importance and power of active listening.”

Looking to the future

Having worked extensively both in the UAE and the UK, and then back to the UAE again, Naomi Williams says one of the most exciting aspects of leading a school in Dubai is the national appetite for innovation:

“The UAE is not content to stand still. It’s constantly looking ahead, embracing change, and encouraging schools to do the same.”

Compared to the education system in the UK, which she says can be “quite inward-facing,” Williams finds the outward-looking, future-focused nature of UAE education both refreshing and energising: