FRIDAY will mark the end of an era at Bute House Preparatory School as staff and pupils bid farewell to their much loved headmistress of 19 years.

During Sallie Salvidant's tenure the school has undergone a radical transformation including a complete rebuild, an increased student intake and the introduction of 65 extra curricular activities.

For the best part of two decades she has poured her heart and soul into the school, commuting from her home in north Devon to Brook Green on a weekly basis.

Although ready for retirement - where she will continue to act as a governor to two schools, one in Hampstead, the other in Paris - she had not prepared herself for saying goodbye to her school in Luxembourg Gardens.

“I've been trying not to think too much about it,” said the 61-year-old, "It's what I love doing, I love teaching primary school children because that's when they learn key skills.

“It's exciting as they come to you not being able to read or write and you watch them grow up.

“I'm moving away from a school that I love and a job that gives me immense fulfilment so I'm finding it quite hard - but I've loved every minute of it.”

She grew up in Kenya, as her father worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and briefly lived in Malaysia before getting her first teaching position at a primary school in North Yemen - at a time when girls weren't provided an education.

Moving to London in the early 1970s, she worked for two state schools before gaining her first headship at a preparatory school in Henley-on-Thames at the age of 36.

In 1993, she was appointed headmistress at Bute House, where she quickly began making her mark.

She said: “We rebuilt the whole school over five phases, which started in the mid 1990s and finished in 2005.

“We didn't have a reception class. When I started the children were five, now we take them when they're four.

“We also didn't have any clubs and activities and we now have 65 which range from fencing to badminton, bridge to swimming and a number of languages.”

Mrs Salvidant says that her lowest point came when the school's 250-year-old Copper beech tree had to be chopped down after becoming infected with a fatal fungus.

As the image of the tree is synonymous with the school - it is still emblazoned on the uniform - she was determined that it would not just be reduced to a stump in the playground.

During the summer of 2009, chainsaw artist Tom Harvey was commissioned to turn the dying tree into a 25ft 'tree of life'.

The sculpture features more than two dozen animals, carved in astonishing detail, and has become the centrepiece of the school.

Mrs Salvidant, said: “This is a very different school to the one I walked into in 1993. I've enjoyed it and I hope I've left a little legacy behind.”