The Professional Association of Teachers has appointed Nottingham supply teacher Sharon Vaughan as professional officer. She will advise members of its Professionals Allied to Teaching section - administrative, technical and other support staff in schools and colleges.

THE Royal Academy of Music, the UK’s senior conservatoire, has appointed professors for the first time in its 180-year history, after becoming a constituent college of the University of London in 1999. The first professors are: Jonathan Freeman-Attwood (vice-principal and director of studies), flautist Sebastian Bell (head of woodwind), trumpeter John Wallace (head of brass) and Simon Bainbridge (senior professor of composition).

The Audit Commission as made new appointments to its local authority inspection team. They are Bob Walding, formerly head of performance improvement with Surrey County Council; Tim Priestley, formerly assistant director of education services for North East Lincolnshire council; Kathy Turner, who was an area education officer with Shropshire County Council, and Nick Flight, who joins from Hartlepool, where he was assistant director of education.

CHRISTOPHER Cleugh is to be the next head of St Benedict’s, the Roman Catholic independent school in Ealing, west London. Mr Cleugh, who has been head of St Anselm’s college, Birkenhead, since 1993, will replace Dr Anthony Dachs, who is retiring in December after 14 years.

Astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell is to be the next dean of science at the University of Bath. Currently professor of physics at the Open University, she received her doctorate at Cambridge in 1968, where she was involved in discovering pulsars. A promoter of women in science and engineering, she has held posts at University College, London, and the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh.