Mary Creighton Bailey (19 September 1913 – 16 August 2008) was an English classics scholar and teacher, and headmistress of Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School, Canterbury, for fourteen years.

After the Second World War, and interrupting her teaching career, Bailey was flown into Berlin as adviser to the British high commissioner there, with a remit to improve education services.

[2] Her maternal grandmother was Louise Creighton,[nb 1] who was an alumnus of the University of London and a governor of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, serving on its council between 1906 and 1936.

[5][10][14] In September 1945 Bailey, a fluent speaker of German, moved to Berlin,[12][14][15] having joined the Education Division of the Control Commission for Germany.

[5] [It was] the only Federal decoration of Germany and only awarded to a tiny minority of women since its inauguration in 1951, "for achievements that served the rebuilding of the country in the fields of political, socio-economic and intellectual activity".

This involved the inclusion of the school in The Nuffield Science Project which meant building a new biology laboratory, digging a pond, the formation of a natural history society and some weighty text books.

She introduced history projects, geography field work abroad, a modern languages oral programme, and the introduction of sociology, politics, General Studies, and economics as school subjects, besides options to mix the sciences and the arts as sixth form subjects, and new facilities for sixth-form study and socialising.

[5] Bailey encouraged concerts and plays,[5] and, following the 1964 retirement of Miss H. L. White,[19][nb 8] hired a full-time music teacher.

She expanded the scope of physical education with the opening of a swimming pool in 1964, and foreign school trips became frequent, with groups travelling in Europe and as far as Russia.