Shaun: They kind of like run the school, they organise a lot of things.
Megan: They do a lot more work than normal teachers, because our headmaster teaches as well as doing all the other stuff and organising school trips.
Shaun: He teaches basically anything. And he also has to do a lot paperwork as well.
Megan: Forms to the council.
Clara: And academy stuff. That’s like high school. We have two people moving up.
Megan: He has to fill in forms for the council. He sends evidence to the council and then he has to check his paperwork and stuff. And he teaches every day!
Shaun: He also has to deal with people getting in trouble.
Clara: He makes you write letters to say “I’m sorry”.
Shaun: Every day for a few weeks.
Clara: Or you stay in if you like beat up someone. But that has never happened.
Megan: It used to happen when I was in P1. But that was years ago.
Shaun: Teachers can get into trouble, too. For not doing the right subjects.
Clara: Parents can complain and stuff.
Shaun: One of the teachers did get into trouble once. Our headteacher sorted it out.
Megan: We don’t have that teacher any more.
Shaun: I’m sure they’ll never do it again, though.
Megan: We also once had this teacher. We had her once, and then she did something bad, and we’ve never had her since.
Shaun: The headteacher talked to her and we haven’t seen her since.
Megan: Headteachers have to be quite strict, but not too strict. Like if you break the lead of your pencil, they shouldn’t get you 10 weeks’ detention. They should make sure it’s fair to everybody.
Shaun: He also makes sure all the children are ready when they go up to the academy.
Megan: You know how, in academy, you get detention? It’s so they are not completely surprised. But it depends how old you are. When you are in P1, 2, 3, 4, you don’t get so hard punishments.
Shaun: The worst headteacher would be someone who is completely not strict. With ours, when you’re doing fine, he is a rewarding teacher, but when you are not being good, then he makes sure you don’t do it again. And I remember he got a certificate that said he can look after children that have disabilities.
Clara: I think headteachers have to be quite strict to other teachers. Say they have a child in the school or something, and the child did something and the teacher saw it but, because it was their child, said “oh no, that’s fine, because you are my child”, the headteacher would need to keep an eye on that.
