Headteachers cleaning out toilets? Luxury!

The report of headteachers unblocking toilets after losing school caretakers to budget cuts (28 April) reminded me of my recent research in the logbooks of St Mary’s Church of England primary school in Fownhope, Herefordshire, shortly after the passing of Forster’s 1870 Education Act. An entry in May 1878 records that, following complaints from the neighbourhood, the boys were set to work by the headmaster and “gave all the school closets a thorough clean”. Several entries by the headmaster in the same year related to broken chairs and desks, until eventually a pupil teacher (aged 14) “knocked down nails in some seats”.
Janet Jones
Fownhope, Herefordshire

• When I was the headteacher of a small primary school, we only had a janitor one day every three weeks and so all jobs came to me. When a pupil let me know that there was a dead baby rabbit in an outside drain and I groaned, a grandma volunteer helper immediately said: “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it. I’m a doctor.”
Hilary Brown
Kincraig, Highland

• My father, as headteacher of a primary school in the 1960s, had to deal with blockages and freeze-ups in toilets sited outside the main building. During cold seasons, he had to keep two huge stoves fed with coke. He also had to clear snow and ice from paths, and deal with many other tasks that even heads of department would have considered well below their pay grade.
Martin Wynn
Knaresborough, North Yorkshire

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