Antingham and Southrepps pupils help with head hunt

Fangs and a voice like thunder won't win job seekers any Brownie points with pupils at a north Norfolk primary school which is advertising for a non-scary head teacher.

Antingham and Southrepps primary is looking for a new head to take over from Sue Day, 57, who retires this summer after eight years at the school.

And the school's 112 children have contributed their ideas to the wording of the recruitment advertisement which says they are looking for someone with a sense of fun, 'who is not scary, is fair and who will continue to organise lots of activities.'

Mrs Day said: 'It's very difficult to recruit people nowadays and you have to do something to catch people's eye.'

In previous advertisements for staff at the school, the usual list of expected attributes had included 'Must be an Archers listener and like buying new shoes,' she added. The successful applicant had been a fan of the BBC Radio 4 soap opera but admitted that he wasn't especially interested in shoes.

Chairman of governors Margaret Dowland said the pupils were the most important part of the school and they would be involved at every stage of the recruitment process, including interviews.

'We wanted to know what they thought and they came up with a wish list of things they wanted the new head teacher to be - a couple of which were a bit weird and we weren't prepared to include!' she said.