Pupils can take over school after £12k fundraising

Head teacher Steve Hitchcock says the students raised £12,000

A head teacher in Devon has given children the opportunity to take over their school for the day after raising £12,000 for upgrades to a classroom.

Steve Hitchcock, of St Peter's Church of England Primary School in Budleigh Salterton, began a challenge to raise £100,000 for the urgent works to a temporary classroom that is 40 years old.

As part of the challenge, students were tasked with raising £3,000 but quadrupled the amount.

"They have just blown me away because they have exceeded all expectations," Mr Hitchcock said. "They've actually raised £12,000 between them which is a ludicrous sum of money."

Ms Hitchcock said he was blown away by the money raised

Jacob, a student taking the role of co-headteacher for the day, said: "Instead of any normal teachers all the kids are going to get exchanged for the teachers.

"There's at least three different teachers in each class so I think it's going to go really well, it's going to be lots of fun and chaos and craziness."

Jemima, another joint headteacher for the day, said she would let the pupil teachers choose the subjects they wanted to teach.

The students will have their own staff room for the day in the school's library.

'Safe, sensible and supervised'

Erin and Ava, joint deputy headteachers, were put in charge of a bouncy castle.

They explained an additional surprise for students included the real deputy headteacher being in a hot dog costume and being sprayed with silly string and water.

There will also be ice lollies for everyone and a nerf gun battle.

Mr Hitchcock said: "The main rules for today, they have to be safe, sensible and supervised so as long as it's within those realms they're going to be able to pretty much do what they like."