Principal, assistant principal (or vice principal) - American English. Headteacher, deputy head - British English. Is that correct?

> Is the word 'director' ever used to mean a principal? My school had a director. No principal. I believe it had to do with the type of school it was (charter school).

You are correct. I've never heard "director" being used within a school (UK).

>In British English, is the word 'headmaster' used to mean a headteacher? Is there usually one deputy head? Yes to both of those, in my experience.

"vice" before any title means an assistant or backup version of that title. "Director" is sometimes the official title for a principal, but it isn't used conversationally to mean a principal.

In American English some school districts use 'assistant principal' and some use 'vice principal' but they are the same thing. My high school had 2 assistant principals, I think that's pretty common in most places but some areas may have more or less depending on how many students the school has. I've never heard the term director used for a school administrator. It could be used in some schools but it's not very common. Another administrator role is Superintendent. They are like the head administrator for the whole district and this is usually an elected position.

UK here - Headmaster is no longer used it is an outdated term. That would have its equal partner of Headmistress. Now HeadTeacher is used as it can mean either sex, there can be many head teachers, depending how big the school is, but normally it would be one headteacher and one, none or many deputy head teachers depending on the size of the school. If there are more than one, they could use ‘Joint’ at the start of the title There can also be a director depending on the school set up but I can’t imagine you would need to go into that detail. It was when UK school started to be academies and privately run rather than by the state. But as a guide a director could or would normally be running / over seeing many schools as a rough guide.

Yes headteacher/deputy head are right in a British English context (I went to school in England so any comments I give may or may not be valid in Scotland). Headmaster/headmistress are older terms for headteacher but you do still hear them. We only had one deputy head at my school but i think it is fairly common for big schools to have more than one. We also had a senior teacher at my school who was more junior than the deputy head but senior to the other teachers - not sure how common that is.

American private schools at least mix terminology, and you can get a headmaster and a vice principal. I’ve also seen head of school used. But these terms are all easily understood, and there’s never confusion about who you’re referring to. It just depends on what titles the school prefers.

British - yes. Usually "headteacher", to avoid any sexism - but they do get called "headmaster" or "headmistress" sometimes. Most often though, just "head" - within the school context. E.g. "go and ask the head". One deputy. Usually a school secretary. Bigger schools have heads of departments, like "head of English", "head of maths". Lots of "teaching assistants", who help pupils with special needs, and generally assist the teacher. Teachers are usually called "Miss Surname" or "Mr Surname" - even married ones, although that's their own choice. Some prefer "Ms". It's very rare to use first names. Most schools have a caretaker, which is what Americans call a janitor. On a job description, teachers may put "Primary School Teacher" or "Secondary School Teacher". Within a school, they're often referred to by the year they're teaching - "The year 3 teacher", etc. Primary is (usually) 5-11, secondary is 11 - 16. Year groups for England and Wales are (usually) Age 4-5 = Reception, 5-6 = Year 1, 6-7 = Year 2, 7-8 = Year 3, 8-9 = Year 4, 9-10 = Year 5, 10-11 = Year 6. In Scotland it's slightly different; all +1 because they usually *"officially"* start at age 4/5. There's no "reception", so 4-5 = Year 1, 5-6 = Year 2, etc. We also often refer to Key Stages, which relates to what has to be taught (determined by legislation). Key Stage 1 covers Years 1 and 2, Key Stage 2 is Years 3 to 6. For secondary, KS3 is Year 8-9 (age 12-14), KS4 is Year 10-11 (age 14-16). The school year is normally September until July, or August-June in Scotland. Term times vary quite a lot across different regions. You might be interested in OFSTED - the government body that inspects schools, giving them a ranking. That often causes a lot of controversy. Oh and... public schools have their own special - and often weird - names for everything, steeped in tradition. Our public schools are what Americans usually call private - i.e. you pay for them.

In the UK, some independent schools will have all manner of job titles, such as Rector, Warden, Sub-Warden, Head of Studies etc. I'm sure some will use Principal. There has been so much rolling change for decades, in all parts of Great Britain (not sure about Northern Ireland), with different traditions diverging further, that it's difficult to keep track of how everything works.

Depends on the specific school here in the UK, but generally we have a headteacher / headmaster / headmistress (I think the non-gendered term is the preference these days, it wasn't when I was in School in the 90s/early 2000s), the shorter word "head" also gets used more informally. Here in Scotland we use the word "depute" for deputy head(s) [often there are more than one], but I think in England they are just called deputy or assistant headteachers. Some schools probably do use the word Principal nowadays, my college (the place where you could go to study between 16 and 19 before university, if you didn't stay on at school) used that title.

In my schools (US), we only had one principal in our elementary schools (grades K-5 or 1-5). My middle school (6-8) and high school (9-12) each had a principal and one vice principal per grade level. I graduated in 2008. I just looked at the high school's website, and it seems that they've expanded the staff since them. Currently, they have: (for a student enrollment of 1,750) \-Principal \-Associate Principal for college and career readiness \-Associate Principal for 12th grade \-Assistant Principal for Student Advancement \-Assistant Principal for 9-11th grade STEM students \-Assistant Principal for 9-11th grade non- STEM students, names starting with A-F \-Assistant Principal for 9-11th grade non- STEM students, names starting with F-L \-Assistant Principal for 9-11th grade non- STEM students, names starting with L-R \-Assistant Principal for 9-11th grade non- STEM students, names starting with R-Z

In my public high school (1960s), in a small city that was a blue-collar suburb of Boston, the person who was in the slot usually called "principal" insisted on having his title be headmaster. Frankly, he was just the kind of authoritarian, self-important jerk that would do something like that. I see that the high school now has a principal.