A HEAD teacher will be swapping her car for a boat to commute to work from September.
After seven years at the helm of Broomfield Primary School, Linda Todd is leaving to lead the only school on the Isles of Scilly.
She has been appointed as head teacher of Five Islands School, featured in the first four series of BBC2's An Island Parish.
As well as leading a school for three to 16-year-olds on the main island, Mrs Todd will also be in charge of its bases for primary aged children on the other islands, to which she will travel by boat.
The school, currently led by an acting head teacher, was downgraded by Ofsted late last year, and has been flagged up as "requiring improvement".
Mrs Todd, who is married with two sons aged three and eight, admits life will be quite different from her current one.
She said: "Five Islands School has been through a tricky time recently and I will be joining it at an exciting point in its journey. It is certainly going to be an adventure.
"We love the outdoors and the sea and will be living in a beautiful location with a beach at the end of the garden."
The Isles of Scilly are a collection of five inhabited islands 28 miles from Lands' End in Cornwall. They have a population of around 2,200 people.
This will be Mrs Todd's third headship. Prior to joining Broomfield in 2006, she led Newport Primary in north Essex near Saffron Walden for eight years.
Originally from Scotland, Mrs Todd moved to Essex after qualifying as a teacher 24 years ago at Liverpool University.
She has stayed in the county apart from spending some time teaching in Singapore.
She added: "I will really miss Broomfield Primary. The staff here are fantastic.
"They are committed to the children and very hard-working but they also know how to have fun. We are always more than happy to embrace dressing up, singing or performing.
"I'm very proud of what I have achieved at the school. It had been judged satisfactory by Ofsted before I arrived and it is now a good school with many outstanding features. I always felt supported by everyone."
