Stanchester

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Stanchester is a fairly large secondary school in Somerset. It has roughly 1000 pupils and is headed by Glyn Ottery. It has a system of year heads, but in 2008 will turn into a house system. These houses have been named in a recent whole school assembly and it was announced by Glyn Ottery that they would be named after parts of the school badge in Latin. The house names were voted for by the students and rumor has it that the headteacher (Mr. Glynn Ottery) has chosen the house names despite the wishes of the students. Stanchester was recently awarded the title of Specialist School for Media Arts which came with a reasonable grant, and yet like many other schools in the Somerset area Stanchester overran its budget, in this case equipping some classrooms with Macintosh computers, upgrading the Media Suite along with the Information Technology rooms, purchasing a rack of the apple laptops (or iBook) and casting the space between the Science wing and a Main Block hallway with concrete and benches. However, Stanchester continues to run technical support staff for the computers and Media Technicians who care for the Macintosh computer section of the school. The Media staff consist of Tony Lashley (Director of Media Arts), Simon Newton (Media Arts technician, Music technician), Shayne Cooper (Media Arts technician) and Sowena Stonestreet (community Coordinator).

Simon Newton is a new member of the school staff and his presence has been warmly welcomed, quickly moving in to fill the position that Jay Ralph left open after his resignation without any major hiccups and most in the school view him as a valuable asset, working in step with Shane Cooper to ensure that the Macintosh computers work smoothly. and along with this has a fantastic vocal range which assisted in a major way to the production of the school's most recent play Oliver! along with David Roberts on the double bass and Pip Jolliffe's brother in law on drums.

Stanchester's production of Oliver! was reviewed by peers as a remarkably good performance. Students cast for main rolls are as follows: James Willsmore (Oliver), Alex Doble (Fagin), Holly Turton (Nancy), Jake Webber (Bill Sykes), James Ball (The Artful Dodger), Jasmine Edwards (Widow Corney), Martin Savage (Mr Brownlow), Adam Edwards (Dr Grimwig), Ryan Shaw and Kahli Davis (Mr Sowerberry and Mrs Sowerberry), Pimm (Mr Bumble), Dougie Holiday (Noah Claypole), Zoe Egan (Charlotte), Charlotte Willsmore (Mrs Bedwin) and additionally a great amount of due credit is given to those who worked backstage during the performance, as is true to the choir; though a mention should be made of Ella Wigmore, seen as one of the best singers in the county, who lent her spectacular and powerful singing voice to the performance which left many of the audience in awe.

or the first year due to the need for more senior students (42) the school governing body decided to promote two of the "runner up" senior students who went for the head boy/girl placement to Deputy head boy/girl (The Deputies are Arthur Riley and Hannah Leach). and 40 senior students.

Stanchester has a variety of colorful characters, from the talented Pip Jolliffe - Head of Drama and an enthusiastic and experienced actress and director of all school plays alongside Mrs Lawson, to some of the more renowned students from the more talented such as Hannah Leach and Emily Davies who have had local media attention due to their charity work for Africa. Stanchester was presumably once the sight of a Roman camp, due to the chester in the name, and is said to be haunted by the ghost of a Roman general.

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