Stratford Central Secondary School

Stratford Central Secondary School is a public high school in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. It is one of three main high schools in Stratford. Central is known primarily for its academics, arts and athletics programmes.

Extracurricular clubs

Stratford Central has a wide selection of extracurricular clubs to join.

Central Athletics Association

Central Athletic Association (C.A.A.) consists of Central's student athletes from grades 9 to 12. The student-run hierarchy includes executive and general members. Executive positions include Co-Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Secretary, Treasurer, Fund Raisers and Spirit Committees. Main activities are fund raising and operating school sports teams at Central. Members volunteer their time and effort to score keeping, organize tournaments, help officiate, and all other activities required to facilitate Central's team sport programs. Major fundraisers include the annual Hallowe'en dance and the Student-Teacher hockey game.

Environmental Club

The Environmental Club is a group of students at Central dedicated to thinking globally and acting locally. The Environmental Club is run by Librarian Kerry McManus, who also runs C.A.R.E Stratford,another grassroots environmental group.

Interact Club

Interact Club is affiliated with the Stratford Rotary Club and therefore is involved in a variety of service projects to help the school and the community. Fundraising projects include the Christmas Shoebox Campaign, the toonie week fundraiser, Amnesty International, soup kitchen, food drives, in-school mentoring, assisting at Rotary events, and sponsoring a child through World Vision.

RamCast

RamCast produces videos that are put up on the SCSS website and YouTube every week, telling students, parents, and faculty what is happening at their school.

RamsChess

RamsChess meets every Tuesday in the school to play chess.The club is open to all ranges of player and new members are always welcome. They regularly hold tournaments inside and outside of the school and is an avid place for students to learn while having fun!

Reach for the Top

Reach for the Top is a Canadian game show in which teams of high school students participate in local, provincial and eventually national trivia tournaments. The club is the equivalent of a trivia club consists of teams of students competing with teams from our school and others as well about a broad range of topics such as: history, pop-culture, math, sports, and much more. A great way for students to develop their minds all while learning collaboration and team work. Central's Senior Reach for the Top team, have gone undefeated for two seasons, humiliating Northwestern, St Mikes, and Mitchell.

Theatre Central

Theatre Central is a club at central that produces a variety of fantastic dramatic presentations, ranging from the works of William Shakespeare to Dylan Woodley. Probably their most memorable performance was that of Nick Dolan, Cameron Sprott, Justin Sullivan, Myles Avigdor, Matt Knarr and Jake Wellington. They performed a rendition of the Cell Block Tango in sparkly spandex attire.

Music program

The Music program at S.C.S.S. consists of several bands, each of which have won numerous awards at competitions.

Symphonic Band

Symphonic Band is the senior-level band at Stratford Central Secondary School. The Symphonic Band plays at various school functions such as Commencement, assemblies and concerts, as well as in the Stratford community and at music festivals. In the past, the Symphonic Band has toured Scotland, England, New York, Washington, Chicago, Boston and Montreal. In May 2005 the band members travelled to Scotland and England, and gave performances at Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle and the Tower of London. The ensemble's repertoire includes some of the major works composed for band, in addition to marches, folk songs, show tunes and pop music.

Jazz Band

The S.C.S.S. Jazz Band was formed in 1990. Over the years members of the Jazz Band have performed and competed in New York, Washington, Montreal, Chicago and at various community events in Stratford. The group recently played at the Alzheimer Society's Soup's On at the Coliseum, and at the Winterfest Big Band Swing Dance at the Victorian Inn. The Jazz Band specializes in the repertoire of the big band swing classics, as well as modern pop tunes, jazz and rock. Students study the 12-bar blues pattern, and are encouraged to improvise and to play solos.

Concert Band

The Stratford Central Secondary School concert band consists of grade nine students. This particular band is under the direction of Paula Ortelli. They were originally called the junior band and the former concert band consisted of only grade ten students. However, when the grade 7 and 8 students joined the school they took the title of junior band, the junior band took the title of concert band and the grade tens in the concert band were promoted to symphonic band.

Central Singers and Vocal Chords

Central Singers and Vocal Chords are the choirs offered at SCSS, both currently lead by Paula Ortelli. Central Singers, an open SATB choir for all those who want to join from grades 9-12, focuses on standard choral repertoire, and performs mostly at assemblies and one or two other events a year. Vocal Chords is a smaller, auditioned, 16 person ensemble, selected from the members of Central Singers. It focuses more on a mix of madrigals and other a cappella pieces, but will also perform other genres as well.

Notable alumni

• Princess Basmah Bani Ahmad, wife of Prince Hamzah bin Al Hussein of Jordan.
• Graham Abbey, actor
• James Reaney, poet and playwright
• Stanley Stewart, writer
• Shrut Patel, MVP
• Benny G, 3 Point Champ
• John Hindley, Professional Wrestler

See also

• List of high schools in Ontario