Stanchester Academy, formerly Stanchester Community School, is an academy for children between the ages of 11 and 16 in Stoke-sub-Hamdon

Stoke-sub-Hamdon

Stoke-sub-Hamdon is a village and civil parish in South Somerset, situated west of Yeovil, England. The parish is located near the River Parrett, and includes the village of East Stoke.-History:...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, England. It has 863 pupils and is headed by Judy McBlain. It was originally a "Secondary Modern" School, becoming a "Comprehensive" School in 1974 as a result of the abandonment of Grammar School education in the Yeovil area by the then Conservative controlled Somerset County Council. In August 2011, the school became an academy.

Stanchester now has a house system that started in September 2008. These houses have been named after parts of the school badge in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, Sagitta (the arrow), Avis (the birds), Arbor (the tree) and Arcus (the archer).

Stanchester has been awarded the title of Specialist School for Media Arts

Arts College

Arts Colleges were introduced in 1997 as part of the now defunct Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The system enabled secondary schools to specialise in certain fields, in this case, the performing, visual and/or media arts...

 which came with a grant, which was used for equipping some classrooms with Macintosh

Macintosh

The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

 computers, upgrading the Media Suite along with the Information Technology

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

 rooms, purchasing a rack of the apple laptops (or iBook

IBook

The iBook was a line of laptop computers sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted the consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher-end line of laptop computers....

).

Selection of head boy and girl

Stanchester has 48 Senior Students (Prefects) including the Head Boy and Head Girl. Senior Students are elected by first being nominated, then having two members of staff signatures next to their names in the staff room, then by handing in a manifesto. Those who make it past this round are then elected by the students and staff. The Head Boy or Head Girl is chosen by an interview with the head teacher, two of the governors and the out-going Head Boy and Head Girl. Two are then chosen as Head Boy and Head Girl and the two runners up are given the position of Deputy Head Boy and Deputy Head Girl.