Otter

House Colour: Purple

Who’s Who?

Head of Otter House – Mrs J Stone

Otter Tutors 2026-27

Year 7 - Mrs V Wallace & Miss E Short

Year 8 - Mrs J Darlow & Mrs K Pegram

Year 9 - Mrs B Teece

Year 10 - Mrs C Smerdon-Corp

Year 11 - Mr A Thompson

Year 12 - Ms T Marchant & Mrs S Hindman (from January 2027)

Year 13 - Miss M Witherow

Otter House became the seventh house in school in 1990. William Otter became Bishop of Chichester in 1836. He was very interested in the training of teachers to provide education for all, and a teacher training college (now Chichester University) was set up in his name.

What is Otter House like?

Our motto is

Believe

Believe in yourself. Believe in our House and our school. Believe that you can make a positive change. Believe in… Be confident that you are able to do anything you want to do.

Achieve

At our school, you can make great progress and contributions in many different and important ways.

and Succeed

When you move on from our school and your experiences in Otter House, take with you what you have Achieved and go on to succeed.

We pride ourselves in promoting a disciplined, caring and happy family atmosphere. We hope to foster an ethos of a mutual, secure and stimulating environment where all members of the Otter House feel valued, respected and fully supported. We understand that it essential to work collaboratively to ensure that we are all able to provide the very best possible education, experiences and welfare for all our students.

Otter House supports Macmillan Nurses who specialise in cancer and palliative care, providing support and information to people with cancer, and their families, friends and carers, from the point of diagnosis onwards.

A REVIEW OF Otter House 2025-26

Whizz, bang, pop went the fireworks at Prom and with that, another year over for Year 11.  The wonderful arrivals in eccentric modes of transport and the colourful dresses and dapper suits are a highlight of the school year.  11 Otter have done us all proud.

Our highlights this year have been numerous and I am flabbergasted at how much goes on.  Well done to our fantastic musicians:  Rebecca K (10 Otter) was awarded Honours and received the Patron Clarinet Cup in the Chichester Music Festival. Rebecca also was awarded Outstanding for the duet class and received the Helen Maltby Cup.  She was also in the orchestra for the mind-blowingly bonkers school show, ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ along with cast members Josh T (7 Otter), Flossy F (7 Otter), Grace B (8 Otter), Isabel L (8 Otter), Kitty A (9 Otter) and Lucy G (9 Otter) who had the opportunity to control the giant Venus flytrap mechanical prop on stage - a truly memorable moment!  Other musicians have achieved awards:  Ella K (7 Otter) Grade 4 in trumpet and piano, Grace B and Annie R (both 7 Otter), both Grade 6 singing.

Huge congratulations to golfer Oliver H (11 Otter) who won the second edition of the Race to Woodhall Spa Overseas Grand Final in November, becoming champion at Penina Hotel & Golf Resort in Portugal. Oliver, playing off a handicap of 13, shot a stellar 71 points across his two rounds of golf on the Sir Henry Cotton Championship Course to lift the title as he finished six shots clear of the field. George P (7 Otter) reached the Bognor Football U12 Cup Final, playing centre back.  Well done also to Grace B (8 Otter) who completed the Junior Great South Run.  Grace also won 3rd prize and a book voucher in the Summer writing competition.  Noah B (11 Otter) and the Chichester Under 16 Rugby Team won the Sussex League in April; an excellent way to end the season.

Well done to the Bishop Luffa U14 girls who beat Felpham 6-1 in the semi final of the county cup with Ismay T (9 Otter) scoring two goals.  Ismay also holds the record for the most number of goals scored in a season.  Others on the football team are Bebe O (9 Otter) and Sophia H (9 Otter).  Also in 9 Otter, Sam P-C reached the county cup for Chichester City football club.

In other sporting news, our sailors are doing well:  Rory P (8 Otter) won the May Mini sailing in a Terror boat at Dell Quay and Tom M (10 Otter) came 20th in an enormous fleet of 90 boats at the Schools Sailing in Itchenor. Our other super sailor, Eliza G (8 Otter) also held her own in the same event.  Eliza is multi-talented and has also just returned from the prestigious Dance World Cup which was held in Dublin, representing England. 

DJ James L (9 Otter) has had gig after gig this year.  A highlight has been him raising money for supplies and humanitarian assistance after Hurricane Melissa left a trail of destruction in Jamaica.  James has also had a set at the Ministry of Sound in London.  We have a wave of cadets who are powering through:  Joshua T (7 Otter) and Grace B (8 Otter).  LAMDA awards this year have gone to 7 Otter Annie R (Grade 4),  9 Otter Lucy G (Grade 4) and 8 Otters Rosie R (Grade 4), Grace B (Grade 3) and Rosa H (Grade 3).  House Photography was well represented by the House and Adam F-S’s (10 Otter) picture, shot on film and developed himself, was a real stunner.  

7 Otter have thrown themselves into Luffa life:  Felix Allman (7 Otter) and Lionel Defer (7 Otter) have ended the year as first and second place winners in the Sparx league table. Lavinia D (10 Otter), James L (9 Otter), Elsie R (7 Otter) and Graham D (7 Otter) have all made the top 20 in the school for Sparx.  On Enterprise Day, Year 10 seriously impressed with Louis C winning a framed print for his contributions to the Apprentice task and Jara J walking away with a trophy for the Best Team Leader.  Well done!

At the start of July, Felix A, Grace B, Graham D, Flossy F, Ella K, Ayaan P, Elsie R and Elena S in 7 Otter expertly guided our new Year 6 Otters on transition day, showing them the ropes in readiness for them joining our family of Otters in September. Our House Drama performance of Annie, directed by 12 Otters Sophie W and Lottie T was a great retelling of the classic story and had the audience in stitches.  A massive well done to the cast from 7 and 8 Otter:  Flossy F, Amelia L,  Freya S, Eve W, Rosie G, Grace B, Fatema B, Isabel L and technicians Lucy G, Jude T and John B. 

The talents of Otter House do not just limit themselves to the children.  Mrs Robertson (Receptionist and mum to Annie in 7 Otter) has been training hard and ran the London Marathon, raising thousands of pounds for the school.  Enormous thanks to you and your poor, sore feet!

Charity events have also been a huge highlight for Otter this year.  We have raised a whopping £1,500 for Macmillan Cancer Support.  I want to thank all the Otter parents for your swift responses to all my (sometimes panicked) calls for cakes and bakes.  The Macmillan Coffee Morning bake sale in October had to be run over 3 days due to the vast volume of donations from you all.  This event alone raised £490.  In addition, there has been the usual whole school Otter Roses event - raising almost £400.  In addition, there have been pic’n’mix sales and tons more bake sales galore - (thank you to 7 Otter for helping and eating all the stuff we couldn’t sell!).  The summer World Cup raffle organised by Mrs Teece and 8 Otter raised £97.  We were also lucky enough to receive a donation of over 200 litres of compost and nearly 200 bulbs from Hilliers Garden Centre in Chichester.  The bulbs were planted up and made to look pretty in paper and ribbon and sold for Easter, raising £130.  

As usual, I am grateful for the wonderful Otter tutors, who are all dedicated, enthusiastic and diligent with their bevy of Otters.  Thank you to Mrs Darlow and Mrs Pegram for seamlessly settling in our 7 Otters.  Mrs Teece has the most amazingly helpful charity reps in 8 Otter and Mrs Smerdon-Corp has 9 Otter exactly where she wants them!  Mr Thomson continues with the delightful 10 Otter and a huge thank you to Ms Barnett and Mrs Christie for all their work with 11 Otter.  I am lucky to have such a hardworking, positive team.

And finally, at the time of writing, Otter are in the lead for winning the House Cup. I’m not sure Otter has ever won this trophy so I am super excited to see what happens - I am having visions of it being adorned in resplendent ribbons of purple! Fingers crossed…

Mrs Jas Stone, Head of Otter House