OTTER HOUSE – House Colour Purple
Who’s Who?
Head of Otter House – Mrs J Stone and Mrs J Feakins-Taylor (currently on maternity leave)
Otter Tutors 2023-24
Year 7 - Mrs K Christie
Year 8 - Mr A Thompson
Year 9 - Ms C Barnett
Year 10 - Mr R Gordon
Year 11 - Mrs C Smerdon-Corp
Year 12 - Miss M Witherow
Year 13 - Ms T Marchant
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.
Otter House 2023-24
What an outrageously outstanding year it’s been for our amazing bevy of Otters. We have seen the Year 7s settle into Luffa life with energetic verve and waved a bittersweet goodbye to Year 11s through the tear-jerker that is their leavers’ assembly, climaxing with the highlight of the season, the Prom. I started at Bishop Luffa the year before this Year 11 cohort, so it was phenomenally special to have seen an entire wave of children pass through; how fast the years fly.
As ever, Otters have shown tremendous amounts of business enterprise in the Otter House charity fundraiser for Macmillan - the big Valentine’s Day roses sale in February - expertly led by Mrs Christie and her Year 11s, which this year branched out to roses for Mothering Sunday. Ms Barnett and Year 8 took charge of this new start-up and were great at the advertising, the sales patter, the delivery of the roses and even managed to work the card reader machine while the internet was down during the cyber attack! There are plans in the pipeline for even further expansion to Father’s Day and beyond…
Year 7 were fortunate enough to experience the Luffa rite of passage that is the Isle of Wight trip - a success, as ever, with Laserquest, bowling and animal sanctuary visits. It’s always a great team building experience which Mr Thompson and I thoroughly enjoyed.
At the time of writing, it is looking likely that Otter House may scoop up the inaugural Maths Sparx Cup, so we are crossing everything for first place. House Drama saw a healthy number of Year 7 and Year 9 Otters act their hearts out in Missing Dan Nolan, ably led by our honorary Otter, Rudi Millard in Year 12. We have also had a record number of Otters compete in the Schools Sailing Week in Itchenor. It was blowing a hoolie, so a huge well done to our sailors Tom Mealing, Benjy Gardner, Jack Gardner, Ollie Mills, George Long, Charlie Mealing and Ethan Hill.
I have also had the pleasure of working closely with the Year 12 House Captains Natasha Ellis and Olivia Ebbutt, who have stepped up every time I have needed them from presenting in House assembly and helping at events to revamping the display board.
A few Otters are worth celebrating individually. In sailing, Isla Hill 8Ot had a brilliant 4 days of sailing at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy for the GB selection trials, qualifying for one of the development squads. She will be going to Portugal in July to the Mipuri Foundation Sailing event in Cascais. In mountain biking, Theo Ellis, also in 8Ot, has secured a place in the pro mountain biking development team - one of 5 children in the UK and the youngest on the team. Theo has been traveling around the country, competing in Scotland and Wales. Harry Kearsley 7Ot has won first prize in a short story competition, Integer, where entrants were asked to take inspiration from numbers in the world around them and create a story. And Finally, Marcus Irvine-Smith 7Ot has been leading a coding club at his alma mater, Birdham Primary.
Otter House is a warm and caring House to be at the helm of, not least because of the Otter Tutors. I am very lucky to have them by my side in the rough, tumble and wins of daily life. I can’t wait for another year, with the older Otters guiding and supporting their younger counterparts, making sure we remain otterly amazing.
Mrs Jas Stone, Head of Otter House