News

This page is for Group announcements, news and updates. The newest items appear at the top.

Regular small news items are emailed to all members via the network, plus events are sometimes advertised on our forum.

Conference 2012

The next STSG conference will take place on Saturday 18th February 2012 at Rugby School.  More details can be found on our Conference page.

Membership renewals

It's time again for our membership renewals, so all members should have received an invoice in the post. (If you haven't, please contact the Group Administrator for an e-mail copy.) As agreed at last year's AGM, the rate remains at £5.

Payments can be made either personally or by your school, and either by BACS / online banking (preferred), or by cheque. The STSG's bank details are on the invoice. Please do ensure that some form of remittance advice or acknowledgement is sent to the Group Administrator (by e-mail is fine), otherwise it can be difficult to match up your payment! (Those coming to the conference are also welcome to bring cash or cheque!)

You can track if your payment has been received by checking on the members section of our website, which will show your membership status as either 'Pending' or 'Paid'.

A quick reminder that we use the annual subs as a way to keep our database up-to-date, so please do make your payment as soon as possible. Equally, if you'd prefer to be removed from our database, please do let us know so we don't keep sending you reminders!

Jobs

We welcome relevant job adverts from member and non-member schools. In most cases, it is possible to post the vacancy details here on our website (visible to all), as well as e-mailing details directly to our members.  We have had recent adverts from Rugby School, Ampleforth College, Kingston Grammar School, Trinity School Croydon and King's College School Wimbledon.  We look forward to welcoming the new members!

Report from meeting

Susan Elkin's report from our previous AGM and discussion forum can be read here on The Stage website.

The meeting was held at Trinity School in Croydon on Friday 25th February 2011. As well as a tour of the venue and a free lunch for members at a nearby pub, the primary aim of the meeting was to discuss our idea of developing some kind of 'reward scheme' to assess and credit students working backstage at an extra-curricular level.

Our guests were Robert West (Education Manager for the National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills) and Susan Elkin (Education journalist, including for 'The Stage' & former teacher) - both pictured front-left below.  An interesting debate was had, and there are several ideas to take forward.

Theatres Trust Conference: Designing School Theatres

Back in April last year, the Theatres Trust held their annual conference with the topic of 'Designing School Theatres'. There was much discussion about the criteria which make a good school theatre, but it was also very clear that there are a lot of schools with new facilities which don't come up to the expected standard.  The aim of the conference was to provide a framework from which common flaws can be avoided, such as not providing sufficient backstage space, or failing to consider conflicting users such as school lessons and external bookings, or simply providing a building which is merely functional and not a creative or inspiring place.

The conference report can be found on the Theatres Trust website - here - along with a collection of other resources for architects and schools.  Towards the end of the report is a list of the specific design criteria which emerged from the conference.

There is also a summary article to read here, plus more useful information and links on our FAQ page under the heading of "I'm planning a new school theatre".

The STSG would like to thank the Theatres Trust, and in particular Mhora Samuel, for allowing us to be part of the conference, and we look forward to working together on any further developments.