St Champions — demonheadmaster

St Champions is the name of the school run by The Headmaster and attended by the members of SPLAT.

St Champions is the focus of the first book and the first three episodes of the CBBC Television adaptation of the books.

According to IMDb, the school is called St Champions. This is where we first meet The Headmaster who at the time is headmaster. The whole school except for the members of SPLAT! are hypnotized and under the control the Headmaster including the teachers.

Name

Despite featuring promptly in the first book and the original Television series, the school attended by SPLAT is rather deliberately not named.

The name "St Champons" is a fan created name which is though to have come from the play script or musical script where the school is refereed to as "Campion’s". However since then the name as been used officially such as being used as the name of the abandoned school seen in episode "Be Your True Self" of the 2019 series and is used on the summary of the Demon Headmaster DVD.

The location of the town/ village the Hunter family live is similarly never directly named however props used for the series, such as Dinah's Letter in episode 4 and Roses address is the first episode of the second series, use the name "Conningham".

The School

Under the Demon Headmaster

See also: Prefects and Study Circles

:"Because she could remember what the school had been like when the Demon Headmaster was there. The lank, bare walls. The quite, hypnotized children moving around like robots. The cruel, bossy prefects. And the felling of terror everywhere" :―The Prime Minister's Brain

"Because she could remember what the school had been like when the Demon Headmaster was there. The lank, bare walls. The quite, hypnotized children moving around like robots. The cruel, bossy prefects. And the felling of terror everywhere"

―The Prime Minister's Brain

During the headmasters term as headmaster of the school, the school was a frightening place where everything had to be perfect. He kept very strict rules that banned waste, noise and anything that wasn't to do with work and even managed to turn break time from fun and games to everyone standing in circles reciting and testing each other on facts they had be taught. The Headmaster elevated the prefects way above there normal power and position and made them vertically the second in command of the school and the enforcers of the schools rules.

One of the headmaster's approaches to teaching was to lecture to the hypnotized students in order for them to learn. Many readers of the books have pointed out that this method of "learning" might not be all that effective as it is just getting the pupils to repeat information and so does not "sink in ".

Under Mr Meredith

"That had all changed since Mr. Meredith because Headmaster. Now it was untidy, cheerful, noisy school, just like all the others Dinah had been to"

―The Prime Minister's Brain

The Headmaster seemly abandoned his role as Headmaster of the school after SPLAT foiled his plans to hypnotise the country whilst he was appearing on The Eddy Hair Show. He was replaced by Mr Meredith who was a normal headmaster and the school quickly turned into a ordinary school.

The school doesn't feature much in the series after the first book (or Series 1 of the television series) as the SPLAT encounter the Headmaster in other places. The school is seen during the beginning of The Prime Minister's Brain where SPLAT attend the School's Computer club during the summer holidays. At the computer club SPLAT discover the Junior Computer Brain Of the Year competition and the Octopus Dare game and become obsessed with beating the game. The members of SPLAT convince Dinah to play the game as she would be most likely to beat the game and after four days she does and Mr Meredith takes her details for the contest.

In Hunky Parker is watching you SPLAT are obsessed with the Hunky Parker and manage to buy T-shirts and other merchandise before they come available in their area and wear them to school instead of their uniforms in order to show them off to the other children. Whilst the name of the school isn't mentioned it can be assumed it's still St Champions.

Closure

In the books we last see the school towards the start of the third book, when Dinah and the gang are at school and stop Benedict Watts from being picked on by the other stufemts for not having any Hunky Parker products.

At some point between that time and 2019, when the events of the sequel Television series happens, the school has been closed and seems to have been left abandoned and unused for quite some time. In episode six of the new television series "Be Your True Self", the new SPLAT visit the school.

The Uniform

The uniform consists of a green blazer, a white shirt, a green and white stripy tie. Girls would wear a skirt and white socks were as boys would wear black trousers. Prefects can be identified as they have a 'P' on

their blazer pocket. Also the prefects have a pen in their pocket. When the weather is cold, pupils wear a green coat and also wear dark green coats and gloves. They all have the same bags and the same shoes.