HEADTEACHER Nick Bowditch has stepped down after over-seeing the transformation of a village school operating from cramped Victorian premises to a modern primary with twice the number of pupils.

When Mr Bowditch joined Sherston School as acting headmaster in 1991 the 19th Century school building catered for 90 pupils and was bursting at the seams.

Sherston eventually got its new school more than a decade later following a long and complicated project that involved cash from a land sale being used for new premises while the old school was converted into the village post office.

Mr Bowditch, 58, said: “The big challenge was to keep it as a family school, to maintain the close relationship between staff, pupils and parents, rather than it becoming a large organisation.”

Mr Bowditch, who knows the names of all 190 pupils off by heart, believes he has achieved this and that Sherston primary school remains a close-knit body at the heart of the community.

A Somerset lad, Mr Bowditch has spent his entire teaching career in Wiltshire, having worked at three Chippenham schools, Frogwell, the now long gone Westmead Junior and Kings Lodge before taking a post at Sherston.

“I very much liked the place,” he said, reflecting on his arrival in Sherston. “I stayed a little longer than I had intended.”

During his tenure, he has seen the school through five Ofsted appraisals which have proclaimed Sherston a good school with outstanding features.

He has also seen the school forge links with Kenya, Gambia, Australia and France which has won recognition from the British Council.

Among his favourite memories of the school have been accompanying youngsters on residentials – trips to Pembrokeshire and Cornwall where pupils gain a first-hand insight and knowledge of the environment.

Travel, meanwhile, remains on his mind after he decided to take an early retirement.

Mr Bowditch, a single man, has his sights set south. “I’m looking to go to the South Atlantic – the Falklands, South Georgia and even further south.

“It’s the sort of thing you can’t do during school holidays – there’s just not enough time.”