Houses
In accordance with British house system tradition, the entire student body is divided into six separate houses upon admittance into the school. Students remain in these houses until graduation and attend sporting events and various other activities as part of their house.
Originally there were four houses of Armstrong, Drake, Hillary and Scott, named after various explorers throughout history. This is a departure from tradition of other ESF secondary schools, whose Houses are generally named after school benefactors or school founders. In 1998 two more houses (Kingsley and Tasman) were added to increase competition and a growing demand for more student places by school applicants and their parents. Tasman was derived from the house of Scott and Hillary, while Kingsley was derived from the house of Armstrong and Drake. The colours for each house are as follows: Armstrong is yellow; Drake is blue; Hillary is green; Kingsley is purple; Scott is red; and Tasman is orange.
The students engage in the annual Sports Day and Swimming Gala whereupon points are earned and compiled according to houses. Other inter-house competitions include netball, volleyball, cricket, rounders, basketball, badminton, chess and debating, among others. Credits and commendations earned by students also contribute to the final house point total. In general there is much rivalry between each house during inter-house events although there is little differentiation during normal school periods.
Each house is headed by a Head of House, two Heads of Creativity, two Heads of Action, two Heads of Service and two Heads of Environment from the senior school (Year 12-13). The Heads are in charge of organising the events within their house throughout the year.
For each year, there is one form for each house. Each house has a form tutor who is as such affiliated with that house. The form tutor can choose to stay with that form until the end of Year 11, where they subsequently reach senior school. Upon reaching senior school, students are jumbled up and put into nine separate forms, more often than not with completely different tutors. However, after their form graduates, teachers may opt for a Year 12 form or vacant tutor spots throughout the school. The form tutor is responsible for that form and sees them in a daily 20 minute session. He/she deals with mostly administrative tasks such as collecting forms and organising house events, and in senior school acts as the students' CAS advisors. There are usually student reps from each form who deal with various types of activities.
Read more about this topic: Sha Tin College
Famous quotes containing the word houses:
“Hast ever ben in Omaha
Where rolls the dark Missouri down,
Where four strong horses scarce can draw
An empty wagon through the town?
Where sand is blown from every mound
To fill your eyes and ears and throat;
Where all the steamboats are aground,
And all the houses are afloat?...
If not, take heed to what I say,
You’ll find it just as I have found it;
And if it lies upon your way
For God’s sake, reader, go around it!”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“These were such houses as the lumberers of Maine spend the winter in, in the wilderness ... the camps and the hovels for the cattle, hardly distinguishable, except that the latter had no chimney.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this observance?’ you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to the LORD, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 12:26-27.