Highgate School - Houses

Houses

The school operates a house system like many other public schools and on entering, pupils are placed in a house according to where they live (although the system does appear inaccurate, on occasions). These houses are Northgate, Southgate, Westgate, Eastgate, Queensgate, Kingsgate, Midgate, Fargate, Heathgate, The Lodge, School House and Grindal. Each house has a Housemaster in charge of the pastoral, as well as academic well-being of house-members, and tutors for each year group. This system, which Dyne, like other public school headmasters, copied from Arnold's at Rugby School, was established to create "house spirit" among the students, allowing for both academic and sporting competitions among the houses. Some of these, like School House, Grindal, Cordell and The Lodge used to be boarding houses. Grindal and Westgate are the only houses to have their own old boys' clubs, the Mitre Club and the Zephyr Club respectively. However, other houses, such as Kingsgate, are newer, having been created by a dissaffected group of Westgateans in the 1970s.

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Famous quotes containing the word houses:

    Do you see how the god always hurls his bolts at the greatest houses and the tallest trees. For he is wont to thwart whatever is greater than the rest.
    Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)

    Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
    And all that mighty heart is lying still!
    William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

    Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light,—to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)