Houses
School Houses were introduced at the beginning of the 20th century, with each House having its own name and colour. Nightingale mauve, Kingsley green, Fry pale blue and Browning brown. By the 1930s there were awards given for winning competitions against other houses in sports. In the beginning there were House notices in the Playroom and a strict House conduct system.
In 1939 four more Houses were added and they were renamed after the different royal Houses (Windsor, Stuart, Tudor, Hanover, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Normandy).
In the 1970s the houses were rearranged again and given names of precious stones (Amethyst, Coral, Garnet and Topaz) because of the school's proximity to the Jewellery Quarter.
At the end of the 1990s they were renamed once more after famous women (Bronte, Pankhurst, Franklin and Nightingale), then when an extra form group was introduced in 2003, then un-introduced in 2005, a new house was created; (Curie). In September 2009 the houses were renamed, once again after famous women. (Parks, Keller, Astor and Cavell)
Read more about this topic: King Edward VI Handsworth
Famous quotes containing the word houses:
“He hung out of the window a long while looking up and down the street. The world’s second metropolis. In the brick houses and the dingy lamplight and the voices of a group of boys kidding and quarreling on the steps of a house opposite, in the regular firm tread of a policeman, he felt a marching like soldiers, like a sidewheeler going up the Hudson under the Palisades, like an election parade, through long streets towards something tall white full of colonnades and stately. Metropolis.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The light by which we see in this world comes out from the soul of the observer. Wherever any noble sentiment dwelt, it made the faces and houses around to shine. Nay, the powers of this busy brain are miraculous and illimitable.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“And the Harvard students in the brick
hallowed houses studied Sappho in cement rooms.
And this Sappho danced on the grass
and danced and danced and danced.
It was a death dance.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)