The House System
- A house system was introduced in 1919, whereby pupils were placed into one of four houses, named after the four provinces of Ireland, Ulster, Munster, Leinster or Connacht, irrespective of which part of Ireland they came from.
- Pupils in their first year at Portora entered Gloucester House, a separate preparatory department. Today, there is no separate prep school, however the name Gloucester House survives as the name of the Pastoral House for Year 8 pupils.
- The remainder of the school is divided into the four provincial houses.
However, Houses exist to facilitate a range of extra-curricular provision and the pastoral provision is horizontal with form tutors and Key Stage heads reporting to Vice Principal Student Support.
Read more about this topic: Portora Royal School
Famous quotes containing the words house and/or system:
“The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.”
—Kahlil Gibran (18831931)
“There are obvious places in which government can narrow the chasm between haves and have-nots. One is the public schools, which have been seen as the great leveler, the authentic melting pot. That, today, is nonsense. In his scathing study of the nations public school system entitled Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol made manifest the truth: that we have a system that discriminates against the poor in everything from class size to curriculum.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)