Hero photograph
 
Photo by Hilary Johnson

House Competition Format

Simon Quin —

Our school Houses have been an important part of our tradition for close to 60 years. The aim of a House system is to foster school pride and the engagement of students so that they form a greater connection with the school through competing against and supporting each other.

A House system also acknowledges the importance of the history and traditions of the Houses. We have a number of activities that students are involved in that are House competitions.

Up until 2011 there was no overall winning House. This meant that those existing individual events tended to lose focus/importance as House competitions. In 2012 we started to collate points for each event and crown an overall House champion. This has led to an increase in House spirit and has added more value to the individual events. The number of events has also grown over the last few years.

The points system, (see attached PDF at the bottom of this page) is designed to reflect the different nature of each House event and allow for new events to be easily added as the years go by. Our House competitions fall into three different categories in terms of how many points they are worth in the overall competition.

Category 1 - Full school events (must involve a large group of students – 100 plus)

Examples = Swimming Sports, Athletics Sports, Cross Country, Haka and Waiata

Category 2  - Smaller events open to the whole school (but participation is below 100 students)

Examples = Triathlon, Lyp-Synch, Talent Quest, Divas & Divos

Category 3 -  Additional events that we want to include in the House system

Examples = Blood donation