2021 has been a spectacular year for Clayton house. Throughout the year, we claimed multiple victories for the house, showing off our fantastic all-round skill and aptness. However, due to our honourable, sportsmanlike nature, we felt it necessary to concede a select few competitions to the other floundering houses.

Each one of the house assemblies Clayton held were tremendously successful and really spoke volumes about the astonishing levels of motivation of the members of our glorious house. For our annual House Day, Clayton made the stomach-turning journey to Warrington, where we were greeted with blue skies and scorching temperatures. Here, we participated in various events organised by the Year 13s, including the elusive cork hunt, a couple games of Infection, and the fiercely competitive tug-of-war tournament. We left House Day fuelled on pre-cooked sausages and determined to defeat Aoraki in the upcoming Athletics Day.

Clayton’s bid to end its 8 year losing streak and reclaim the House Cup began excellently. Armed with electric-blue paint and ear-splitting chants, Clayton was determined to quell the terrible Aoraki’s smug winning streak. Miraculously, Clayton out-ran, threw, and leapt its competition to come within easy reach of securing the victory. (Of course, due to our brilliant sportsmanship, we conceded the victory to Aoraki shortly thereafter.)

The Interhouse O’Mathalon was such a resounding success, Clayton decided to handicap themselves to even up the other houses’ chances. They performed this charitable feat by completing the entire competition one player down. The interhouse sports competitions were very similar: although our house’s motivation was undeniably stunning and unparalleled, our ever-considerate and infinitely wise house leaders decided to play with fewer players to give the other houses a chance. (Of course, if we had been told beforehand that it would be based on participation points, we would have won by a clear landslide!)

One event which must be mentioned is the interhouse game show. In an astounding landslide victory for Clayton, the members of our glorious house asserted their intellectual dominance while answering a series of gruelling trivia questions that would determine which house was truly and unquestionably the best.

A huge thanks to Dr Thompson and our stupendous Clayton teachers for supervising the groups in 2021. Thanks to Leilani, Marcus, Phoebe, and Poppy for being awesome house leaders and deputies (alongside myself, of course). And thanks to Clayton for demonstrating that, with just a little bit of effort, we can achieve anything!