There are 4 houses in our school (Parāoa - Blue, Toki - Red, Koru - Green, Matau - Yellow), and every student is placed in a house.
A house is a team of students from across the age groups, so there are about 200 students in each house, and about 50 students in each age group, within a house.
Approximately every 3 weeks we will have "House Friday" this year. On this day students will be allowed to wear an item of clothing that is the colour of their house. The rest of their clothing needs to be their normal school uniform.
Why have School Houses ?
We think it gives all our students the opportunity to be part of a different team setup that promotes working together, connections across age groups, competitions, trying new things (teachers and students), learning how to be involved (win, lose, share and be grateful), encouraging and supporting others, where siblings can be together and teachers can mix with students from different year groups. We feel it fosters a sense of unity and commitment, allowing for a whole lot of fun and opportunity.
What will our School House organisation look like this year ?
Our staff house leaders are currently planning this but here are some ideas they will draw from.
Fridays become a house time (House Friday - Whare Rāmere) every 3 weeks, rather than an assembly time.
House Friday (Whare Rāmere) - students can wear a house coloured item.
House Friday (Whare Rāmere) is also a time to promote what is coming up - sort teams, participants, chants, waiata.
Students will be encouraged to lead house activities with teacher support.
A house time will be where teachers are doing things within your house, getting to know each other, building relationships - Tuakana/ teina, team building activities (not just competition).
There will be smaller group times so it’s not so loud or intimidating for younger students and they can be involved. Students will be split into mixed age groups and have rotations with the different teachers in your house. The students will be doing fun things together like art, challenges, sports, games, cultural activities, quizzes, shared eating times etc.
We aim to keep house colours at the forefront of our minds and allow for it to be part of total school organisation weekly - Duties : art club could be for house colours one day of the week , swimming could be for a house one day of the week, library could be one day of the week, badminton/ pickleball one day of the week etc have fun collaborative moments with our house so that we can form relationships with each other not always competitive. We could have Whare Rāmere shared eating times.
Houses will still be part of all major events and points given e.g. Triathlon, talent show, x country, garden to table cookoff, football and netball competitions, haka and waiata competitions, dance off, art displays. A timetable of house events for the year will be created.
On House Friday - Whare Rāmere, the break time activities are reserved for House activities (every 3rd week)
We hope this has given you some insight to house organisation for our school.
This Friday, students will all be able to get a house point if they are wearing an item of clothing in their house colour, they will get another house point for finishing their triathlon, and also if they finish in the top 10 for their year group and show outstanding examples of sportspersonship and leadership they will get extra points. It is going to be a great day.
Hope the weather holds out and hope to see you there.