Six Houses
We moved to a new six-house system from September 2022, see this letter for more details.
New Houses:
Emerald House (Green) Head of House – Mr Talibart
Quartz House (Yellow) Head of House – Mr Toovey
Sapphire House (Blue) Head of House – Mrs Lambert
Amethyst House (Purple) Head of House – Mr Marshall James
Topaz House (Orange) Head of House – Mr Darmanin
Ruby House (Red) Head of House – Ms Kiernan
New House Names: How did we find our new houses?
Rationale:
When we decided to move to six houses, we had to create new ones to ensure that all have the same status and to avoid some students moving out of their old house to fill a new one. We therefore needed six new house names.
When thinking about new names we set a few ground rules:
1. No names of people:
- Worthy people who appeal to students and adults are very different, and these influences change over time: our houses need to last.
- There have been many instances where illustrious individuals have become embroiled in negativity: we don’t want to risk tainting our new houses.
2. No dispositions: If we had one house called ‘Courage House’, that would imply that people in other houses cannot share that attribute.
3. Any object must be something which we can use to help illustrate and convey a wide variety of attributes and values: we want something we can use in many ways.
The process:
As part of the consultation process students and staff were invited to contribute suggestions for new house names: these many suggestions were narrowed down to common themes that met with the above ground rules.
The three finalists were found and debated at SLT: we wanted something naturally occurring to chime with the increasing importance of environmental education, each finalist was suggested multiple times and met the other criteria too. All Students were given the opportunity to vote for their preferred option.
The result:
The three finalists were trees, gemstones and local rivers. In the voting process gemstones received the majority vote, claiming twice as many votes as the runner up.
The future:
Calthorpe Park students aspire to be brilliant, reflective and resilient. We know every individual is precious, unique and multifaceted. These attributes are clearly reflected in the characteristics of our chosen gemstones. Like each gemstone every student is valued as a rare and precious individual with unique qualities, starting points and history.
Next steps:
We need a new strong identity for each house and we want students to be involved in that. Heads of House will lead a process of defining the House characteristics and identity throughout next term. In September this will be new, by December the house profiles will be vibrant and vital, ready to be treasured for many years to come.