Do you remember?

Mrs Nola Squire

DO YOU REMEMBER?

FORTY YEARS OF HOUSE AT GRAMMAR!

Can you believe it? Our House system is celebrating its 40th year! Decades of memories of House can be recalled: House meetings, tute meetings, House rooms, House dinners, family picnics, swimming and athletic sports, House badges and mottoes, service days, Robin barbecues, Krome donuts, walk-a-thons, swim-a-thons and sleep-a-thons, House Chapel Services, brother-sister House activities, House choral competitions, war cries, banners, the pageantry of “entries”, Smith sausage sizzles, the 40-hour Famine, House picnics, House Tutors (now Mentors), the cheering and the tears of sharing, the colour, the friendships and loyalties, the joy of belonging and having a role to play. You will want to add to this list. Perhaps you might like to send your reminiscences to the Editor for the next issue of Boomalacka.

We hope that these photographs will bring back memories for you.

SOME HISTORY OF THE HOUSE SYSTEM FOR PASTORAL CARE

In Boomalacka Issue 35, June 1978, the Headmaster, Mr Graeme Renney, made this announcement: “SCHOOL TO ESTABLISH HOUSES”. Following careful planning in 1978, the current system was introduced at the commencement of 1979; it was a huge change to the organisational structure.

As School Captain Lynn Sampson wrote in the school magazine in 1979, “Gone were the old divisions… and in their place were ten houses…House members from forms one to six mingled in house rooms, locker rooms, and classrooms, even that sanctum sanctorum the Cleaver common room was thrown open to all comers…The benefits have quickly become apparent ... there is a new atmosphere of loyalty and allegiance and a feeling of belonging to a group of people who care, and who could forget the swimming sports in first term? House Banners, hordes of cheering Cuthbertities and Nevettlings (to mention just a few), frantic barracking during every race, and an electric excitement in the air. The school had never seen, or heard, anything like it!”

The Senior School was divided into five pairs of Brother/Sister Houses – Butler/ Krome with Heads of House, A. S. Purdey and A. A. Patterson; Dart /Macpherson with Heads of House, R.E. Olston and C. E. Ludbrook; Nevett/Woodbridge, with Heads of House, E. C. Vahl Meyer and S.R. Maiden; Robin/Cuthbert, with Heads of House, G. R. Tunbridge and N.C. Squire; and Wigan / Manifold, with Heads of House, W.J. Muller and H.G. Douglas. Also appointed was a team of five House Tutors, from almost all the teaching staff. Two more Houses, one for girls (Hayhoe, which became a fully-fledged House in 1995), and one for boys (Smith in 1996) have been added since 1979, as growth in the School population continued, and some of the pairings have changed.

THE AIMS OF THE HOUSE SYSTEM WERE TO:

+ + Facilitate cooperation and communication with the family to increase and strengthen the links between child, School and home.

+ + Ensure that every student is cared for, known, and valued.

+ + Ensure that sufficient factual knowledge is built up of the background and general circumstances of each individual student.

+ + Provide students with a fixed group to which they will belong during their time at the school.

+ + Provide students with a friend and counsellor amongst members of the staff.

+ + Provide a means of bridging the gap from primary to secondary school and of orientation of new students to the school.

+ + Provide a means of identifying academic, social, intellectual, emotional, recreational, guidance and adjustment needs of students and of taking steps to follow up on these.

+ + Provide students with opportunities for working together as a group or team towards a common goal, for example, by promoting healthy competition in academic, service and sporting pursuits.

If you have some stories about House that you would like to share, please email Boomalacka Editor, Marnie Pullin at marnie.pullin@bgs.vic.edu.au