The House System at Holy family is made up of one form class from each year group 7 to 13 and each House is named in Honour of a Christian Saint.  We have six Houses and each House has a teacher who is a designated House Leader:

• St. Anne - Ms Parker
• St.Stephen - Ms Atakan
• St. Philomena - Ms Scott
• St. Ignatius - Ms Henry
• St. Richard - Ms Sherwin
• St. Elizabeth - Mr Wilbraham

Every member of Holy family including students, teachers, support and administrative staff are allocated to a house. This is to give everyone a sense of identity and belonging. Staff events will encourage competition and well-being as well as contributing valuable points to the Houses.

Why have a House System?

Pride – A sense of belonging to a House and forging friendships with different groups of students.
Teamwork – Working with other age groups to achieve a common goal.
Leadership – Taking lead roles in projects, tournaments and competitions.

What are the benefits?

Healthy competition – To be humble in victory and magnanimous in defeat.
Citizenship – Seeing beyond the school, working on charity fund raising events for local and international causes.
Participation – Doing your best not only for yourself but also for your House.

We celebrate each Saint with House assemblies each term, in which the House Leader inspires pupils about the work of their Saint to God and guides pupils on how they can also be living Saints. Pupils are offered the chance to choose a charity in which they can actively make a difference by organising fundraising events to raise money. Pupils are also praised for their success and achievements with the focus being on spiritual self-achievement.  

Each House has a House Celebration Day. We try to celebrate reasonably close to the Saints’ feast day. The day starts with a House Mass. For this we join the 9.15am parish Mass at Our Lady and St George. Students serve Mass, do the readings and bring up the gifts. Students then go to period 2 and 3 lesson as normal. Period 4, students re-join as a House on the one site and have an early celebration lunch together. After lunch, the Friends’ Association has funded an ice-cream for each student which we get from a van on site.

To raise a competitive spirit, there are House Competition Fortnights once a term to foster friendly competition and fellowship. Although the points add up through the year and the winning House gets to go off site to a museum on one of our summer term enrichment days, we believe the reward is more intrinsic. Staff are also were encouraged to put on events for charity fortnight, we had a 5km run, Greek/Turkish breakfast and a vegetarian one.

House Leaders send a fortnightly bulletin to the staff in their House to share with students. The bulletin always includes the House Saint’s prayer and they also regularly contribute to Family Matters. All staff have a lanyard in their House colour, staff have the opportunity to wear a House T-shirt and or/hoodie sporadically.

Each House has a House Charity. Students put forward charities to be considered and there is a vote for the House charity during the first House assembly of the year. Last year our charities were

• St Anne—GOSH (Great Ormond Street Hospital)
• St Stephen—Mind ( The Mental Health Charity)
• St Philomena—Macmillan Cancer Support
• St Ignatius –RSPCA ( Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)
• St Richard—Cancer Research
• St Elizabeth— Farleigh Hospice (Charity for care to people affected by life limiting illness)

Last year we had our inaugural House Charity Fortnight, Forms had to raise as much money as possible within the fortnight. Most of this was student-led with pupils coming up with the ideas, doing the planning and pulling off the event. A great success and a feature we want to build into the Holy Family calendar each year. Overall amount raised £1723.64. It was a success and we will be running this again this year.

Next year the House Leaders will be running the school Summer Fair to raise funds for HFCS, it will be an eventful, fun day for children and adults. Last year activities included a Bouncy Castle, making Slime, Hair Braiding, Hanging Tough competition, Talent Contest, Guess the Sweets in the Jar, a raffle, there was also cake & doughnut sale, fresh Grill BBQ, Arts and Crafts stall. We look forward to this event happening again and to you all coming!

It’s going to be a great year!

The House Team.

ASPIRE to The Holy Family Way

This is our school motto and works alongside our Saints and House System.