House Matters

Pastoral roles are changing in schools. Maybe the discussion of non-teaching pastoral leaders is for another day, but today I’d like to share the relatively-rare system which is at the core of all we do in my school.

I teach in an all boys comprehensive in Coventry. We’re a good school but pretty much straight down the middle in most criteria, with boys coming from challenging areas, affluent areas and all across the city. We do some things really well, have challenges which all similar schools have, and challenges which are unique to us due to our set up. We’re also one of the oldest built comprehensive schools in the country, constructed in the 1950s. More and more schools are recognising the importance of the House system and are reintroducing it; for us, it never went away, and as a result, it retains a special feel.

Our Houses all exist in separate buildings. These buildings each contain a House room, lockers and cloakroom, staffroom, toilet block and office. Students go to their Houses before school, at break time, eat their lunch in there with the House staff, and return there after school if necessary. Each House contains one group from each year, and so there are about 130 pupils in each House. There are weekly Inter-House competitions after school and House points allocated and trophies awarded. Boys belong to a House and this sense of belonging remains with them for life. It’s a House, because it’s a family.

I have the privilege of being a Househead. I have a team of tutors and we meet daily. The students have a full House assembly twice a week, three tutor registration sessions, four afternoon formal full House registrations, and a year-based SLT Assembly. I, or the team, address the House ten times a week and the students and staff spend up to two hours a day in the House.

That’s a huge amount of potential face to face contact between staff and pupils and leads to the underpinning ethos of the school, which is all about the importance of relationship, loyalty and respect. It’s hard work—non-contact time is precious and break and lunch is usually spent surrounded by pupils—but in terms of setting the standard, the House system simply works.

My job description calls me a ‘Learning Leader’, and this has been a fundamental shift in focus over the last few years. My role is not to discipline (although this happens); my primary function is not to reconcile or advocate or find solutions (although these are major parts of the job). My role is to place learning and achievement at the heart of all we do, and pass on the understanding that everything has an impact on the learning community.

Every time I stand in front of the House I am reminded what a precious role we have as teachers. The importance of setting standards, of role modelling, of presenting to students the possibilities that there is more to life than their experiences; the ability to start the day off positively, the opportunity there is to inspire young people...how much the House matters.

In all the battles of everyday classroom teaching and pastoral leadership it is easy to lose sight of what we’re in it for: because we love teaching, and we love seeing lives changing. And let’s be honest—if it was simple, we wouldn’t enjoy it as much would we?