House System

All students are allocated to one of four Houses which are named after Olympic heroes and whose names will be reviewed after each Olympic Games. The Houses are

LEWIS HOUSE

THOMPSON HOUSE

MOORHOUSE HOUSE

REDGRAVE HOUSE

Each House is run by a Head of House. On arrival at Palatine each student is allocated to a House both of which are composed of students from all year groups. The House is the centrepiece of the achievement system.  In addition each House has a House Captain and Vice Captain who are usually Year 11 pupils who lead the House on behalf of the student body. Each form will have a House representative who will represent the views of their form at the House Council Meetings.

The purpose of the House system is to engender a spirit of participation and competition in line with the ethos of a specialist sports college. Students can contribute to their House totals in a number of ways both in and out of the classroom. Membership of clubs, societies and teams gain points as does performance in lessons in terms of achievement, effort and even attendance. Competition is important and a number of inter-house competitions are held each year.

Students can see how their House is performing when half-termly totals are announced in House Assemblies and displayed around school. At the end of the school year the winning House receives the Friends of Palatine Trophy.

Students enjoy being members of a House and soon develop an affinity and a loyalty towards it. Good natured competition is intense and for those students who are not naturally competitive there are many other ways for them to play their part in contributing to the success of their House.

The House competition has started in earnest this year with all the houses competing for the title of overall winners 2007/8.

We welcome a new Head of house Miss Lonsdale and a welcome return to Mrs Davies and say a huge thank you to both Miss Ridgway and Mrs Hallas for an excellent job as Heads of House in the previous year.

Lewis (Miss Thomas), Redgrave(Mrs Davies) and Thompson(Miss Lonsdale) are all determined to knock last years winners Moorhouse off the top sport however Miss Green is already rallying her troops to retain the title.

In the first Half term of this year we have had two interhouse competitions the results are below:

Interhouse Skipping                                                                         Interhouse Spelling

Overall Results:  1st Moorhouse                                                    Moorhouse                                     

                            2nd Lewis                                                            Redgrave

                           3rd  Redgrave                                                      Lewis

                           4th Thompson                                                      Thompson

In addition to the interhouse competitions pupils can collect house points on an individual basis for all aspects of school life. Below are the top ten pupils for the first half term.

1st  Laura Bunting         Lewis house         240 house points

2nd  Amy Chen              Lewis House        238 House Points

3rd  Rachel Clarke         Lewis House        229 House Points

4th  Sophie Heath         Redgrave House  219 House Points

4th  Channon Heaney  Thompson House  219 House Points

6th  Hannah Cartlidge   Redgrave House   218 House Points

7th Danielle Tweedale  Moorhouse House  214 House POints

8th  Joseph Darnell       Thompson House   213 Hoise Points

8th  Jamie Brooke         Thompson House    213 House Points

10th  Africa Newton     Thompson House   212 House Points

After the first half term the competition has really come to life with all houses very close to each other. Miss Thomas's Lewis House have taken the early lead the challenge for them is to maintain their position for the whole year however the other three houses are closing the gap fast.

The Interhouse Netball and Football tournaments took place in November and rally impacted on the overall totals. The results were as follows:

Interhouse Football Overall Results                                 Interhouse Netball Overall Results

1st    Thompson House                                                    1st    Moorhouse

2nd    Lewis House                                                           2nd    Lewis House

3rd    Redgrave House                                                    3rd     Thompson House

4th    Moorhouse House                                                  4th      Redgrave House

A new interhouse event took place when we introduced interhouse fell walking for Yr 10 pupils. This was a very physcially challenging event and all the pupils that took part were a credit to themselves. The results were as follows

Interhouse Fell Walking

1st    Moorhouse House

2nd   Lewis House

3rd   Thompson House

4th    Redgrave House

We await the individual pupil totals for the second half term but the current standing are as follows:

1st      Lewis           40,517 House Points

2nd    Moorhouse  40,113 House points

3rd    Thompson     37,501 House POints

4th     Redgrave     37,336 House Points

After Christmas we already have planned Interhouse Dodgeball and an Interhouse Quiz.

In addition the House System has taken on Charity Work as a feature of the system. We have decided that we will have a competition between Houses on how much money can be raised by each House however all the money raised will be put together and given to the Lord Mayor of Blackpools Charity for an MRI Scanner specifically for Children at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.