Houses
At St James Primary we have four houses and the children are allocated to one when they join the school. Children are given housepoints for good behaviour and for being a good role-model for others. We appoint eight house leaders from Y6 in September. who lead their houses throughout the year (more details about that below).
Our houses are named Ellis, Reffold, Tilson and Young. The names were selected, with help from the school council, in July 2018. The houses are named after four former pupils of the school who sadly lost their lives in World War 1. This was the perfect way for us to commemorate the fallen as part of our World War 1 centenary work in 2018:
George Charles Ellis
George Reffold
Ernest Tilson
Harold Young
We will remember them.
Each house has a motto, chosen by the house captains in 2019.
Young: Be brave, be Young!
Tilson: The sky's the limit!
Ellis: Striving to be the best!
Reffold: Live to leap!
House LEADERS & Head Pupils
Each house has two house leaders who are appointed in July, ready for the following year. The children apply for the role towards the end of Year 5 using an application form and covering letter, and then we interview them formally. We believe this gives the children a fair chance, whilst experiencing a formal interview for the first time.
From these interviews we also appoint two head pupils who help to guide the other Year 6 leaders and assist in the running of the school, including the School Council. They also act as worship leaders.
HousepointS
We use a token system for housepoints. Each house has a token of their colour and when a house point is awarded, the child puts their house point in the corresponding pot. Once a week these tokens are collected by the leaders and taken to the library collection point where they are counted once a month.
CoMpetitions
Every half term we run a different inter-house competition. This helps the children build skills in a variety of areas whilst inviting them to bring out the best of their team spirit and resilience. Inter-house competitions also give children extra chances to work with peers from different year groups within our school.
Each child and member of staff has their own house t-shirt which is worn on special house occasions, as seen below.
2023 - 2024 Competitions:
We have five inter-house competitions every year:
2023 - 2024 House Lunches
-
1/3 - Friday 3rd November - House t-shirts required
-
2/3 - Friday 22nd March - Easter Theme - House t-shirts required
-
3/3 - Friday 28th June - Theme TBC - House t-shirts required
FLAGS
The PTA kindly donated the funds for us to purchase a unique flag for each House. We use the flags when rambling on the common as a whole school, at our termly house lunches (where the children eat in their house groups rather than classes) and at Sports Day.
The J Factor
Whilst the J Factor is no longer a house competition, we still celebrate our talents every year during our school talent show. Years 3 to 6 can audition for the show, usually in April, and the finalists perform for the whole school where they are judged by an impartial panel - usually school governors.
Previous winners include pianists, singers, and more recently 'ice' skating (but using roller blades!) and aerial hoop. But let us not forget when Yolky the scooting chicken made an appearance too!
Previous competitions:
- World War 1 - 100 (artwork created to commemorate the end of WWI)
- The Big St James Quiz (general knowledge quiz with questions from the sports crew)
- Photographer of the Year (in conjunction with the Elstead Gardening Club)
- The St James Bake Off (two rounds of baking)
- Sports Day (the highly contested, traditional sports day)
- School Flag Design competition
- Tackling Food Waste (design a solution to wasting food at St James Primary)
- Designing a Crown for the King's Coronation
Other competitions have included a swimming gala, French work, promoting French speaking places and an engineering challenge to create a strong paper bridge!