WILLIAM House William has shown a competitive spirit thus far in all house activities. A special thanks must go to our House Captain, Zaina Arshad, and our Vice- Captain Maaria Khan, who jointly led an inspirational assembly on motivation for the students. For the October Enrichment Day, the Year 11 students got their House off to a perfect start, by winning the dodge ball competition and also came third in House Football. For the team table tennis, House William were placed fourth, however Muniruddin Saiyed was second in the individual event. The Enrichment Day in December, mainly involved the lower school students. The highlight for House William was the Year 8s being placed second in football. The Year 9s competed in table tennis, dodgeball and football, where a number of points were awarded for their efforts. In January, it was the return of the House Spelling Competition. Special mention should go to Ahmed Rassan (7W), Parthan Patel (8W), Sami Chodhury (9W), Kian Tynan (10W) and Sayed Ali (11W), all of whom bravely fought off strong competition in each of their rounds. February saw 7W competing in the House table tennis and basketball matches, but their best performance was in the handball, where they claimed second place. All students helped to contribute vital points to the overall House competition. 11W also competed in house football and house debate and their determined efforts saw them finish in second place. Winter was the theme of the House Photography Competition. Out of the 116 entries submitted, Year 10 clinched the winning photograph. Well done to Zaide Ebrahim! March also saw the House Quiz, where once again House William secured a number of points, thanks to the following students; Luke Puzalu and Amandeep Dehl (7W); second place to Evon Beqiri and Atharv Baghwala (8W); Arjun Sabherwal and Raahil Junaid (9W), second place to Rio Masih and Reegan Sidaway (10W); Jason Bhatti and Sundeep Dhillon (11W). The final set of House results came from the Enrichment Day in May. House William had a very good day, with 8W winning the table tennis and the handball competitions and 10W were winners of the House football. Mr McCarron GALAHAD After completing the ‘hat-trick’, and retaining the house cup last year, Galahad began the year with high expectations. This year, we all started from scratch again with a new cohort of Year 7 students making their first contributions. As head of Galahad house, I have always been keen to promote enjoyment, participation, competitive spirit, and a sense of camaraderie with other Galahad forms and indeed forms from other houses. At the time of writing, even though Galahad have done well in the events so far, William house have a substantial lead on SIMS and some very good younger form groups. However, we shall not give up the trophy without a fight! I think that maybe sports day could be particularly decisive this year. Regardless of that, we have achieved some very notable successes during the year as follows: Both 8G and 11G triumphed in the House debate and 11G also won the house football competition. 9G and 10G were the top house spellers and 10G won the house quiz. The Year 9 Individual Table tennis winner was Yaseen Ahmed and Ishmael Mohammed, an extremely talented young cricketer, is now playing for Warwickshire U15s. As well as sporting and academic success the artistic members of Galahad took part in the Winter House Photography with Faraaz Khan taking third place for Year 7. Impressively Year 8 managed to take the top three places with Arun Desai coming top followed by Rupinderjeet Dhanoa and Muhammad Awais. They also took two of the top three places in Year 9 and 10 with Yaseen Ahmed and Roshan Patel coming second and Faisal Jajeh and Ritish Sadhra finishing third. Year11 were as impressive as Year 8 and managed to secure the top three places. Rohan Nath was first followed by Francis Czech and Amar Rupra. Ms Lin-Fellows also came third in the staff competition. In addition to these house events, Galahad also had students in all year groups who made a significant positive contribution to the house through SIMS which recognises academic excellence, good behaviour, and extra curricular activities amongst other things. Our two most notable successes on SIMS in each Galahad form, Years 7- 10 were : Kai Dawkins +182 and Shoaib Mahmood +175; Amar Aulakh +242 and Abdulrehman Shaker +205; Krishan Patel +162 and Dharam Rana +161 and Rajan Aulakh +165 and Saif-Ullah Hussain +154 A big thank you and well done to all G-force forms, particularly 11G who have been superb, and all students in 11G have received either ‘full’ or ‘half’ colours. Mr A Campbell THE HOUSE SYSTEM A House system is a traditional feature of many schools, an idea that has had a resurgence in popularity since the publication of the Harry Potter series. You of course were not magically sorted into the house that suited you best by an enchanted hat but you were assigned to one of the five houses named after the figures in the Memorial Window in the school hall. The Memorial Window was unveiled in July 1921 to commemorate the “everlasting memory of the old boys of the school” who died in the First and Second World Wars. In 2014 the house system was reintroduced and the houses were named after five of the nine figures in the Memorial Window: Cromwell, Lord Nelson, Drake, William 1, Henry V, King Alfred, St George and Sir Galahad. We have re-established a varied and enjoyable programme of events including sporting competitions, quizzes, an annual house photography competition and charity fund raising events. A hundred years ago your House would have been decided geographically – a boy living in a certain area would have automatically become a member of the corresponding house. If you were from Handsworth Wood you would have been in Handsworth Wood House, if you lived closer to Soho you would have been in Soho House and so on. More recently the Houses were named after previous head teachers, Clendon, Hart and Guest and various trustees of the school. Maybe you can think of a way of contributing to the success of your house. Remember you will get merits for initiating and participating in House activities and these will help your House to get their hands on the House Cup at the end of the Summer term! Forget the Sorting Hat … get on your thinking cap! Ms Brown 27