What a way to end the term! The sun shone on our postponed Sports Day on Thursday, with records tumbling and house pride in full effect. Three school records fell:
Isaac Roper took the Year 7 boys’ high jump record with a height of 1m50cm
Gabriel Kordys took the Year 9 boys’ 100m record in a time of 11.51, beating a record which had stood since 1999 (11.74, set by B Handy, also of Stuart House)
Olive Leaney took the Year 9 girls’ 800m record
The full list is below:
To accompany the record-breaking, it was HANOVER HOUSE who triumphed, retaining the Tug of War Trophy and lifting the Sports Day Cup for the first time since 2010!
It was a close-run thing though, with 2023 winners Lancaster pushing all the way, and Tudor making a late surge in the afternoon events. The final results were as follows:
You can read the Sports Day newspaper, written and compiled by our student journalism team, online here, and below you can see some photos from a brilliant day:
The House Cup 2024
On the last day of term, we awarded the other inter-house trophies. The results were:
Head of House Challenge Cup: for inter-house competitions (2023 holders: Windsor House)
5th: Stuart House
4th: Tudor House
3rd: Hanover House
2nd: Windsor House
1st: Lancaster House
Academics Cup: for house points, attendance, academic competitions (2023 holders: Tudor House)
5th: Hanover House
4th: Windsor House
3rd: Stuart House
2nd: Lancaster House
1st: Tudor House
The House Cup: overall trophy combining everything (2023 holders: Lancaster House)
5th (214 points): Windsor House
4th (240 points):Stuart House
3rd (290 points): Hanover House
2nd (308 points): Lancaster House
1st (318 points): Tudor House
Congratulations to all the students for their tremendous efforts.
The house system has always been integral to the identity of Churchill Academy & Sixth Form. When the school was founded in 1956, as Churchill County Secondary School, it was founded with four “houses” at the very core of the school, named after royal houses of England – Hanover, Stuart, Tudor and Windsor. You can see the original school logo, with the four houses on four corners of a shield, on this bookplate presented to the school’s very first Head Boy, Ivan Devereux, in 1957:
The idea of “houses” in a school goes back to boarding school traditions, when children at a school would literally live in different houses around the school grounds, going to the school building for their lessons and returning to their boarding house for meals, “prep” (or homework) and to sleep in their dormitories. My uncle was actually the housemaster at a boarding school in Yorkshire for many years, and lived in the boarding house permanently with his family. This meant that – in the school holidays – we had the run of the whole, empty place!
My own secondary school was not a boarding school – although it had been historically. This meant that my school also had houses, named after the original housemasters who first took charge of them. There were six houses, and I was in Calverts House – named after Mr Calvert, I presume. I still feel a really close affinity to my school house, and I am still proud to be a Calverts student all these many years later! I know the same is true at Churchill, because many families have a long tradition of grandparents, parents and children being in the same house. This feeling of belonging cannot be manufactured; it is grown and developed over years and years of careful nurturing.
In September 2020, we added Lancaster House to the four original houses at Churchill. Despite the fact that we made the announcement the week before schools went into lockdown, we still managed to implement the change when students returned to face-to-face education following the first round of pandemic closures. Lancaster is now fully established within the Academy, and even managed their first victory in the House Cup in summer 2023!
Pictured above: Lancaster winning the House Cup and Sports Day; Hanover winning the tug of war trophy; Tudor winning the Academics Cup; and Windsor winning the Head of House Challenge Cup and the Senior Trek shield. It must be Stuart House’s turn to win something this year!
Being part of a house is about more than just competitions and trophies (although those are great too!) It is about belonging to something bigger than yourself – your “team” within the larger school. We ensure that students’ behaviour, attendance, and contribution to the Academy all made a difference to their house, as well as to them individually; but it is also the house that is the first stop for pastoral care, student welfare, communication with home and behaviour, through the team of tutors and the fantastic Heads of House. And, even more importantly, the house councils are a vital engine of student leadership within the Academy, driving real change and making a positive difference to our community.
This year’s house captains
At the head of that student leadership effort is our team of house captains. This year’s crop of ten are an exceptional group of students, who are already making a big impact in their leadership of their houses. Heads of House have been running assemblies this week, and it has been great to see the house captains taking their role in that. Their photos are also now up in reception!
As I said at the start, the house system is at the core of Churchill Academy & Sixth Form. The current staff and students are just the stewards of something much bigger than themselves – something that stretches back to the school’s foundation, and which we will pass on – stronger than ever – to those who come after us.
This year’s House Cup competition has been fiercely contested! The House Cup is the trophy of trophies, with every other competition across the year feeding into Mr Davies’ super-computer to arrive at the final result. Every day’s attendance, every reward point, house match, inter-house competition, participant in Sports Day, commendation and contribution ultimately counts towards the House Cup total.
Sports Day is a big part of the House Cup, and this year Tudor’s dominance was finally broken! Hanover won the tug of war competition, thanks to dominant performances from their girls’ teams across the year groups. House captains Zoe and Beth lifted that trophy on Wednesday afternoon, before the final result was announced. It came down to the final two relay races for Lancaster to overhaul Tudor’s lead – by only three points! – but Katie and Erin were delighted to raise the Sports Day cup.
Following Sports Day, we were able to calculate the House Cup totals. Several other competitions had already concluded: Windsor were victorious in the Head of House Challenge and the Senior Trek, so House Captains Evie and Joe were able to receive the trophy and the shield on Thursday morning, followed by Theo and Liam for Tudor in the Academics Cup.
Finally, it was time for the main event. This year, I typed the results live into our Daily Notices Google Doc, with the students in their tutor rooms watching eagerly for the result, knowing that the winning house would process through the Academy to the Hall to receive the cup. It was a real thrill for me to actually hear the “oohs” and “aahs” coming from Windsor and Stuart as I typed into my laptop outside the Hall! But that was nothing to the cheer that went up as Lancaster House were announced as the winners, and gathered in the July sunshine to hold the cup aloft and celebrate with Mr Thomas and the returning Mrs Taylor. A great way to celebrate the end of the year!
In this week’s assemblies I started with some facts and figures. I told the students:
That there were 1,663 of them at the Academy
That we have 168 staff to teach, care for and support them
160,100 rewards points issued – an average of 92.81 per student
That 542 students have reached the milestone of 125 conduct points required for a Headteacher’s Commendation
That 220 have reached the 175 points needed for a Trustees’ Commendation
512 students ordered a maroon “clubs” hoodie in the first round of ordering, to celebrate their participation in extra-curricular activities this year
There were only two points between first and second place in this year’s inter-house academics competition
Of course, the facts and figures only tell part of the story. I went back through the photo archive to jog memories of some of the things our students have got up to this year:
Even these pictures don’t tell the full story. They don’t capture the daily successes and setbacks of lessons and social times, the small things that make a big difference. I spoke at the Celebration of Success events this week about how the mark of a Churchill student is how they respond to both; what they learn from both the achievements and the obstacles to their progress; how they overcome their difficulties, how they build on their accomplishments. These are truly the things that we should celebrate this year.
Priorities
I also spoke to students about the progress we have made on our priorities. I spoke to them about our sustainability initiatives, and how proud we are to have reduced our carbon footprint by just over 70% since 2015. I also congratulated students who had participated in our Seeking Sustainability competition, especially the winning teams from Tudor House with Project Paperless, and Lancaster House’s Chicken Team, who will be implementing their projects over the coming academic year.
We also reviewed our progress on our priority for inclusion and diversity, and I reinforced the importance that every single one of us has to ensure that every student feels welcome and included at school. We have made great strides forward over the course of the year, but we know that this work is never finished – and we are committed to continuing our efforts to educate and empower our students to go on making a positive difference.
The House Cup
The House Cup: who will win?
It was an unusual end-of-year assembly, because I was not able to award the House Cup. The postponement of Sports Day means that, at the time of writing, there are still enough points up for grabs that any house could still triumph in the year-long competition. Tudor are in the lead, but Windsor are only just behind them, with Lancaster, Stuart and Hanover snapping at their heels. Tudor have already won the Academics Cup this year, and Lancaster have won the Head of House Challenge Cup – but the overall competition is still wide open. I am assured that, through the wonders of modern technology, the Sports Day scores will be fed instantaneously into the supercomputer to provide us with an overall total for both competitions on Friday. So, at the end of the events, we will be able to award the Tug of War trophy, the Sports Day cup, and the overall House Cup – all in one go! Check the Academy’s newsletter for the final result…
Summer
Finally, I went through the plans we have in place to ensure all students stay safe in the coming heatwave, before wishing them all a restful and relaxing summer holiday – which is well deserved after this rollercoaster of a year!
In my end-of-year assemblies this week, I have tried to do three things. Firstly, I have tried to look back over the year that we’ve had. Secondly, I have celebrated the successes of our students – including awarding the House Cup! And finally, I have looked ahead to next year.
The year gone by
SARS-CoV-2 virus
The year has, of course, been dominated by the coronavirus. It is a tiny thing, ≈0.1 μm in diameter, yet it has led to more than 5m cases and 128,000 deaths in England, according to government figures. It’s worth remembering: this is not normal. This is not how we are used to living. And we hope that it will change.
It’s easy to characterise the year gone by in terms of what we’ve missed out on. From October, we’ve missed out on our vertical tutor groups, which make our House system so strong. After Christmas we were locked down, with some students joining us in school for Frontline, but most of them set up at home with laptops, tablets or mobile phones to access Google Meets and Zooms. We missed out on face to face teaching, on seeing our friends, and on seeing our families. We’ve missed out on holidays, on trips to the cinema or the theatre, on seeing live music and sporting events.
It has been a hard year. But I don’t want to focus on what we’ve missed out on. What I want to do is to be grateful for the fact that we are here. We are together at the end of this really difficult year with a lot to be grateful for. If we start with where we are as a country, we can see that many, many fewer people are now dying as a result of COVID-19. We should be grateful to the amazing National Health Service for the vaccination programme they have rolled out, as well as the incredible care they have offered during this pandemic.
As a school we are grateful that, thanks to the efforts and focus of our students during lockdown and beyond, we are seeing that the vast majority have remained on track with learning through this year. In other words, our students are not a million miles away from where we would expect them to be in if they hadn’t spend several months learning through a screen.
Celebrating success
I was really pleased that we were able to complete our Activities Week and Sports Day towards the end of term, despite the pandemic. These were great opportunities to celebrate successes, including learning beyond the classroom in different environments. Of course, Tudor House won through on Sports Day, although Lancaster led the way in Year 8, and Hanover in Years 9 and 10 – so next year it’s all up for grabs!
Over this last week of term, alongside holding the finals of our Bake Off, Poetry and Spelling Bee competitions, we have been sending home our Celebration of Success certificates to students whose attitude to learning, academic accomplishments, and personal qualities shine through day after day, week after week, month after month. It has been a great honour to review those awards and see them added to this year’s Roll of Honour. I hope that, next year, we will be able to hand them out in person.
The established end-of-year traditions have also been disrupted this year – and the House Cup competition is no exception. There have been many fewer inter-house events than we would have normally held, and we are really looking forward to coming back full throttle next year! The competition was still held however, with the following winners:
Academics: combination of each House’s attendance, conduct points and effort grades – winners STUART HOUSE and LANCASTER HOUSE.
Competitions: combined totals from all the inter-house competitions – winners TUDOR HOUSE.
Overall House Cup Winners: combined totals from all the inter-house activities – winners TUDOR HOUSE
Congratulations to all our students – and especially to Tudor House!
Looking ahead
The pandemic will still be with us in the year ahead. However the new guidance on contact tracing and isolation outlined in my recent update letter to parents will, we hope, reduce the disruption caused to education. We are looking forward to what we hope will be an uninterrupted year with our students, to get back to what we do best – inspiring and enabling young people to make a positive difference.
We are so grateful to our students for the positive difference they have made to our Academy community by being part of it this year. In our students I see bundles of potential, just waiting to be channelled and unleashed on the world. Even when things have been difficult, they have been a pleasure to work with. We are so proud of the positive difference they have made to themselves this year: the progress they have made in their learning; the confidence, resilience and determination they have built up as they have overcome challenges; and the kindness they have shown to themselves and others in their actions. As we step forward to next year in pursuit of the priorities laid out in our development plan, we look forward to what we can achieve together.
More immediately, of course, we are looking forward to a well-deserved summer break. After the year we’ve had, our students deserve some time to rest, recharge and recover – and our staff desperately need it too! The Headteacher’s Blog will return in September.
This has been a year like no other! Despite all the challenges, there has been much to celebrate. In this, our final week, we have devoted ourselves to celebrating success – and awarding the House Cup!
House Cup: Attendance
We have only counted attendance up to March this year…for obvious reasons!
Congratulations to the overall winners: STUART HOUSE!
House Cup: Events
There have been a number of inter-house competitions this year. Not as many as we would have liked to have held, but we managed to squeeze some in!
House Cup: Attitude to Learning
For this competition, we take the average attitude to learning for every student in each house in each year group. All “Highly Motivated” grades scores 100%, and all “Disengaged” would score 0% (nobody actually scored this at Churchill!)
Many congratulations to the overall Attitude to Learning winners: TUDOR HOUSE!
House Cup: Conduct Points
For this competition we total up the net reward points for each house, and subtract any concern points issued. We also do an average score per student because there aren’t quite the same number of students in each house – but this year, that doesn’t change the overall standings!
Congratulations to the Conduct Points winners: TUDOR HOUSE!
House Cup: House Matches
We haven’t been able to hold all our House Matches this year, but we did have an inter-house virtual House Match Quiz during lockdown!
Congratulations to the overall House Matches winners: WINDSOR HOUSE!
House Cup: Virtual Sports Day
Sports Day is one of the highlights of the Academy Calendar. We didn’t let lockdown put us off, and Team PE ran a week-long virtual sports day this year instead! There were 1.3k hits on the website, with 880 entries from 600 unique users over the course of the week…with a nail-biting finale which went right to the wire!
House Cup: The Final Result
One of the privileges of being Headteacher is that I have no House allegiances at all. This means that I am the only one who has access to the top secret massive House Competition spreadsheet, where all of the points from all the competitions are fed into a secret formula to keep running totals and calculate the winner. And this year, the winner is…
WINDSOR HOUSE!
Congratulations to Windsor, who ran out clear winners. Fortunately, Mr Cross was in school this week, so I was able to hand over the Sports Day Trophy and the House Cup, adorned with Windsor blue ribbons, for a quick photo. What a great way to mark his final year in charge of Windsor!
Congratulations to Windsor House!
Next year, with five houses in the running and (we hope) the Academy open all year, all bets are off and it’s anyone’s game! Remember, every day you turn up to school, every reward point you earn, every grade you get on your report, every competition you take part in…they all contribute to your house total. Everybody counts. Well done to all of you for all your efforts this year!
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