House System
The House system further develops the sense of belonging and family at Fisher More. Every student, member of staff, and governor are placed in to one of the four Houses named after each of the Patron Saints of the United Kingdom: St Andrew, St David, St George, and St Patrick.
Within each House sit two forms from each year group. The 8 forms in each year group are named after cities in the United Kingdom that are home to a Catholic cathedral – Ayr, Glasgow, Cardiff, Swansea, Liverpool, Westminster, Belfast, and Derry.
The House system enables students from across all 5 year groups to work with, and support each other, through a number of different House competitions and initiatives throughout the year. At the end of each week the House league table is updated with all points awarded throughout the week from the various House competitions. Attendance, merits gained, and words read are also recognised through the House points system, alongside sporting and curriculum competitions.
4 House captains from Year 11 are selected to lead their Houses throughout their final year at Fisher More. These captains are supported in their work by the Year 11 and 10 vice captains and the House form representatives from years 7 – 9. Together this team make up the Fisher More House council.
You said, we did (from the above minutes):
Personal Development time
You wanted more structure and focus on current affairs. Set days are now in place for celebrating and discussing pastoral issues, assemblies and current affairs. We have now introduced ‘The Day’ twice a week to give students and staff opportunity to read about, discuss and debate current affairs. The next council meeting will give students the opportunity to formulate an environment branch to the House council so that we can improve our school environment.
Lunch time provision
Year 10’s now line up for first come first served lunch instead of lining up in Houses. At present we need to keep KS3 in Houses when lining up due to the imminent building works that are due to commence around school. The dining room and kitchens are both to be extended through the new building project so this will make lunches in the dining room much better in time to come. The Sports Hall is now in use for all available KS3 lunches -students should refer to the weekly ‘What’s on in PE’ bulletin that is posted out to all form tutors every Friday. Break time basketball will also be launched again as soon as the mock exams have finished. The cross curricular idea for RE and PE to put on an Easter Egg hunt during orienteering lessons is brilliant and has been put into place for the last week of term. The PE department have also invested in some glow in the dark equipment to bring a bit more variety to extra-curricular, this is in addition to now using the drama studio for some fitness based lessons. Unfortunately, it is not possible to move the treadmills and other fitness equipment back into a dedicated gym yet, hopefully space could be found again when the new build is complete.
Rewards and sanctions
Mrs Bowdin has now been employed to oversee the rewards system, she has loads of plans in place for rewarding those who achieve the most merits. Mr Swarbrick has recently given several briefings to all staff with regards the importance of staff being consistent in giving out merits and demerits. We now have a staff league table!