New Senior School House Launches
For the first time in its history, Colfe’s Senior School has five Houses after the launch of the new Glyn House.
The new House was launched officially in an inaugural Glyn House assembly, presented by new Head of House Mr James Hope, Teacher of English. The Assistant Head of House is Ms Hope Russell, Teacher of Sport, while the first Glyn House captains are Year 12’s Josh, Dharma, Oscar and Pelin. The Glyn House colour is a regal purple, which will be proudly worn as part of the senior school sports uniform and blazer strips from September 2024.
Glyn House is named after John Glyn, Abraham Colfe’s less celebrated predecessor as Vicar of St Mary’s Church in Lewisham. Glyn was appointed to the parish in the reign of Henry VIII and the school that he is said to have founded in the church itself was most probably the predecessor of the school founded by Colfe himself the following century.
Glyn joins the existing Prendergast, Beardwood, Norton and Bramley Houses, forming the basis for the senior school’s pastoral support system. All pupils join one of the Houses when joining the senior school in Year 7. Each House provides Form tutors, an Assistant Head of House and Head of House as key points of contact for every pupil, providing a clear and supportive network as they progress through the school.
Houses also provide opportunities for many co-curricular competitions, providing plenty of healthy rivalry within the school community as pupils compete in House contests that include sport, drama, music, dance, debating, media and jigsaw. The House competitions are highlights of the year for pupils and staff alike, and always fiercely contested, but are also fundamental in fostering and promoting cohesion, teamwork and collaboration, as well as providing many opportunities for pupils across the year groups to get to know each other.
Mr Hope said: “It is an honour to be the first Head of House for the brand-new Glyn House. The House system is at the heart of the fantastic pastoral support system at Colfe’s. It enables students to be heard, listened to and cared for, and gives them an opportunity to shape their school. Being part of a House brings a sense of belonging, of community and identity, it develops collaboration and teamwork, and it fosters mutual respect. It creates a shared experience while allowing for individual voices.
“Glyn’s founding cohort bring their own unique and diverse strengths and personalities to their new house, and this gives them an amazing opportunity to be pioneers, to shape Glyn House’s unique identity. The first contest for Glyn will be the House Drama competition in the autumn term and we are looking forward to it. In a way we will begin with more responsibility than other Houses as we have an expectation to live up to, but our new Glyn students are eager, enthusiastic and confident. We aim to be more than the sum of our parts and who knows where we can take it?”
Some of the new Glyn captains also gave their thoughts:
“I love the Colfe’s school spirit and I want to help inspire this in the younger students through the new Glyn House” (Dharma). “It is going to be lots of fun, and I am looking forward to mentoring younger students” (Oscar). “Glyn house is definitely going to set the bar. We are going to go into this with competitive spirit and want to win everything!” (Josh).
