The School Houses

The School Houses

What are school houses, one might ask? The houses are baisically the school split up into three individual groups. These groups are named Merriman, Jagger and Rolt. At Herschel, each girl is put into a house at the beginning of their Senior School career, or whenever they join the Senior School. Each house has a staff member as the responsible house mistress, and two matric girls as head of house and deputy head. The role of these heads is to organize the house and prepare them for interhouse events. There are many interhouse events during the year. This is when the houses compete against each other in sports events, debating, singing and through plays and many other events.

The house system at Herschel was introduced in 1931. The whole school was divided into 3 groups named after the 3 founders of Herschel, Cecil Henry Rolt, John X Merriman and John William Jagger. There were around 13 girls in each house in 1931. In the beginning, the houses met every Friday afternoon. These meetings begun with them saying the house prayer and then proceeded with handing out order marks and distinctions. Every second Friday there were house game practices. In 1960, Miss McLean, the former headmistress, began to use the house system differently to try manage the senior school better. Each house had a Head of House, and each Head ran the school for a week at a time, later extending to 3 weeks as there was no head girl at this time.

girls from Rolt, Merriman and Jagger dressed up on spirit day in 2011

John William Jagger arrived in Cape Town from Britain in 1880. He purchased the piece of land, “Herschel” in 1920 and donated it to “The English Church Schools Association”. He wanted to help provide a private school for girls in the Sothern Suburbs. The green house, Jagger, was named after him and their mascot is a hippo.

John X Merriman travelled back and forth from England to South Africa for education. He was the prime minister of Cape Town for a while and belonged to St. Saviours parish and played a major role in encouraging the formation of a new school for young ladies, Herschel. He encouraged people to support the building of the school and this way the Red house, Merriman, was named after him. The mascot is a reindeer. 

Cecil Henry Rolt came to Africa to help teach around the Cape. In 1917 he became the Dean of Cape Town and was still the Dean when Herschel opened in 1922. He took an interest in the poor and wanted to solve housing and child welfare problems. The house Rolt was named after him. The original colour of the house was orange but later changed to yellow and the mascot is a rabbit.

There are a variety of sporting, cultural and academic interhouse events that take place today. The interhouse sporting events that used to take place in the senior school were interhouse water polo, swimming, basketball, indoor hockey, tennis, squash, netball, hockey, volleyball, a fun run and sports day. The first interhouse events recorded were cricket, netball and tennis in 1931.The only interhouse sporting event that still takes place today is the interhouse swimming gala.

The first interhouse event of the year, today, is the swimming gala. It is the only interhouse sporting event that still takes place today and is looked forward to by everyone. The interhouse braais are held the day before the gala, and this allows each house to learn new cheers and build up the team spirit. There are team and individual categories in which girls can partake. Points are given according to the place girls come, and two extra points are awarded if a new record is made. A trophy is awarded to the winning house and a spirit trophy is awarded to the house that shows the most spirit. In 1981, Rolt won the gala for the seventh year in succession but were beaten by Jagger in 1982.




Girls in Merriman showing their house spirit at the interhouse gala in 2011.

During the second term, The Eisteddfod and interhouse singing take place on the same day. The eisteddfod is in the morning during school hours and the singing is in the evening. The eisteddfod is an opportunity for the girls to show their talents to the rest of the school in categories such as drama, dance, music, art and literature. Girls from each house are encouraged to take part in the eisteddfod in order to gain as many house points as they can. The interhouse singing is a very competitive and popular event on the calendar. The houses each get a week to prepare two songs – a chosen song and an allocated song which are then performed to an enthusiastic audience.
   

Rolt girls at the interhouse singing competition in July 2011, where they walked away with the first prize trophy.

The interhouse forum discussion is an interesting academic interhouse event. It used to be part of the interhouse quiz, which took place on interhouse day, and is now its own interhouse event. The houses are split into age groups – grade eights, nines and tens are together as the juniors and grade elevens and twelves are together as the seniors. In these groups, the houses are each given a topic that they are to debate and discuss. There is a junior and senior house winner as well as a prize for the best speaker in each age group.

The interhouse plays in the third term, are another interhouse event everyone looks forward to. The first house plays were held in 1931, the same year that the houses were introduced. Each house puts on a play which is directed by the grade eleven drama students in each house. There is an overall theme and the directors in each house must create a play linking to that theme. The plays are performed for two nights and attract much attention to the school.

The House magazines were first introduced in 1961. Each house made a magazine mainly concerning things to do with their house. This caused great rivalry between the houses, as winning the magazine competition was seen as a magnificent interhouse achievement. The Houses got the chance to thank the staff for all they had done for them and to report back on all the events that had taken place during the year. The magazines were compiled mainly of poetry and essays that the girls had written, reports of how the houses had done, photos of interhouse events and sometimes they even put in puzzles and interesting things, such as crosswords, for the readers of the magazine to do.
In 1980 the school started putting the house reports into the Herschelian thus leading to the end of House Magazines in 1986. This cut off many opportunities for girls who wanted to submit writing they had created and for girls to express themselves through House Spirit.

Towards the end of the year there is a house spirit day, and all the girls in the different houses dress up in the colour of their house, as well as learn some new cheers thought up by the new elected house captains for the following year. On this same day there are also fun, festive holiday interhouse activities held in the sports centre, such as tug-of-war, egg and spoon races and three legged races.  This event ends off the interhouse events of the year in a fun and festive way.

The efficiency shield is the overall award for the house of the year. It is awarded at the end of the year to the house which has won the most interhouse events and has accumulated the most house points throughout the year. In 1980, Merriman won the efficiency shield for the 6th year in succession.

Rolt house captain of 2011, Camille Slabber, with the efficiency shield.

Through these many wonderful interhouse events, the girls are able to express their competitiveness in a fun and sprightly manner. They are also given the opurtunity to make special bonds with other grades, unifying the girls of Herschel Girls School. This could be seen as the main objective of having school houses.

Authored by Emma Oelz and Faith Shields