House system

Common card · No. 265524

The house system is a traditional feature of schools in the United Kingdom. The practice has since spread to Commonwealth countries as well as other former British colonies. The school is divided into units called "houses" and each student is allocated to one house at the moment of enrollment. Houses may compete with one another in sport and in other ways, thus providing a focus for group loyalty. Historically, the house system has been associated with public schools in England, especially boarding schools, where a "house" referred to a boarding house at the school. In this case, the housemaster or housemistress in charge of the house is in loco parentis to the pupils who live in it, even though the house normally has a separate "private side" in which they can live a family life. Such an arrangement still continues in most boarding schools, while in day schools the word house is likely to refer to a grouping of pupils, rather than to a particular building. Schools have different numbers...

Read on Wikipedia · Image JohnOjara, CC BY-SA 4.0