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School’s House system

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I thought of writing a few words on the House system at Kingswood College after reading Nan’s article on the subject in the Sunday Island of Mar. 10. My intention is to confine this letter to the House system in my alma mater, Kingswood College, Kandy.

Mr. LE Blaze’, the founder of the school and its first Principal, introduced the House system at his school. In most schools in Sri Lanka, the names of the Houses are either those former Principals who had done yeomen service to develop the school or other benefactors who had helped the school. Mr. Blaze’ chose the names of the four prominent Public Schools in the United Kingdom when he established the House system at Kingswood in 1922. They were Eton, Harrow, Rugby and Winchester. These Houses were assigned colours, yellow to Eton, red to Harrow, green to Rugby and blue to Winchester.

The boys were selected to the Houses when they reached the fourth standard at that time. The selection was done in the presence of the College Prefects, by the House captains by drawing lots. As such, if there were four brothers attending school at the same time, they may be assigned to the four houses as each case was taken up separately. This was different from some other schools where brothers were assigned the same House.

The students of a House selected the Captain and the Vice-captain, and also the captains of sports teams. The teachers were also assigned to the different Houses. They attended the meetings of the Houses, but were not involved in conducting them, which was the task of the House captain. The teachers were there to assist the captains to conduct the meetings properly. This encouraged the students to develop leadership qualities which would help them in their future live.

Kingswood used to have a drill competition between Houses where the senior and the junior squads competed. In addition to the overall championship, prizes were awarded to the best commanders in the two categories. The squad drill was a normal exercise for all students who belonged to the Houses during the short interval of fifteen minutes which was held between the commencement of school and the lunch interval.

The drill competition was in addition to the other competitions in the various sports such as cricket, hockey and football. The athletics competition was at the annual sports meet.

It was the House system at Kingswood College that resulted in Thurstan College getting a House System as Mr. DEA Shockman who was a teacher at Kingswood introduced it when he assumed duties as Thurstan’s first Principal(January 11, 1950- December 31, 1955).

HM NISSANKA WARAKAULLE

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