House Farewell to Leavers

On Friday 6 May, our Fifth Year and Upper Sixth pupils attended their final House Assemblies before the start of their study leave periods.  For Aldercombe and Ridgefield, this provided an ideal and unmissable opportunity to join forces for a very exciting House v. House face-off.

Two months ago, I became Head of Ridgefield and resigned as Assistant Head of Aldercombe, after four years as a member of Aldercombe.  As has historically been the case when members of staff have transferred between Houses, this has created a recurring implication that my loyalties have become divided, particularly since my tutor group is an Aldercombe group.  Whenever I have been asked, “Which House are you really cheering for?”, my answer has usually been, “I support all the Houses, because the magic of the House system is that we’re all in the same boat and we’re all here to celebrate House spirit and engagement.”  I might never have uttered those exact words, but this ethos has always underpinned my love of House events and will continue to do so.

Mr Mugridge and I invited Aldercombe and Ridgefield out to the Astro for our 6 May House Assemblies and, under the dazzling glare of the 2pm sun, raised our votes of thanks for our Fifth Year and Upper Sixth champions.  Heads of House Louie, Amelie, Katie and Elias received their own special thanks for all their work in fostering House spirit this year.  We will miss you next year!

The grand event of our joint Assembly, however, was our big game.  Mr Nagar, Mrs Wallis, Miss Smith and Miss Henry collected a paper sign each, with the name of a European city written on it.  They stood at various locations on the Astro, and in each round, the Aldercombe and Ridgefield pupils visited one of the “cities,” trying not to be eliminated.  Mr W. Jones, who was not watching the action, called out the name of a city after every round, and everyone at the named city was out of the game!  The excitement hit fever pitch almost immediately, as everyone started choosing their cities increasingly carefully, and as Aldercombe and Ridgefield representatives kept falling in battle.

After Rome, Madrid and Paris had all been eliminated, the city of Berlin remained.  Everyone who had made it to Berlin in the third round qualified for a classic Heads or Tails battle, where they had to avoid predicting the outcome of a series of coin tosses.  It took just two rounds to eliminate all but three students – leaving only Kian (Fifth Year) standing for Aldercombe, versus Eloise (Fifth Year) and Theo (Fourth Year) for Ridgefield.  Eloise was eliminated next, leaving Kian and Theo as the last two contenders out of more than two hundred that had entered the game…

..a 1-v-1 face-off would decide whether Aldercombe would beat Ridgefield or vice versa…

..and Theo won the final coin toss, making Ridgefield the champions of this hard-fought thriller.

Thank you to all the staff and pupils who took part!  We hope you take your House spirit with you into the summer and next year.  See you soon!

Mr R. Evans

Head of Ridgefield, former Assistant Head of Aldercombe