House Taskmaster!

Just before the Christmas break, seven eager House teams and a parliament of audience members headed to the Sports Hall for the first staging of House Taskmaster, and the half hour of eventing that followed was fantastic for everyone.

In a departure from the structure of most House events, the details of the tasks in House Taskmaster were not revealed before the event day, except for the Prize Task. The teams had prepared their Prize Task submissions in the week leading up to the event. For this, they were tasked with bringing along “the best, and most surprisingly fittingitem to put on the top of a Christmas tree.” This was a test of the teams’ originality of thought and clarity of argument. Lewisham won this task by bringing along a Ukrainian flag, in a great show of support for our friends and neighbours; some other worthy submissions included a glitterball and a Santa hat, but a pen and a mug scored less well. In an event such as this one, there is a definite honour in taking last or nearly-last place, just as there is in every other House event! As Nicholas Parsons often said on Just a Minute, it’s not really about the points – it’s about the camaraderie.

For the second task, the House teams (some of which included at least twenty pupils!) took their places at the back of the Sports Hall, and Mr Comerford opened the task envelope and read out its contents. Given numerical cards from 1-7, each House had to hold up a number on every turn, but they would only be able to move forward that many spaces if no other Houses were holding up that number. First House to make 21 steps forward would win. Newington got moving quickly, much to the dismay of Harestone, Ridgefield and Underwood, but everyone moved at least a few steps forward by the end of the task. A few giant leaps from Underwood saw them coming from behind to win the task!

The third and final task was all about target practice – but not as our contestants knew it. Each House, on their turn, had to throw a hula hoop at least three metres forward, and then five other team members from each House had to throw one beanbag each. The task, as unveiled and read by Dr Soltysiak, was to land a beanbag as close as possible to the hula hoop without any beanbags touching or landing inside the hoop. This quickly became a closely-fought contest, with a couple of Houses landing their beanbags less than 30 cm away from their hoops, and two other Houses sending their beanbags skating across the floor until they touched their hoops, thus eliminating them from the task!

In the final standings, Ridgefield took third place and Harestone was second, but the inaugural House Taskmaster champions – with 18 points out of a possible 21 – were the representatives from Lewisham. Congratulations to everyone who took part in the event, for bringing lots of House spirit onto a big primetime stage. Here’s to more primetime House spirit throughout the rest of the year!

Mr R. Evans

Teacher of Chemistry, Head of Ridgefield, House Taskmaster Host