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HISTORY
In 2021-2022, the RB School rolled out a new addition to its pastoral program by introducing an opportunity for vertical alignment of activities and events and sharing across the year groups in the school: the RB House System.
Houses were carefully created to represent and reflect the “Family Oriented” nature of the school and its mission. Each house was named after one of the renowned Arabian animals – the founding board members and the head of school and custodians desire to make a change in the life of the school, and it's better Good in the community.
Organisation
Students are divided into four Houses in consultation with Year coordinators and counsellors. Groupings strike a balance of gender, and talents within each House; siblings belong to the same House.
Why did RB choose to begin a House System in the School?
How are students assigned to Houses and who makes this decision?
Who has responsibility over each House and what are his or her duties?
Unique
The House System provides a way to increase student involvement across the school (all school activities) and increase collaboration between year group levels (all events). It also affords students the opportunity to learn leadership skills in a wide variety of areas.
Shields representing House "spirit animals" were designed for each of the respective Houses.
E-communication to remain connected and informed through various media channels to spread the word on doing more for the community and globally.
Why did RB choose to begin a House System in the School?
During the period of 2019-2020 academic year, the founding board and Headteacher met to review the school's delivery of the CAS (Creativity/Action/Service) Programmes in year groups Kindergarten to Year 2. They concluded that the current provision no longer fully represented the goals of CAS as outlined by the Early Years Foundation Stage EYFS. After much discussion and consultation with different interest groups, it became clear that a House System would best enable students to encounter and engage in the CAS learning outcomes in a more authentic way.
Since many teachers at RB have experience either working in or being part of a House System, there was a high degree of enthusiasm for the idea. As planning progressed, additional benefits of a House System became apparent, including mentoring and leadership opportunities for students, and the chance for students to know and interact with others in different year group levels, thus creating smaller ‘family’ groups within a larger school.
How are students assigned to Houses and who makes this decision?
Students are divided into four Houses in consultation with Year Heads and the Counsellors. Groupings strike a balance of gender and talents within each House. Siblings belong to the same House.
RB intentionally avoided discussing friendship groups, since there are already many opportunities for friends to play and work together. Instead, House activities offer new avenues for expanding friendship groups, rather than reinforcing them. Of course, there will be cases where friends end up together, but this was not by design. Students will therefore not be given the opportunity to request to be in a particular House.
Who has responsibilities over each House and what are his or her duties? (link it to the attachment)
House Leaders are teachers who have come forward because of their enthusiasm for the new program. Their role is to plan one major activity per year that all Houses will take part in, to develop the leadership capacity of their House members, ensure that the ethos of the House System is being upheld, and see that meetings and events run smoothly.
The role of the House leader is to coordinate the running of the house. As much as possible, leadership should be delegated to senior house members. Building a spirit of belonging and pride must not come at the cost of the RB beliefs. Ensuring that the house maintains a positive ethos by promoting participation, collegiality, fair play and caring is central to this role.
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To motivate and inspire students to participate.
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Organising meeting times and spaces.
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Meeting as House Leaders once per cycle.
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Ensuring that students have an appropriate level of engagement.
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Building leadership capacity within the house: Choosing and mentoring house captains.
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House leaders be in charge of leading or co-leading one event.
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Carrying out agreed upon house activities.
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Maintaining a record of student participation.
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Liaising with counsellors, year coordinators and assistant heads as issues arise.
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Supporting events organised by others (e.g. refereeing, scorekeeping, etc.)
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Overseeing and communicating the successes of their house through the school’s communication channels (bulletin, website, Facebook, etc)
Read more about the role of House captains (link it to the attachment)
Service
When the House System was developed, one of the main goals was to make CAS more authentic and integrated into the whole School. The House System, being a vertical alignment of students, allows for service and other activities to be more sustainable and more inclusive at all ages. The overall goal was to find a way to get 100% of our student population involved in some kind of service and to introduce the concept of International Mindedness, something that the traditional CAS program did not specifically address.
We wanted to explore ways that we could further promote and recognise what our current, student-led service projects are doing, as well as giving students a more authentic experience with service and other activities.
Event Categories
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Creativity
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Activity
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Service
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Internationalism
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Intellectual Challenge
