DAY HOUSES

The House System is a defining feature of Cranbrook School. There are six boarding houses and six day houses. These latter are organised on a single sex basis and reflect the areas from which the pupils live. Day houses tend to be larger than the boarding houses, with around eighty to ninety students. Overall we have 250 boarders and 500 day pupils all of whom live within 6.2 miles of the school. Allan Boys and Allan Girls represent the Staplehurst and Goudhhurst areas but draw other villages. Horsley Boys and Horsley Girls are the Sandhurst and Hawkhurst contingent, while Webster Boys and Webster Girls usually come from the immediate vicinity of Cranbrook itself. These pupils can normally walk to school if their fitness is up to it!

Students who live beyond a certain distance catch either service buses or private hire buses organised by the local authority. Many pupils are, of course, dropped off by their parents in cars although car sharing is strongly encouraged.  A number of our Sixth Form are allowed to drive to school and park in the large car park behind the Sixth Form Centre. Plenty of pupils either walk or cycle to school.

BOARDING
There are six boarding houses. Scott and Blubery are the two large girls' houses with around 45 girls from 13-18 in each. School Lodge is the junior boys' house of 36 13 year olds. Rammell, Cornwallis and Crowden are the three senior boys' houses for boys between 14 and 18 years of age. Around 40 boys live in each of these houses.

Each house seems to have its own rather special identity - in day houses often to do with the villages from which the pupils come. The houses also reflect the distinctive nature of their Head of House. This is invariably an experienced member of staff who organises and manages the team of tutors and student supervisors so that the house runs efficiently with its special culture and programme of events which run throughout the year. These range from dinners to theatre trips to barbeques to a myriad of fund raising activities for our Lenten Appeal and so on.

GENERAL
The houses have student councils, a team of students responsible for representing the house on various committees, a house captain and several student 'elders' who help the housemaster or housemistress with the running of the house and support the younger pupils as they travel through their school lives. The day house structure is a mirror of the boarding house structure but boarders have greater ancillary support such as matrons, domestic staff etc. Common to all houses however is the team of academic tutors who monitor the work and behaviour of each year group of pupils in the house. Tutor groups tend to be between fifteen and twenty in size in the day houses and between ten and fifteen in the boarding houses. The tutor is the first port of call for a parent's communication about their child. Nearly all of the academic staff of the school are tutors and there are additional tutoring staff who do not necessarily teach. In this way we like to ensure that a large number of staff are involved in the care of the pupils. Each house has a base where the pupils meet each day for registration and house assemblies. Tutors will meet their small groups in their own bases and the tutorial programme is a thorough and well organised one which covers academic support, behavioural support, and personal and social education issues such as citizenship, bullying, anti-smoking etc.  Inter house competition is alive and kicking, covering not only the usual sports programme but a range of acitivities such as the House Shout and the Big Quiz.

Each house subscribes to the student listener scheme run by the Head of Pupil Development.  This along with a range of other initiatives such as the childline group, the e-motivations team, the healthy schools team, and our drop-in clinic funded by the CSPA and staffed by the Ticehurst Clinic, augment the pastoral resources provided by the house to give a really good all round extra support to students.

The Performance of each house is monitored via a cycle of house reviews, summaries of which can be accessed on the website.

Parents get fully involved in the life of house and school. Each house has parent 'reps' who help form the 'glue' between staff, pupils and parents. The CSPA (Cranbrook School Parents' Association) is extremely active and run an after-school cafe from which all pupils benefit. Please check their web pages for more information.

Boarders and Day Pupils mix freely and easily. The House system is embedded in Cranbrook culture and is one of its main strengths. Indeed 'Strengthening the House' system is a key issue in the Schools' Development plan for 2007/8.