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Houses
Kirstie Melville
Hello my name is Kirstie Melville and I am from Salisbury in the UK. I was fortunate enough to start my career as Head of Girls games at a prep school in Salisbury. I took on many other roles during this time including, House Co-coordinator and Boarding House assistant. I loved prep school life, but there was always something pulling me towards teaching internationally. After 9 years in the UK I felt ready to challenge myself further and took a position in the UAE teaching Junior PE followed by my current role as Junior PE teacher and House Co-coordinator in 2019. I love that PE allows students the opportunity to participate in a range of sports and I hold passion and enthusiasm for all popular sports. It is my belief that through sport, each pupil can be outstanding at something and successful on many different levels. Physical success is important, but I believe that through sport many lifelong lessons and values can be taught and this is something that is central to my teaching ethos in this subject. Outside of school Netball is my first love, but I also enjoy running and cycling. Taking part in these activities throughout my life has kept me healthy, motivated and positive and I am looking forward to sharing these passions with the students at HeadStart.
At HeadStart every student and member of staff are allocated to a House. The emphasis on the House system is to instill in every student a sense of T.U.F.F. (Teamwork. Unity. Friendship. Fun.) and the students work together in order to win as many points as possible for their Houses. We have four Houses as follows:
- Red Phoenixes
- Yellow Cheetahs
- Green Dragons
- Blue Tigers
Students and teaching staff should wear House shirts every Friday unless otherwise announced.
The main competitions the students participate in are:
House Quiz
During every Monday mornings homeroom session the students compete in a quick quiz on varying categories (movies, animals, Halloween etc). Then, all the houses points from each home room are tallied to find out which House has the most points.
Weigh Your Waste
As part of being an eco-friendly school the students are encouraged to only eat as much food as they need. Every Friday lunchtime all the wasted food is placed into their respective House bins and then weighed. Whichever House wastes the least amount of food is the winning House.
House Merits
At HeadStart we reward students and/or groups of students for anything that promotes themselves or others as remarkable and responsible human beings (academics, hard work, effort, teamwork, fairness, respect etc). All the House Merits are also tallied towards their Houses total score.
Sports Competitions
Every two weeks the Houses compete in a sporting competition (Basketball, Football, Tennis etc). In each competition we instill a sense of gender equality and we ensure that an equal number of boys and girls are represented by each House.
Other Competitions
Teachers also create their own competitions, and these can be as wide and as varied as Sports Days, HeadStart’s Got Talent, Language Day. Again, all of these competitions involve points towards the students Houses. During Friday morning flag raising the competitions from the previous week are announced and the students are informed which position their House are currently placed (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th).
Finally, at the end of the academic year, the House that gained the most points are rewarded with a House prize such as a pizza party, excursion to Splash Jungle or a trip to the cinema.
House Logos
House Captains for 2019-2020
Painting new House banners! Thank you students for a great job!
House Champions 2017 are…
THE YELLOW CHEETAHS!
The Cheetahs simply deserve to be recognized as our House Champions this year. They performed constantly well for the entire academic year, and their drive, and their determination to succeed NEVER faltered! They won nearly all of the Weigh Your Waste challenges, many of the secondary House quizzes, and also a large majority of sports competitions and sports days. Yet, every time I set the other Houses the challenge to try and beat them, they would respond with an even greater determination to succeed. I hope you will all agree that they were very formidable opponents, and therefore very deserving winners, with a massive 3,679 points!
As a reward, the Year 1-2 students watched a movie and then had a pizza party at school. The Year 3 – 13 went to SFX cinema to watch ‘Despicable Me 3’ and then had a meal at Sizzler or Pizza Company. Good job students!
