Houses - the house system

Goring was divided into 12 houses.

The house system was very important. In practice most social activity occurred within the individual boy's house. The Dormitories, sixth form rooms and refectories were in one's house. The house also had a common room (where there was a TV which was on in the free time periods ), a chapel for prayers (next to the common room), sometimes a recreation area / hall (mine had a snooker table) and most houses had some sort of "garden" outside area where boys could play games, such as football and cricket.

The house was located in a separate building. What I mean by this is that it was totally separate as a space / collection of walls etc. from other houses or school buildings. There was normally limited access to the house (one main door and perhaps one back door) so each house was very much an island. My house was in fact part of one large building which contained two "houses". The building was divided in two and our house front door was therefore only 100 yards from that of the next door house But there was no access through between the houses. To go into that house I had to go through the front door and ask the house master for permission just like for other houses located atr a much further distance.

In order to go to another house, a boy had to go into the room of the housemaster of that other house and ask permission. This, in effect, presented a fairly strong motivation for not going to another house.

The main point which I want to emphasise is one which will be very important to these memoirs - and which I will discuss further in later posts. It is this point: The boys' internal culture was pre-eminent at Goring. It was not the masters who formed the way the school functioned, its atmosphere etc. It was the boys.

As such there were many underlying boy-driven cultures which were very powerful, which I will discuss further in subsequent chapters. One of these was the importance of the house, another was the importance of only having friends in one's own year group.

This meant that my house/ year group was the vital social group for me.

The house was divided into 5 years. The first 3 years lived in two dormitories of c 20 boys each, the final 2 years (the sixth form) were in bedrooms, some shared, some individual - on the "sixth form corridoors" . These were two corridoors on the other side of the building from the Dormitories.

Each year groups was c 12 boys strong - making a house of c 60 boys. The system of relationship between these year groups when I arrived was as follows.

Sixth formers were God-like figures. "Juniors" (especially first years) were never to speak to them unless spoken to first. Sixth formers were distant from the juniors but they generally did not do any bullying, simply kept aloof. Third years were the bullies. The third years inflicted their greater strenght over the second years and first years through physical and mental bullying of a fairly severe kind. The third years were also the dorm captains so they had official power conferred on them also. The second years bullied the first years but more lightly (the min bullying relationship was third years to first years) and more commonly in words than through physical violence. They emphasised as much as possible that the first years were "New" and "cocky" and had much to learn.

The situation, as might be deducted from the above, was strongly Darwinian / survivalist. Friendship with my own year group in my house was very important for me. For friendship I had therefore only 11 other boys to look for. That these should be boys with whom I had natural sympathy and attraction was highly desirable. Unfortunately this was not the case for my year group (in my house). I was to suffer much for this.

Sadly the house sytem meant that I had very limited access to the other 130 or so pupils in my year with whom I might have made and maintained up-building friendships. It was agonising to me how, in pratice, it seemed impossible to keep up a friendship with friends in other houses. Some friends I had known from before Goring days and I had had with such friends warm and upbuilding friendship experience. The house system was a very powerful culture and claimed the pupil too strongly.

More on the house system to come...