This week stands out as yet another step back to something approaching normal life – the re-introduction of the House Assembly to the Bishop’s agenda. Now our bubble bound existence is starting to fall away, we can return to the periodic, slightly tribal gatherings of Houses in the Sports Hall. The explicit reason for us getting together is to enable the House Captains and prefects to earn their living, to discover their results of the latest competitions and (more by accident than by design) to test the House Captain’s skills in organising Kahoot …
But there is an implicit, much more important purpose in play here too. Schools, like human societies more generally, need connections to survive and thrive. Think of it like a wooden frame which to stay together and in the right shape needs both horizontal and vertical struts. If one set of connections fails then the whole frame will fail – and either fall to pieces or become unusable. That is an allegory, a parallel for the effect that Covid had on all of us – throughout our world, including Salisbury and Bishop’s.
So, one of the jobs that we have to do together over these critical weeks and months is to rebuild that frame that was very strong before March 2020. That’s one of the reasons that last week’s Cathedral Service (and the photo that followed) were key events. Being together for big, set piece occasions like those helps us all to understand our part in our school.
The Houses at Bishops give us the vertical part of that framework. Over the past two years we simply have been unable to make the House System work but now, at last, it’s different. The House Assemblies are a start but momentum should build over the rest of this term and on into the summer. The framework of Bishop’s House System will be rebuilt, and the school will be stronger for it. You will all have a part to play.
Jewel, Martival, Osmund, Poore and Ward. 5 Bishops for five Houses; their histories from the 11th to the 17th centuries, each one a former top man in Salisbury. Their stories are on Wikipedia not perhaps natural cheerleading material for sports competitions but important symbols nonetheless. Those of you who joined the school since September 2019 have some homework to do – find out what you can about your Bishop of Salisbury and then think what you can do to work within your house to strengthen links, compete and support others – whether they are in your year group or not.
SDS
Reading for Assembly 23/3/2022
