On Friday, Aug. 29, high school students gathered in McNeill Gym to welcome freshmen and unsorted students into their houses at the annual house sorting event, a St. George’s tradition that kicks off house activities for the new school year.
There are four houses at St. George’s: Cypress, Honey Locust, Ironwood and Swamp Willow. The houses serve as teams for students to compete in friendly competitions designed by faculty and elected student leaders. After a house competition, the house with the highest point total earns special privileges, such as wearing a house t-shirt under their blazers on certain Tuesdays.
At the beginning of each school year, an event is held to sort new St. George’s upper school students into a house.
In previous years, upperclassmen were each given limited information about a random sophomore or freshman, who they would have to track down mid-class. They would then lead the underclassmen back to their designated house meeting place where a competition against opposing houses would take place.
Last year brought a large-scale scavenger hunt that sent high school students to all corners of the St. George’s Middle and Upper School Campus.
The sorting process was revamped this year due to unpredictable weather in the past.
High school students gathered in McNeill Gym, each house taking a corner, while houseless students—ninth graders or upper school students new to St. George’s—sat in the center as their names were drawn from a hat one by one by the house leaders.
“It was good. I was surprised. I got Cypress; I was expecting it towards the end because I was the last person to be called,” freshman Patrick Joyce said.
Once everyone was placed in a house, each team split into different areas to practice assigned group dances such as the Cha Cha Slide and the Wobble. Houses then gathered back in the gym to perform their dance in competition.
Though the new event saw less physical activity than its previous iterations, the enthusiasm among students didn’t falter —partly because this year’s house leaders brought so much spirit to each competition.
“Their role is to be the primary person, to be the voice for the house and to help build community within the house,” Director of Programming and Auxiliary Services Mrs. Robertson said.
The only other change was cutting the number of house leaders down to only one per house as a way to streamline student government.
“I definitely think that there’s a lot more passion for house days compared to last year,” Dev Dalsania, Honey Locust house leader, said.
The house leaders have been hard at work with three events in the first quarter. Aside from the sorting ceremony, there was a knockout basketball event and a six-legged pentathlon.
The next house event will be a powder puff football games. The game is essentially the same as flag football, but with male cheerleaders and female football players.
The powder puff games will be held on Oct. 24 and 31 during CAC. Points will be awarded for cheerleading participation, the team chant, the bake sale, dressing in pink, and points based on the outcome of the games.
