Kelynack, Lafrowda and Lyonesse: Three houses ‘all alike in dignity’ The House system is an important aspect of school culture. It provides a ‘community’ within the school to which students and staff belong, encourages participation, motivates students to engage, and make a positive contribution, and plays a key role in how we reward students and recognise achievement.
At Cape Cornwall, there are three houses: Kelynack (red), Lyonesse (blue), Lafrowda (green) which are long established and have a rich history. At its best, the house system is an integral part of school life and encompassed all subjects, with various competitions keeping the house system vibrant, alive and high profile. Past glories include, for example, swimming and surfing house events that all contributed to the whole and gave students a chance to participate.

For at least the last 10 years, there has been both a Winter and Summer Sports Festival, with the Winter Festival taking place just before Easter in PE lessons and then a Summer Sports Festival as a much larger whole school event in the summer. There has been significant support from our school community for the Cape Cornwall Summer Sports Festival in particular. These events have fed into the House System.

Covid-19 lockdowns etc.. have curtailed House activities over the last couple of years, although the school did hold an online sports day during this period. This is all changing!

Key Strengths of our House System are:

• Longevity – the houses are very much part of the fabric of the school, with parents, and even grandparents familiar with the Houses and their traditions.
• The House System provides a great vehicle to drive the core school values of Determination, Excellence and Respect.
• It engenders a sense of positive competition and extrinsic motivation both important drivers for young people.
• Other aspects of school life (attendance, achievement) can be supported and driven forward using this vehicle.
• As the Houses span the year groups, it supports cohesion within the school community.

Participation of vulnerable and disadvantaged students is encouraged by having a full range of activities that contribute to the House System. There has been a lot of work done in Penwith schools’ sport to encourage participation and ‘play’ and Cape Cornwall supports this through ‘Cape Active’ where activity is promoted both during the school day and after school. There is already a culture of participation in the school: for example, all Key Stage 3 boys have represented the school at sport this year. Across ‘Cape Active’, there are high levels of participation from disadvantaged students.

Beginning in Summer 2022, there has been an exciting re-launch of the House System at Cape Cornwall School. Students and staff have been busy designing new logos and learning about the school’s rich tradition. On Sports Day, we are planning to see red, blue and green emblazoned across the field and cheers for Kelynack, Lafrowda and Lyonesse ringing in the air!