Talbot's House

Well... What to report on house singing?

The fundamental thing about the competition is that it is the one event in the year where the whole house comes together and strives for the same goal. We have achieved this most impressively this term. On the night there was no new and old or junior/senior we were one solid unit. Did we give it our all in the build up and on the night? yes we did. Were we rewarded for it? It depends on your version of rewarded!

The boys certainly gave it their all but due to the pressure didn't quite perform with the control we had in the practices. However, it was a decent performance as all who were present would agree. When the judge read out that we had finished in sixth place there was stunned silence throughout the auditorium. I, as housemaster, was gutted for our lads. Its true that someone always has to come last but this felt unjust. However, it is a subjective competition and it is a lesson for us all moving forward in executing on the night and that quantitative results don't necessarily reflect the intangible achievements we have made in the process of preparing for the event. Particular credit must go to Mr Rooke as our resident music teacher, James Mactavish for his accompaniment and Karan Gupta for his excellent conducting of practices prior to and on the night.

Perhaps a greater shock was the part song not winning. They were outstandingly controlled and tight and the full range of vocal talent in the group as used excellently. However, the judge awarded the prize to Paulo citing balance in the arrangement as the reason. This felt more unjust in some ways given the way they performed on the night.

There will have been no consolation taken by the fact that both the unison and part were far superior to Messrs Rooke and Gracie's efforts for the staff man band either!

It was Paulo's night as they won all 3 trophies, something which no one could begrudge them after their performances on the night.

The good thing about our lads is they embody the maxim 'you can't keep a good man down'. The disappointment was quickly put to one side as we returned to the house to an excellent sound setup for another one of our epic karaoke parties. It was important to recognize at this point in the term how far everyone has come and the boys should rightly feel proud of their achievements in the singing, even if their efforts weren't reflected on the night.

Thursday saw the year 9 house Rugby competition take place. As St Peter's we found ourselves in by far the hardest group with Paulo and Crescent. It was a shame for Crescent who were probably the 3rd best team in the competition but had to settle for the 5th/6th place playoff after we and Paulo beat them easily. In the other group game, we defended excellently and attacked with intent but could not quite cross the Paulo line. They crossed late on however and so beat us 7-0. This left us to face St Cuthbert's in the semi final. Though they had some powerful players, we won comfortably enough to set up a rematch with Paulo. We went down early on to an excellent try and thus trailed 7-0 at the break having been under the cosh for most of the half. However, the St Peter's self belief and passion meant we scored near the end of the second half to set up a nail biting finish. Extra time beckoned until, with the last play of the game, enough Paulo players were sucked in to enable Reni Omotomilola to be put over in the corner.

This means the 4th form have led the way in sporting terms this term winning their age group on sports day and now the house rugby. Well done to them - bring on pizza party no 2!

The pressure is mounting as we are less than 24 hours away from the house singing competition!

The boys have been rehearsing hard and this week we were fortunate enough have one of the percussionists from the London stage show of the Lion King come and rehears with us to help the boys get the rhythm of the piece.

We are massively expectant for placing well in this years competition and look forward to seeing as many of you there as are able to attend.

Good luck Talbots!!


#SneakPreview from Talbot's House on Vimeo.

Friday Night Celebration capped off another fine week in the house, followed by the all important fish finger butties. The singing is sounding great and there have been many notable achievements this week.
Mr Chance shared with us how impressive Assan was in the ARTiculation public speaking prize particularly in the depth of his research.
Merits galore have also been won this week. There were three each for Ben.N. and Daniel, 4 for Jun, michael and Ed, 5 for Krit and Hodges and a whopping 6 for Alikhan. I was also very impressed to be emailed by one of Alikhan;s teachers this week about what a lovely young man he is to teach. This nicked the man of the week award for him.

The fixture against Dulwich takes place tomorrow (see a mention of the history of the fixture here) and we have 18 boys representing the school. Only 3 school teams will be without a man of Talbot's tomorrow.
On the hockey field, Tom Crowson has been selected for the Saxon tigers in the U16 futures cup during half term, details can be found here.
The options selected their top bloke this week as Ed Sterling, who stepped into the house fives team and did a great job.

This will be the last Friday Celebration before half term, though we hope to be celebrating next Thursday...

Mr G

Another great week has passed in the house. There were two rounds of rugby matches where our leading try scorers extended their tallies but Fuga Iwama was the rugby hero this week, having jumped to the U16Bs after starting this season in the D team. Nihat has also solidified his place in the U15 C team along with Bob, Duncan and Matthew. We celebrated further success on the fives courts with another handsome win and James Loewenthal and Dom Koehler were awarded the options' Top Bloke(s) of the week.


The House singing has really come good over the past week and we are starting to look like genuine title contenders. It has also been great to see boys contributing to the house blog with Duncan, Josh and Charlie getting articles up as well as Mike's excellent editing. This has also been the first week of reading time, a 15 minute slot to read a book after the normal lights out time. Many of the boys have appreciated the chance to get into the book they are reading.

This week's first housemaster's award went to Daniel Lin for the most merits (4).

Duncan Keyworth was man of the week for his blog entry, getting stuck into loads of house activities, going up a rugby team and merits.

The foyer currently has an exhibition of DT work from last year. Three of our boys have some fantastic work in it:

Assan Amirov's piece is an advert for nuclear disarmament. Keving Ching's is about advertising nuclear power as an important future fuel source and Rio Rosano's building really draws one in. They are in the bellroom for a short time only, so do get there if you can.