Talbot's House

It's been a short week but there is much to celebrate, especially the fact it is barbeque season again; this week's celebration night was around the BBQs in the garden!

Firstly, there were some excellent reports last term and in amongst those George, Leo, Sasha.P and David gained a personal best for their effort scores. There will be a pizza night for all those with an average indicating an excellent level of effort next week.

On a similar vein, the fourth form was the best merit per person earners in the school last term and so went out for dinner to celebrate yesterday.

In music, Ben.W was part of the national youth choir training events in the Easter holidays and Harry G was invited to the senior level of it too.

In sport this weekend, Lennart and Arthur are part of the J16 crew that ahs been invited to represent the East region in a national event on Saturday.

There is also the Basher rowing event which includes Brady in the J15C boat

George is playing for Northampton Saints U17 at Leicester

In cricket,  Dan plays for the U15A and Kighty and Sports are in the 2nds.

Whilst we are on the sporting note, a huge shout out to Tom Crowson (OB 2016) who played for England Hockey U21 against Austria last weekend.

This weeks merit competition goes from the last announcement of merits at the house Quiz:

1: Jason, Ruslan, Tizian, Stephen, Dan, Oscar, Leo, Harun, Ben.K, hodges, Szeets
2: David, Dan, Ben.W, Luca, Nik, J.Lo
3: Brady, Kostya, Edwin, Lennart
4: Divine
5: Henry

A special mention goes to Divine who has gained an award for 75 merits this year and Jason who is stranded on 99!

This week's man of the week for adding to his national youth choir exploits with not one but two distinctions at grade seven for singing and the piano is Ben.W!

 Last night was the traditional Talbots House Quiz night. Rounds included questions about the school (What was Philpotts previous name?); questions about the house (How many rooms are named after a previous House Master?) and some less fiercely contested rounds about sports, history, science, music and more.

It was a great night with some rather vocal performances of some of the answers for the music round and some hotly argued scoring (you had to spell each answer correctly to receive the points).

It was a really well put together quiz and we are grateful for the huge amount of work that the lower sixth had put into creating it for us.

We also had an unexpected visitor, as old boy Jonas, turned up to say hello and hand out some of the prizes for the evening.

The winning team was Alex's with Duncan's team in second and Harun's team third place. Obviously the staff team probably smashed them all, but we withdrew from the competition entry, largely because chocolate prizes don't seem to hold the same value once you reach the grand old age of 21+




We also handed out our prizes for the term, with some fantastic efforts for the King of Merits title. In joint third place we had Kostya and Henry with 17 merits.

In second place it was Andrew with 22 merits.

But in joint first, with an incredible 38 merits each it was Jason and Divine.







Speaking of Divine, he also won our Man of the Term prize not just for his continued attitude of getting involved with everything, performing well in all areas, but for doing so with an air of humility and approach-ability that  embodies everything we want to see in boys as they grow through the house. His commitment to bettering himself, without making others feel less is something special that we really wanted to honour.





We also gave out two sets of house colours last night, for boys who have been consistently exhibiting the character qualities we love throughout their time in the house. The first set went to Adrian in the lower sixth. Adrian is someone who draws others in and makes them feel included. He's a man who younger boys consistently tell us feels like a 'safe' person to talk to if they are unsure or need help with anything. His nurturing qualities and ability to make others look to him for guidance is something we wanted to celebrate.



The second set of colours went to Matthew. Matthew has been with us since the fourth form and over that time his contributions to the house have been too many to count in terms of the number of competitions he has represented us in, the number of competitions he has gone to support others in, the number of football matches and games he has organised in the back garden, and his cheeky smile that changes the atmosphere of a room into a place where others can experience relaxed fun. These are definitely character qualities that we want to set as an example to others and we are proud to see him finally wearing his colours tie.