CROSSE
Crosse House has embodied the phrase “bleed blue” this year, with successes in all areas of school life. The year began with our new Shell students getting stuck in with water sports integration and House life in a new setting. A new prefect team led the way to truly imbue the new members of the house with the true meaning of Crosse Spirit: James Field, Seb Sheldon, Toby Appleton, Theo Wing, Elliot Davies and Anthony Latchford. We began the term with our regular ping pong competition, which pitted all members of the house against each other to really bring the year groups together. An agile and nimble Nate Donougher managed to beat veteran player Theo Wing to victory surrounded by the whole house cheering them on around the traditional hinged table.
The first major house event of the year came around quick and fast with Steepo. After vociferous hustings, the newly elected Head of House, James Field, and Deputy, Seb Sheldon, got stuck into the Steepo preparations. Steepo was a unique one this year, with James running the entire race in a whale onesie, publicising our new House mascot: the blue whale. We had Elliot Davies, Nate Donougher, Luca Brugnoli, Zach Collison all doing very well in their respective races, with Harry Chapman coming second in the junior boys’ race; while we sadly did not win overall, our sporting prowess certainly bodes well for the future. Additionally, our incredibly strong swim squad, including the mighty Dylan Turton, Anthony Latchford, Elliot Davies and Xander Griffin-Hind, won team of the term for winning 17 out of 34 races in the Southern Schools’ Super League. Without doubt, though, our finest achievement from Michaelmas term was House Football. Both our junior and senior teams demolished the opposition, taking overall victory for the first time in many years after a dramatic and entertaining indoor competition with all the atmosphere and a classy goal from George Dunn we will never forget.
We had two major theatrical performances this term, with Thomas Welsh getting stuck in backstage with Ms Farmer’s production of Blithe Spirit. We also had a student production led by our very own Crosse alumni, Hugo Bryant, with him and his brother Oliver taking the spotlight in their witty take on the story of Sherlock Holmes, entitled ‘Shermock’. We ended the Michaelmas term with James Field taking home the Academic Cup for the house for the second year in a row followed by house Secret Santa, fun Prefect awards and a Christmas feast in the Common Room.
Lent term began with our annual House Dinner, which the prefects decided would be Oscars-themed. The prefects went all out, dressing up as movie characters such as Indiana Jones, Maximus Decimus and Neo, plus we had a red carpet and paparazzi to really sell the atmosphere. Thomas Gatley designed a stylish invitation, and we gave out lots of mini-Oscars for best dressed guests to make the dinner feel like the real deal, and we ended the main course with a celebrity cameo from James as a young Russell Crowe. We raised money from our fun Heads or Tails game for Macmillan Cancer, our chosen house charity, and the night was crowned with a stunning acapella vocal from Oliver Bryant, which the parents loved. No-one can deny this House Dinner will go down in history as one of the best.
The biggest collaborative challenge for the house this term was rehearsing for House Song, with music scholar Oliver Salamon organising the arrangement and music prefect James conducting. With ‘anything 2000s’ as the theme, we chose Mark Ronson’s modern classic Uptown Funk, and Miss W-W taught all the boys choice dance moves to go with our powerful vocals alongside superb brass accompaniment from our musicians Eddie Bryan, Tomas Gates, Elliot Davies and Archie Green. Our ensemble was headlined by Luca Brugnoli and Oliver Bryant singing The Other Side from The Greatest Showman, backed on guitar by Oliver Salamon and Toby Appleton, with Elliot Eason on drums and James Field on piano. While we gave it our all in both performances and were clearly a fan favourite with the crowds, unfortunately the judge’s opinion did not lean in our favour, but our incredible male soloists performing musical theatre was given a special mention. Nevertheless, the boys put in outstanding effort and enjoyed themselves immensely. On an individual note, Seren Patry was part of the winning team in Take A Risk, which Toby Appleton co-hosted, successfully pitching their product for a wristband for deaf people in front of a Crosse parent who was one of the judges.
The next performance showcasing our talent was the senior male dance group, including Elliot Eason, Oliver Bryant and Luca Brugnoli, who created a powerful piece about evolution for Lost In Motion, which enthralled the audience. This term we had two more rousing sporting successes from our junior teams; first up was winning House Hockey against Rhodes with the formidable talent of Finlay Mitchell, Sam Duffield, Henry Bruce, Jake Tonge (keeping a clean sheet in goal), James Koziarski, Graham Dulski, Eddie Isaacs, Archie Green, Rupert Scutt, Harry Chapman, Stanley Teuten and Louis Moseley-Davis. We also took home house ping pong victory thanks to Wilf Caporn, Jay Warwick, Alfie Robinson and Eddie Bryan, no doubt these are teams to watch in future. In the final week of term, fifth formers Thomas Welsh, Evan Connolly and Jake Ritson carried on the Crosse legacy of winning the junior House Debating tournament against Neal on the motion ‘This House would introduce National Service’ in front of the whole of middle school in Chapel, showing once again the House’s public-speaking prowess. We congratulated Toby Appleton and Ayoub Badurdeen for being appointed as School Prefects, too.
Our other major in house competition kicked off in Trinity term as Elliot Davies organised the best house pool competition with pairs competing to be more inclusive. With many well-fought games battled out in the common room, eventually smooth operators in Shell, Archie Green and Rupert Scutt, arose victorious over the reigning champion, Mr. Heavens, and Alfie Robinson. With cricket season beginning, Crosse showed its talent with Seb Sheldon, Rupert Scutt, Archie Green and Sam Duffield all playing for the 1st team and Josh Braddock, Archie Green, Rupert Scutt, Tomas Gates and Alfie Robinson winning the Hobbs tournament at Epsom and Holdsworth Cup in the final weeks of term. Our juniors Wilf Caporn, Eddie Bryan, Jay Warwick, Stephen Pan and Dom Rolfe also won the junior house tennis tournament to round off a spectacular year of sporting success. Honourable individual mentions for sport include Dan Rudin for getting his first international cap representing Ukraine in football; Regan Wheeler for playing up a year at Brighton Academy and winning against Birmingham; Harry Chapman for his silver medal in the National Schools’ Biathlon; Chris Niblock for his gold medal at the U15 Southern Counties Youth Archery finals; Archie Green being asked to trial for England Hockey; Stanley Teuten for his success in county golf tournaments (and Pelican award-winning baking); and Dylan Turton after he qualified for relays at the Aquatics GB National Swimming Championships this summer. To cap our continued academic success, we celebrated the most winners of any House in the College’s academic competitions, and huge congratulations went to these five boys: Seb Sheldon, Ayoub Badurdeen, Ruddegar Roe, Wilf Caporn, Oliver Bryant and Evan Connolly.
The biggest piece of news is that Mrs. Tait, Crosse’s Housemistress of nine years, will be leaving the House at the end of this year, along with us. Miss has transformed the culture for so many boys to thrive in her time here and she will be dearly missed by all of us. She has been an integral part of the house and steered so much behind the scenes to bring the best out of the students in a very inclusive and spirited environment. She’s moving on to become AHOMM of Toynbee, where we are she will sure have lots of fun in boarding with the girls, and the boys staying in House are looking forward to welcoming Mrs. Gull as our new Housemistress next year. We also say a fond farewell to Mrs. Van Lennep, who is moving Houses too, as she has supported her tutor group with such dedication for years in Crosse.
We have loved our time in Crosse the past four years and being able to give back as Head and Deputy has been an absolute honour. Being able to represent the house both on the sports field and within the school has been a pleasure and we wish the boys all the best in the coming years as we move on to Woodard and new horizons. We would like to thank everyone who has been part of the House staff these past four years, especially those who have helped us this year - we couldn’t have done it without you.
James Field, Head of House and Sebastian Sheldon, Deputy Head of House
