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News | 22 August 2024

IES Östersund House System

When staff and students join IES Östersund they are allocated into one of our four school houses. The school principal is a member of the Falcon house which exists as a completely separate house so that there is no sense of favouritism towards another house. Students with siblings within the school are placed in the same house to create a sense of tradition and routine. Staff and students remain in the same house until they leave IES Östersund.

The purposes of our school houses is to: 

• To boost the feeling of a community within our school. The houses bring students together and allow them to be with people that they aren’t usually spending time with (for example, it is a chance for our older year groups to work together with our younger years).
• To promote a collaboration between students of different age groups and staff members.
• To allow staff and students to inspire one another to go ‘the extra mile’.
• To encourage the staff and students to participate in school activities. This then promotes the values of fair play, teamwork skills and the sisu mindset.
• To create a sense of healthy competition and celebration of all our student’s talents and achievements.

About our school houses: 

The four houses are named after wildlife creatures that can be found in the local Jämtland area: Bear (yellow), Lynx (blue), Moose (green) and Wolverine (red). 

What are the aims of the school houses? 

The key aim of the house system is for ALL of our students to feel that they are a part of the school community and can contribute to the success of their house. 

Throughout the school year the houses will be competing against one another to win house points. At the end of the school year the house with the most house points will be awarded the House Cup. There are many ways in which students can be awarded house points, such as: 

Special dress up days: When students come to school dressed up to celebrate a certain theme or celebration such as Halloween, Rock Your Socks Day or Lucia, they will be awarded with house points. These awards are awarded to anyone who participates in the dress up days. 

Academic work: Students can be awarded house points for creative writing pieces, competing in competitions around the school such as a tipsrundan or chess competition and for house competitions within their lessons. 

Sports day: Students can also win house points on our summer and winter sports day. Again house points are awarded to those students who win the events and those that participated. 

Superhero points: One of our school messages is to encourage our students to be kind and to show consideration to others. Therefore, when our students are kind to a staff member or another student they can be awarded superhero points which are then converted into house points.