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The House System - Combining Collaboration & Competition in Middle School
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I struggled when deciding whether or not I should use the House System in my classroom. Competition in schools is a pretty controversial topic. “Should I play this game? Will this activity increase this student’s anxiety?” “Once I add points to this, will that decrease their motivation?”

On the other hand, I knew that competition can increase involvement, improve teamwork, and lead to a sense of community. What a dilemma! Extrinsic motivation wasn’t something that I subscribed to but I thought I would give the House System a try. If you are interested in other classroom community activities I tried this year and loved, check out this post.

house-system

What Are House Systems?

I first stumbled across the House System while scrolling on Instagram. Brittney from Miss 5th has an informative blog post about it, how she got started and how she’s adapted it over the years. I also purchased her House System resource and that’s where all my pretty shields came from.

Basically, students are randomly assigned into a house. I currently have 24 students in my class and they are split into 5 houses: Animo, Integritas, Viribus, Fidelitas, and Quantum. They earn points for showing “Above and Beyond” behaviour. Houses with the most points earn rewards.
house-system

How to Start the House System

First, I started off by asking students if they have seen or heard of schools that have houses. Harry Potter is usually the first to come up. We discuss what we think the benefits are having a house system in school.
I tell them that they are about to be sorted into a house. They will remain in that house all year. We talked about the names of the different houses and the meaning of their Latin names.

Then, the sorting begins! I used an online wheel you can find here that is customizable and you can even upload images. It is super important to make a big deal about this part and ensure that students are clapping and cheering for their new housemates.

I use the Google Slide below and add students’ names beside their houses once they have spun the wheel.

house-system-sorting
Once students are sorted in their groups (they remain in their house for the whole year), I have them do some get-to-know-you activities and come up with a house cheer.
Each house also needs to select a house leader. The house leaders meet with me once a month to discuss how things are going in class, ideas they have for incentives, and to pick out a Scholastic book or two for our classroom library. It can be a bit of a challenge for students to know how to give constructive feedback (especially to a teacher!) which is why I use a Stop-Start-Continue graphic organizer. You can download a FREE copy of this graphic organizer by clicking here. 
stop-start-continue

What Are Some Rewards?

In their houses, the students brainstormed a list of “Above and Beyond” behaviours that they thought should be rewarded (I do not take points away for negative behaviours). I wrote down each idea on a sheet of paper. Then, we did some sticker voting! I gave the students some dot stickers and they put the stickers on the ideas that they liked the best. Here is what they came up with:
I let the students determine the rewards but gently reminded them that I have three children at home and not an endless supply of money. They brainstormed ideas in their houses and then shared with the whole class. We used sticker voting again to choose the rewards.
We decided on a monthly reward (dropping a small assignment which later turned into choosing which table to sit at), an end of term reward (movie during class time), and an end of year reward (poutine party).
Finally, I keep track of points on this laminated house list. I use a dry erase marker and give points anywhere from 1-250. Sometimes we spin for points using the Wheel of Names. At the end of the week, I tally up the points and add them to our House Wall.
house-system

My students this year are not as competitive as I am so it will be interesting to see how it plays out with different groups of kids. If you are looking for other great get-to-know you activities this post with first day of school ideas can be easily adapted when starting the house system.

I’d love to hear about your successes and challenges with the house system! Comment below or send me a message on Instagram. 

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