Crescent

Housemaster: Greg Haines

Greg Haines was appointed Housemaster of Crescent in September 2009.

 After leaving his home country of New Zealand, Greg joined Hurst three years ago. He is a member of the Mathematics and Economics Departments and is also the boys First Eleven Hockey Coach and 14A Cricket Coach.

 Crescent is a boys’ Day House and occupies the first floor in the east wing of the inner quad. It is named after a dormitory that, over 100 years ago, occupied a part of today’s house. The house accommodates a maximum of 43 boys, from both the Middle school and Lower Sixth. On entering the House in the Shell (Year 9) they share a twelve-man study which enables them to get to know each other very quickly.

 In the remaining Middle School years (Remove and Fifth) the size of the rooms decrease to between five- and two-man studies. Once in the Lower Sixth, all the boys are in single or two-man studies.

Crescent is a compact, very friendly and family orientated house and having a large social area enables house members to mix with all year groups which creates a strong house spirit.

The Crescent House report for 2009 - 10

by Jack Stone

Crescent House was a very enjoyable place to be this year; I will, very genuinely, miss my life here as I move on to St John’s House. I have been a part of Crescent House since I came to Hurst so I can state, with absolute certainty, that it has gone from strength to strength. Its secret, I believe, is that everyone makes the effort to ensure that we all get on well and so a very friendly atmosphere is always apparent within the House community.

Sporting Crescent

We are one of the smallest Houses and so the lads in Crescent really do have to pull together and almost everyone has to take part in every house activity whether or not they have an aptitude! So, let me get the bad news out of the way now: our Juniors actually came last in all of the Inter-House competitions (with the honourable exception of Cricket, in which they came 5th). But, for us, the taking part, and the spirit in which we take part, is just as important as the result and we competed with great enthusiasm and great good humour and showed great spirit. I want to thank all of our Juniors for taking such a positive attitude to one aspect of Hurst life for which they have somewhat less aptitude than some of our competitors.

Our Seniors, I can report, achieved a little more. Our Senior Rugby squad had a very successful competition finishing second after beating Red Cross and Eagle, two Houses far bigger than us. In the House Cross-Country competition the Seniors performed brilliantly, finishing in first place; in this context, I must mention Jonathan Crickmore’s achievement in not just finishing first but in finishing way ahead of the next runner in the field! Our Seniors came 4th in the Water Polo and 3rd in the Swimming competition, the more special an achievement when you realise that we were able to field only 4 swimmers for all the events! Crescent came 3rd in the Senior House Hockey competition (a good result not least because we trounced  all the other day Houses who are our most direct competitors) and 4th in the Inter-House Cricket was is pretty impressive considering the fact that we only had three in the House who actually play Cricket for College teams!

House Shout Crescent

This year it quickly became obvious that however many times Mr Haines persuaded us to practise, most of us are rather ‘un-musical’! Still, showing good House spirit, we pulled together and gave it our best shot yet none of us were really surprised when we found that we had ended up in last place. ‘It’s the taking part to the best of your ability that counts’ say I, and I know that I speak for everyone when I say that we had enormous fun throughout the competition.

Dramatic Crescent

On the other hand, we are rather good at Drama and did rather well in the House Drama competition. Special thanks must go to Jake Hurley, Ed Colonna, Giles Orchard, Josh Turier-Duerden, Scott Brooker and Tieran Freedman for putting in a huge amount of time to rehearse. The basis for the competition this year was to take a Classical myth - for Crescent this was King Midas - and then create your own script. The young but very capable cast members did a great job with this and put on a fantastic performance.

Debating Crescent

Finally, I want to congratulate all who took part in commendable performances in the Top House and Debating competitions. Special mention must go to Tom Wardill, Josh Grubb and Charlie Atkinson for their performances in these events.

Crescent, the House

To finish, I must say a massive thank you to Mr Green, Mr Clay and Mr Lamb for all their support in the House this year. They are always around to give a helping hand or just to have a friendly chat and the House would not run as smoothly as it does without their ever-present help. I also want to say a great ‘House thank you’ to our new Housemaster, Mr Haines. He took on Crescent only last September but has already made a real impact; he has brought the whole House together and settled the new Shell into Hurst life brilliantly. Finally a thank you to the rest of the House Prefects for doing a great job within the House this year, and congratulations to Tom Wardill who has been elected to be a College Prefect next year; I know he will fulfil this role superbly well.