Woodard

Housemaster: Dan Higgins

Named after the College’s founder, Woodard is a boys’ Day House and occupies the original site of one of the College’s oldest Houses, Fleur de Lys. Situated right in the heart of the school, it provides excellent access to the Classroom & Science block from one side, and the Dining Hall and Chapel from the other.   The House - originally planned to accomodate some 40 boys - has now expanded to become a 'home-from-home' for 44 talented youngsters.  In the first two years the boys share large open day rooms, helping them to quickly bond with their peers and form good friendship groups.  In the Fifth form there are three rooms with 3 or 4 sharing, whilst in the Lower Sixth the boys room in pairs. 

Woodard is lucky to have a large separate social room, kitchen and superb ICT facilities (the House is fully Wi-Fi).  The Lower Sixth also enjoy their own social area and kitchen.    

Dan Higgins has been the Housemaster in Woodard since its inception in 2004.  He believes one of the fundamental parts of being a member of the House is committing to giving everything a go, at least once.   You never know what you’re missing until you give it a try.   As the ex-Head of Design & Technology he has had a large input into the development and growth of the House, whilst still enjoying his teaching in the department and maintaining his love of sport.    He is a rugby coach, kayak and climbing instructor and keen mountain biker and has just been promoted to become Contingent Commander of Hurst's thriving Combined Cadet Force.   He is married to Helena, also a teacher at the school, and they have one daughter, Beth, in the Prep School and their second, Ella, in the Pre-Prep.

Woodard House Report 2009 - 10

by Marnix van Gelderen, House Captain

This was truly a great year for Woodard. All the boys approached their challenges with great spirit, enthusiasm and confidence; as a result we were pretty successful and there was a wonderful spirit in the House. After 4 years in Woodard, I was really excited that I had been selected to be House Captain and determined and committed to doing all that I could to ensure that the House continued to thrive.

Michaelmas Term
We welcomed 12 new Shell boys and two new Lower Sixth pupils (James and Rob) into the House at the start of the year.  They all seemed to settle in quickly, making new friends and joining in with the various aspects of Woodard life.  Mr. Higgins emphasised that our main objective - as a House - this year was to win the termly House Cup in the Michaelmas, Lent and Summer terms! In Woodard, we like to be ambitious... This meant that we’d need to perform to the highest standards in most House competitions but sadly we didn’t do too well in the first challenge, the House Rugby.  Both Juniors and Seniors came fifth out of the six boy houses despite the fact that our injured House Prefect, Charlie Allen, was a truly inspirational team manager. Next year we must do better and build upon our single victory over Chevron.   Special mention must go to our 5th form players, especially George Johnson and Mike Vallone for some brilliant and courageous play, as well as our new lad, James Livesey who had never played rugby before but was eager to take part in his first House event.

Countering this loss came a string of successes in the next three inter-House competitions.  Following last years’ winning efforts in House Music, a new Woodard band was formed including Josh Hammond, James Livesey, Cameron Forster and me.  We performed the brilliant ‘With or Without You’ by U2 and were then joined by the rest of the house singing ‘Spirit in the Sky’ as our ‘House Shout’.   As ever, despite our lack of singing ability in Congo, we pulled it out of the bag on the night and our efforts earned us a well-deserved 4th place overall.  (1st amongst all the Boys’ Houses).
  
House Cross-Country then proved to be another event where Woodard revealed hidden skills.  Previously considered to be one of the more minor House events, the format was changed this year and the whole school took part.  This made Jamie Hutchings 5th place overall even more impressive.  Then, as the term drew to a close, the stage was  set for the House Drama Competition.  With plenty of scholars we knew we had the talent, although we had never thought that a real drama would unfold as Harry Hitchens collapsed back stage just as the competition kicked off.  Alister Dell heroically stood in as Harry’s understudy and amazingly (under the circumstances) we went on to win best-directed play and best actor (awarded to Dan Costello).   I am thrilled to report that following some worrying episodes, Harry is now fighting fit and suffering no more.

Other events starring Woodard boys in Michaelmas included the wonderful Jazz and Rock concert involving our Woodard band and showcasing the talents of James Ebdon and Alex Hill who performed with other bands. As well as the concerts, the school put on the hilarious cross dressing play ‘Love Labours Lost’ in which both I and James Rothwell had parts and also the powerful ‘Private Peaceful’ in which Phil Dugard starred.

Our late run of successes resulted in us achieving our goal; we were awarded the Day Boys’ House Cup at the end of term Assembly!

Lent term
The Lent term started slowly because heavy snow hampered access to the school. Once or twice I was the only pupil who made it into Woodard as I walked in from Burgess Hill whilst all the other members of the House depended upon the school buses which were unable to run.  Still, Lent is all about hockey, January modules and the School Musical which, this year, was West Side Story.  House Hockey again earned Woodard Seniors a ‘respectable’ 5th place but the Juniors showed skill and spirit and finished an excellent 2nd. Special mention here should go to Haithem Al-Omari for his brilliant Junior team goalkeeping and Simon Thompson who battled on with a damaged knee in the Senior team.

The  pressure to succeed increased as we faced two of the (for us) least popular events in the House competition; water polo and swimming.  Despite our dislike of getting unnecessarily wet, Woodard Seniors and Juniors managed to come 2nd thanks, in particular, to the efforts of  Harry Noad, Will Old and Ben Parish in the Seniors and Connor Valentine and Brandon Troak in Remove.  These guys really saved the day for us.

In the later part of the term there was the absolutely fabulous musical ‘West Side Story’ staring our House vice-captain Josh Hammond as well as Bailey Pilbeam. Charlie Allen and Jonny Holford also supported, putting in sterling work backstage.

Fortunately some strong academic performances bolstered our mediocre sporting efforts for this, the shortest term of the year and we found that, once again, we lead the league tables and so scooped up Day Boys’ House Cup at the end of term Assembly!

Could we really achieve the ambitious target  set by Mr Higgins long ago last September?  It was certainly looking possible.

Summer Term
Summer is always the term of great sport, lovely weather and a great atmosphere throughout the school.  Whilst, as term draws to a close, the atmosphere is dampened by forthcoming exams the Summer term is, for the most part, a good one.

Last year, Woodard performed poorly in our sporting competitions. Exams and other commitments kept preventing us from fielding our strongest teams.  This year, I’m proud to report, was different.  Two of our tennis players, Tim Hyman and Bailey Pilbeam, fought their way through to an impressive second place, losing very narrowly indeed.  House golf allowed Tom Fairfax and Brandon Troak, two of the best golfers in the school, to demonstrate their talent, scooping the Golf Cup for Woodard.  House cricket followed and was also a great success and our Juniors stole the show with a final game victory over Eagle thanks to star performances from James Ebdon, Connor Valentine, Darius Tata and George Stone to name but a few.

A particularly special event during this term was the 150th anniversary of the founding of the CCF.  Hurst was one of the first 5 schools in the Country to found a cadet force and the day on which we celebrated our 150th anniversary was a wonderful day enjoyed by the whole school.  A number of Woodard boys and Mr. Higgins took part in the celebration including lads from the L6th, 5th form and Remove in both the Army and Navy sections.

Elsewhere Woodard was keen to continue its record and display its hard working approach to Charity contributions. With 3 Woodard boys; Will Old, Dom Andrew and Will Fooks all off to Malawi for 3 weeks in the summer to help build a new school, this term's charity was close to Woodard hearts.  As ever, Mr. Higgins was keen to instill in us that we should be prepared to work hard rather than do more mundane or easier tasks, so the whole House got together and painted the Pre-Prep boundary fence.  The boys really got stuck in and painted the entire fence in a single day, no mean achievement.  The Bursar agreed that the school would donate to our Charity  the money they would have had to pay contractors to undertake this task.

Towards the end of the term, we had our annual House BBQ.  Usually this follows the Shell weekend away but unfortunately this year that had to be cancelled.   In the past, the BBQ has been held on the Woodard lawn but the new extension to the academic block has occupied some of that space and so we moved to East Field. It turned out to be a great event, involving a brilliant football match, some epic gladiator face-offs on the bouncy castle and a generally cracking atmosphere all around. 

The next weekend then saw Prize & Sports Day. Most of us competed in at least one event and Woodard members were prominent in the medal stakes.  Special mention should go to Dom Andrews for coming second in the long jump and Joe Vallone for his brilliant win – streets ahead of the competition – in the 400metres. As the sun began to drop towards the horizon, we then enjoyed some great music (including a superb performance by the Woodard band) at our end of year open air concert, Hurst’n’Brie.

On our last legs and eager to begin the long summer break,  we crawled towards the end of term and the last assembly when, after another great term of effort from everyone,  it gave me huge pleasure to collect, for the third and final time this year, the House Cup. Proof, in my view (were proof ever needed) that Woodard is simply the best Boys’ Day House!

Before completing my report, I must say ‘well done’ to Phil Dugard, Ben Parish, Dan Costello and Cameron Forster for all achieving their House colours.  These are earned through commitment to Woodard and richly deserved.  Sadly as term closed, we said good bye to Sam Johnson and also to Basil Dineen who goes to Houston with his family. They have been good House mates and we all hope that they stay in touch. I would also just like to say ‘many thanks’ to all the Woodard pupils, Prefects, tutor team and John (our cleaner) for all the work they all do for the House. This has been another great year for Woodard but success has only come through determination and total commitment from every member of the team.

Finally, may I, on behalf of every single member of the House, register our profound thanks to Mr. Higgins. His dedication and commitment are legendary and his brilliant leadership of the House is an inspiration to every one of us.