Crescent

Housemaster: Greg Haines

Greg Haines has been appointed Housemaster of Crescent from September 2009.

After leaving his home country of New Zealand, Greg joined Hurst two years ago. He is a member of the maths department and also teaches economics. Importantly, too, he is Master in Charge of Cricket, an enthusiastic Hockey Coach and keen actor and musician.

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 42 boys, ten in each of the Middle School years and twelve in the Lower Sixth. On entering the House in the Shell (Year 9) they share a ten-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 House has won the Day House Cup each year since they were founded.

The Crescent House report for 2007- 8

written by James Bowtell and Alex Pearce

Crescent has had many successes over the past 3 years, and this year every pupil has contributed towards this.  Passionately run by Mr Leeper, the house has a great community spirit, and we are all proud of that. We have had another eventful year in the various House activities and competitions.

Michaelmas Term

Our first term together as a House proved to be a real success in all academic, sporting and creative aspects of Hurst.

Challenge Grade reviews can either be exciting times of the week or daunting to those who know they have not been working well. Thankfully in Crescent the atmosphere is always lively when our grades are released, as they nearly always represent how we can all get our heads down in the classroom, as well as succeeding on the sports fields. This term the average Challenge Grade review score total in the House was -0.80, this time last year it was -2. A handful of boys in the House consistently achieved a total of 0 or better in all 3 Challenge Grade reviews. They were Liam Agate, Dan Levene, Matt Austin, Sam Keating, Josh Levene, Austin Pilbeam, Will Hand, Joel Levene, Warwick Meyler and Ed Zeidler. Last year only two boys had achieved this, showing just how Crescent has increased in strength academically since being founded two years ago.

After a relaxing half term we had to prepare teams quickly for the House Rugby and House Water Polo competitions. There is no better time in the calendar to hold the House Rugby, than when the pitches are waterlogged with little grass, the winds are frightfully cold and it is already getting dark after our lunch. Every year however Crescent manages to put a talented, but more importantly, motivated team together to go out and represent the house. This term the Juniors came fourth, while the Seniors were first equal. We were due to play Star in the final but it got too dark, some might say a lucky let off for Star!! Special mention must go to Dan Levene (Lower Sixth) our captain and Zach Willis (Fifth Form) who were outstanding in the competition and neither boy looked out of place against the Upper Sixth formers. We easily had the best set of backs in the competition and it was a shame that both the final and the 7’s competition were not able to be played as we would have stood a very good chance of winning them both.

In the Water Polo the Seniors came third. We were drawn against the other two best teams in the competition, Star and Red Cross. We beat Red Cross 2-0 and drew with Star 2-2, unfortunately losing in the penalty shoot out. In the Juniors we won the competition, and this was without our captain Jack Stone who had injured his shoulder playing House Rugby the previous day. Having drawn with Chevron and then thrashing Woodard 5-0, we played Star in the final and got our revenge with Giles Orchard playing a key role in our attack. 

At this time of year we have Mr Leeper’s annual House Pool competition. The final was between the same two people as last year Tristan Blundell (Fifth Form) and Alex Pearce (Lower Sixth), who both obviously need to stop playing so much and let others have a go. Unfortunately for Alex, Tristan beat him again, this time 4-1, to take the deserved £10 prize money.

We were not as successful this year in the House Music competition – never our forte, though we did not come last. Special mention must go to Leigham Curtis, who besides doing some amazing back flips to the roars of the audience in the House unison, sang solo and played lead guitar in the House ensemble. We were unfortunately not able to repeat our success in the Top House competition and were knocked out in the first round by the eventual winners.

To top off an eventful term, we also had in the House Play competition. Mike Warren and Jack Maslen (both Upper Sixth), directed a farce called ‘La Mouche’. This is about an American who is in a French restaurant with a fly in his soup. It starred Leigham Curtis (Fifth Form) and Ed Zeidler (Shell) as the French waiters and Ollie Mellor (Shell) as the American. They all worked really hard and the play was a great success and even though we came sixth, we still won a prize for the best voice projection for maintaining the French and American accents throughout the play, while the rest of the school knew we should have won it for producing the greatest amount of laughter.

Lent Term

It was extremely rewarding if not a little humorous to come back to school and immediately be congratulated by Mr Leeper for being tidy and polite. He told us he had been complimented by the Headmaster, Senior Housemaster, the Registrar and Head of the Cleaning department, for having the best looked after social room, and the ‘easiest to clean’ house.

In terms of academic results and challenge reviews we had another excellent term. For the second term running we had the best average Challenge Grade reviews in the school, proving Mr Leeper’s persuasive techniques with tuck shop vouchers were still working! Ed Zeidler achieved +10, the highest ever recorded score in the school since the grade system started, Giles Orchard and Charlie Atkinson improved their scores from the previous term by +9 and +7 respectively, all of which impressed and excited Mr Leeper so much that we all got pizza one evening for our efforts.

There were two sports competitions this term: Hockey and Swimming. In the Swimming the Seniors came fourth and the Juniors fifth. It was good to see everyone willing to participate even though they may have been poor swimmers. Sam Morrison won both the 50 m and 100 m freestyle and was awarded for having the biggest legs and most defined body in the school. Overall we repeated our placings in the Hockey, that is we came fourth in the Seniors and fifth equal in the Juniors. In the annual Inter-House Cup, even after not performing greatly in the pool and on the Astroturf, we were winning the Day House Cup by a massive 12 points and beating one of the boarding Houses, showing we are by far the best day house and can still compete with the boarding houses even though we are the second smallest house in the school.

After ‘La Mouche’, Leigham Curtis (Fifth) and Ed Zeidler (Shell) were talent-spotted and put into the school production of ‘Godspell’. Leigham’s backflips and disco tricks, along with the amount of older girls Ed seemed to have around him were memorable moments of the play.

Summer Term

Crescent continued to be strong academically and for the third term running won the academic award. In all year groups we have a particularly strong group of boys, displaying the all-round talent that is present in all aspects of Crescent.  We can look forward to a promising academic future with the boys currently in Crescent.

During the Summer Term everyone was involved in the House Athletics and we had great fun at this big sporting event.  We potentially have a very strong team with a large number of members competing in the Athletics squad, in all age groups.  Young promising athletes, Warwick Meyler and Charlie Atkinson, were mentioned in Chapel recently for their athletic achievements.  Overall this was an extremely exciting event, the weather held out and we put the other houses to the test.  This was a great opportunity to have fun and the spirit of Crescent house really showed on the day. We eventually won both the Juniors (Shell) and the Seniors (Sixth Form) competition, with Warwick Meyler (Shell) and Jack Maslen (Upper Sixth) each won the Victor Ludorum for being the best athlete in their competition. Overall we were just beaten by Red Cross. Even so, to have done so well is a testament to the hard endeavour the boys are prepared to put in for the cause. Special thanks must go to all the Upper Sixth and Fifth Formers who competed as, even though they had finished all their exams, still came back and happily competed for the House without the slightest complaint, or at least not within earshot of Mr Leeper!

There was also the House Cricket this term.  Again, we were the leading day house, beating Chevron, even with Ollie Smith (Fifth Form), who had just transferred from Star, building his tally of two consecutive golden ducks!  We came close to a victory against Red Cross in the third/fourth play-off.  Overall we came fourth despite Sam Morrison (Lower Sixth) hitting a huge six ... and then getting out! 

The Junior Cricket team shortly emulated the Seniors’ success.  We have a very promising all round team and this was illustrated in our performances.  Our strengths lie in our U14 A members, Ed Ziedler and Giles Orchard and two Remove boys Jack Stone and Josh Levene, who are currently members of the 1st X1.  We most definitely tested the larger houses in this competition and it was a great team performance. Unfortunately both Josh and Jack were injured for the crucial matches which meant we ended up mid-table.

We would all like to thank Mr Shearman and Mr Clay who regularly helped to keep the house in order whilst on duty and played a vital role in the house community, especially with all those pool matches! Good luck to Mr Shearman who leaves us to become Housemaster of Star. We hope we have trained you up well.

Finally, on behalf of every member of Crescent, we would like to thank Mr Leeper for all the passion and enthusiasm he has injected into the house, for looking out for us and for always striving to bring out the best in every one of the Crescent boys – academically, creatively and on the sports field. 

Because of all this, Crescent is a great house and we are sure we speak for everyone when we say how proud we are to be part of it!