Hi,
My son got Dartford Grammar School and going to start on September 2020.
In the application form they asked us, if we prefer any of the 5 houses .
Could anyone please inform me about the different between these 5 houses and whether the colour of them indicates which language he is going to learn in year 7 !
As well wether i can write his language preference in the form instead of the house name/colour.
Thanks

Hi Sumsum

I have a son in year 7 at DGS and as far as I can see, the only difference between the 5 houses is the colour of the blazer badge! Having said that, they do sit on "house" tables in their form and for most of their subjects and will play inter-house rugby tournaments etc.

We were never asked which house we wanted last year and the houses are not linked to the year 7 language allocation. Forms 7A-C learn Mandarin and forms 7D-F take Japanese (at least for this year anyway). This term the MFL classes have changed as some of the boys have opted to take the accelerated Excellence Programmes and are taught together.

Congratulations to your son. It's a great school and I hope he is very happy there.

Fawn

IME, the house preference question (at DS2's current / DS1's former grammar school, anyway) pertains to e.g. family connections. DS1 was the first in either of our families to attend, so we just went where we were put, so to speak, but come DS2"s time (after DS1had moved to a different school for 6th form), we had a little collection of house-specific second hand uniform, which I was too mean to get rid of unnecessarily, so we requested the same house for DS2.

_________________
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Hi
It used to matter historically until a few years ago when they went from 150 students to 180. They used to have 5 houses of 30 children and they where taught in their forms for most things. They would mix them up in year 9. You were asked, and still are, in case you had a brother at a certain house. This was so that they could be in the same house for sports.
There used to be a strong sense of belonging to your house and a lot of competition and rivalry. Now, they are all taught together and your badge and sports kit would be a different colour.
You can have a preference for either Japanese or Mandarin for whatever reason and they would try to accommodate the request.
Salsa