Inter-house event ideas: sports, arts and academic
A house competition runs best when it offers more than one kind of event. Pupils who are not sporty need something to win for their house, and a calendar with a mix keeps the points table close. Here are the events three schools run, grouped by type.
The examples come from a school in Western Australia, one in Nepal and one in Lancashire, England. Use them as ideas, not as a standard.
Sports events
- Indoor soccer, floorball and scurry-ball. Peter Moyes Anglican Community School runs these in its weekly inter-house programme.
- Football, cricket, table tennis, badminton and relay race. Melamchi High School lists these among its inter-house competitions.
- A table tennis tournament. A Lancashire school's spring term timetable includes a Year 7 to 10 table tennis tournament where pupils play to represent their house.
Arts and creative events
- Theatre sports, an inter-house dance competition and a short-film festival. All three are on Peter Moyes' list. The school describes its programme as covering artistic, construction, dance, drama, team building and sporting choices, not only house sport.
- Mug and T-shirt design competitions. Also at Peter Moyes.
- Poetry writing, recitation and elocution. From Melamchi's list.
- Singing, dance and drama shows. Melamchi houses perform at major school functions.
- House display boards. In the Lancashire timetable, houses design a display board with information on their house saint, their badge and house points updates.
- Decorate an egg. Pupils design an egg from the art department, in the same Lancashire timetable.
- A best house singing competition. In the Lancashire timetable, houses compete in a singing practice at each house assembly.
Academic events
- Essay writing, spelling, public speaking, debate and a quiz. Melamchi includes these among its inter-house competitions.
- A languages challenge. The Lancashire timetable has a Duolingo challenge: pupils earn house points each week for evidence of taking part, and the pupil with the highest streak in each class earns extra points.
- World Maths Day. The same timetable includes an online maths day where pupils compete to represent their house.
- A science challenge. Peter Moyes announced one for a later round.
Team and community events
- Survivor-style team challenges, billy cart making and a board game challenge. From Peter Moyes' list. The school calls billy cart making a real highlight.
- A library books competition. In the Lancashire timetable, houses earn one house point for every book borrowed from the library, and the house with the most books wins.
- A fundraiser. The Lancashire timetable includes a Lent fundraiser with an inter-house market, where houses compete to raise the most.
- A virtues competition. The Lancashire timetable has a "most virtuous house", where pupils earn points each day for displaying school virtues such as helping another person and not giving up on challenging work.
Choose a rhythm
Peter Moyes runs its inter-house competition every Friday during tutorial time, with a new team of teachers each leading a house. The Lancashire timetable instead spreads events across a half term, each with its own deadline. Either pattern works. Pick one that your timetable can support all year.
Decide how events score
The sources show different ways to score. The Lancashire timetable gives house points to the top houses and individual pupils in an event, for example 200, 100 and 50 house points to the top three houses in the table tennis tournament, and a small number of points just for taking part. The Peter Moyes and Melamchi pages do not say how they award points. Whatever you choose, publish it before the event. The house points rules guide covers how.
Where this fits
Use these ideas to fill the calendar in the inter-house competition guide. The sports day planning checklist covers the biggest sports event, and the school fest checklist covers a larger school event.