Houses

Students are all placed into one of the four houses and the school tie incorporates a coloured stripe denoting the wearer's house: yellow, red, blue or green respectively.

There are house competitions in all the major sports and curriculum areas; points are awarded for participation in these events. In the Lower School, achievement points are given for good work, notable effort and praiseworthy actions. At the end of the academic year all points awarded are totalled and the winning house captain is presented with the 'Times Shield'. All house trophies are on display in the Main Hall.

Above is the current running total for each house.

Radcliffe - Winner 2024-25

House History

To help competitions in Sports within the school, the school was divided into four Houses called Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. Later these were changed to Cambridge Line, Main Line, Hitchin Line and School, the separation being based upon the distribution of homes. The school was spilt into Houses before 1920 but in the summer of 1925, Houses were introduced, on what it was hoped, would be a more respected basis. And so the names of the four men who were associated with the Old Free House were chosen as titles, the former School House becoming Skynner and Hitchin to Mattocke.

John Mattock

The idea of contributing to the welfare of chioldren by making a school was his. In 1639 rents from two meadows (six acres and three acres were made over to Trustees to pay for a schoolmaster. With help from Hitchin citizens an o9ls school building at the top of Tilehouse Street was bought and renovated. There had been a school there before but this was no longer in existence.

John Skynner

One of Mattock's original Trustees who had the power to appoint the schoolmaster. Ralph Skynner, his brother, a Trustee for proceeds from additional land given by the Vicar, Thomas Kidner (1667). This money was for ten children described as poor.

Sir Ralph Radcliffe

Interested in the O.F.S in the early Eighteenth Century. Tried to dominate it but townsfolk did not want Trustees who could not work together and he was discomfited. Gave money to provide clothes. An earlier Ralph Radcliffe conducted a school at the Priory. It is said to have been transferred to Tilehouse Street in 1559.

Joseph Pierson

After the trouble about the admission of Dissenters and as a result of an application to the Lord Chancellor, Joseph Margetts Pierson was made one of the Local Trustees for he had no finanicial or personal involvement in the school; he gave eight hundred pounds to support the endowments. 

Four names, then, were chosen for the Houses, these being picked before the publication of Mr.Hine's Book.

(Information taken from The Formative Years of Hitchin Boys' School by Robert Walmsley)