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Houses

The school has five Houses. They are: Anderson, Baker, Bennett, Chappell and Seeley. Together, these names (people) weave a philosophy of the school, a set of values that we hold as important and central to our hopes and aspirations. They have been chosen because these people’s lives, achievements and dispositions are considered both individually and collectively to mark a way of being that the school considers worthy and noble.

There has been a quite deliberate choice of the 'living', a careful putting to one side of great thinkers or continents or artists or novelists or scientists. This is not because we deem them in any way unworthy but because we want to consider a more human scale, something a little more intimate and personal.

There are some central strands running through our choice: compassion; a sense of time; history; education and its power to transform; faith; the transformation of people; intellect; the power of the written word; literature; ambition; personal drive; the fragility of the human condition; who we start as and who we become and why; decision-making; an understanding of the world; forgiveness; humour; greatness and ordinariness.

Collectively the lives and values of the people form the ethos of the school.

Miss Jean Anderson
(b. 1932)
Retired Head of History, Durham Wearside Grammar School

Sir John Baker CBE
b. 1937)
Chair of Governors at Holland Park School, 2003 - 2013

Mr Alan Bennett
(b. 1934)
Writer

Mr David Chappell
(b. 1963)
Academy Head, Holland Park School, 2001 - present

Mr Jonathan Seeley
(b. 1965)
Primary School Teacher