Editing House system (section)

== Pastoral care ==
[[File:Display in University High School, Victoria, with the names of the former school houses and portraits of formed students who served in the First World War.jpg|thumb|House banners at a public school in [[Australia]]]]
In some boarding schools, a primary purpose of the house system is to provide [[pastoral care]] to the [[student]]s. Separated from parents for long periods, children will rely on the school to fulfil their [[social|socio]]-[[emotional]] needs, in addition to meeting their basic physical care. The smaller within-school structure of the house facilitates this, by promoting personalised care, with more frequent interactions, and lower child-to-adult-carer ratios, than within the wider school. Similar benefits of closer relationships between teachers and students may occur in day schools that use house systems for this purpose.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dierenfied |first1=R. B. |title=The house system in comprehensive schools: Its current status |journal=British Journal of Educational Studies |date=February 1976 |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=5–11 |doi=10.1080/00071005.1976.9973453}}</ref>

Peer relationships and fostering of community feeling are a similar aim of school house systems, whether in boarding or day schools. One headmaster of an English-style school – Brighton College Bangkok – David Tongue, writing in an editorial,<ref name="relocate">{{cite magazine |last1=Tongue |first1=David |title=The House System: a typically British educational institution. (Editorial) |url=https://www.relocatemagazine.com/articles/education-the-house-system-a-typically-british-educational-institution |access-date=23 August 2021 |magazine=Relocate Magazine |id=www.relocatemagazine.com online |date=23 September 2016 |archive-date=23 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210823083402/https://www.relocatemagazine.com/articles/education-the-house-system-a-typically-british-educational-institution |url-status=dead }}</ref>  described the team-spirit engendered by school houses this way: "This camaraderie and solidarity is second to none and the benefits of this vertical interaction, where the young look up to the elder and where the elder look out for and support the younger, are profound." In Britain, the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust [now [[SSAT (The Schools Network)]]], has endorsed use of House systems as one strategy for preventing the deterioration of children's educational and social progress, a common feature of transition from [[primary school|primary]] to [[secondary school]].<ref name="Ind">{{cite news |last1=Garner |first1=Richard |title=State secondaries urged to bring back the house system |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/state-secondaries-urged-to-bring-back-the-house-system-913930.html |access-date=23 August 2021 |work=The Independent |date=22 October 2011 |language=en}}</ref>