Maltese Cross House

Boys' House

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Richard Castle took over as Houseparent of Maltese Cross in September 2011.

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Richard is married to Samantha and they have two young sons, Josiah and Tobey. Richard is a keen sportsman and enjoys hockey, golf and football, in particular the ups and downs of the Tottenham Hotspur season. He is also very much involved in the Duke of Edinburgh award where he encourages pupils to develop leadership skills. In his spare time he enjoys visiting the cinema and spending time in any second hand bookshop.

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Richard joins Rossall from Abingdon School in Oxfordshire where he was a teacher of Economics and deputy housemaster of ‘School House’. He believes that the happiest and most successful boys are those who keep themselves busy and he encourages all of his boys to develop interests for which they have a passion.  He hopes that all boys in Maltese Cross will throw themselves into the spirit of the House. 

Ethos of the house:

All the things that boys do, all their achievements, all their academic success, in the end are only going to happen if they are happy, if they are well grounded and if they are enjoying life at school. Entering a school in an unfamiliar culture can be a daunting experience, but a supportive, family orientated, stable boarding environment will make this transition far easier.

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The housemaster, deputy and tutors of Maltese Cross strive to impart confidence, an independence of mind and a ‘can–do’ ethos in the boys, so that they each have the opportunity to achieve their full potential.   This is also achieved by treating each boy as an individual, and developing the ensuing relationship, so that by focusing on the individual, each pupil is taught to accept both success and failure as a natural occurrence of life.

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Each boy that joins Maltese Cross, joins a house steeped in tradition and history. It is the third oldest house at Rossall, dating back to 1886, and takes its name from the 15^th century Knights Hospitaller. The eight points of the cross are said to symbolize the eight points of courage; Loyalty, Piety, Generosity, Bravery, Glory, Honour, Helpfulness and Respect, qualities that befit a student of Maltese Cross.

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All students within Maltese Cross have the privilege of either being bedded in single or double bedrooms which incorporate, along with a single bed for each student, a wardrobe, chest of drawers and a study desk along with a network socket for a computer. Along with communal showers and bathing facilities there is also a small kitchen for the students to relax over a cup of coffee in the morning or cocoa and toast in the evening.

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The House has a day-boys' room on the ground floor including individual lockers and study desks and a boarders' common room on the second floor, the latter incorporating comfortable seating, IT facilities, PlayStation 3 and Sky HD.

Rossall School Rugby Awards

The annual Rossall School Rugby Awards (RSRA) took place on the evening of Saturday 3 December.  Following a sumptuous roast dinner and an address by the ex Irish international Barry Mcdermott, two members of MC walked away with top awards in the proceedings:

Player of the year (2nd XV) - Jonas Schippel

Most improved player - Harry Southern

The award was presented by local rugby legend and now head of academic PE at Rossall, Mr I Cameron.  Well done to all boys who represented their house in rugby this term!

Water Polo

MC's successes continue in the inaugoral inter-house Water Polo competition.  After two weeks of practices, the MC water polo team took to the Rossall pool to show MF what team work in water is all about.  Following some outstanding individual performances from Chau Xu and Leonard Hemple and 2 goals from house captain Jonas Schippel, MC swam away with an impressive 3-0 win. 

Report for House Football

A crisp bright day in November saw the return of the house football competition.  This was the opportunity for the boys of MC to show the world that they could 'Bend it like Beckham'. 

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It was obvious from the first game of the juniors that we had found our new Jurgen Klinsmann.  After scoring a penalty to put us on level terms with MF, Henry Hartmann blazed a storm with a solo run which ended up with a 30 yarder to the top right hand corner. 

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It was this sort of effort along with an outstanding display in goal by Kyle Harris that earned MC a podium finish.  Not to be outdone, the seniors inspired by the fancy footwork of Leon Kaub made easy work of almost all the opposition eventually walking away with a silver medal to celebrate their days success. 

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It was remarked to me afterwards by an enthusiastic supporter that the boys of MC were inspirational on field, the likes that had not been seen since Tottenham had lifted the European Cup in '61.

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Poetry Please

On Thursday 20th October, Gus Maree represented the house in the 'Poetry Please' review.  This was an opportunity for students across all years to showcase their talents in poetry.  Gus's poem 'The Winning Team' is as follows:

The Winning Team

 There is a team that no one can beat

(Except for when we lose)

You have to bow down at our feet

You might have to clean our shoes

But we are undefeated

We’ll see you again next year

Our win will be repeated

When you come over here

Our season sounds impressive

It makes us very proud

To win 40-0 seems excessive

But makes everyone cheer out loud

All this may seem great

But the fact is we’ve only played 2 games

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House Rugby

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House Singing Competition

MC Induction week

The beginning of a school year is always a difficult time for old and new boys alike. New layouts of the school day, new teachers to get used to as well as old teachers to get used to again. Simply it is tough, but it is also a time when a community such as that in a boarding house can pull together to try and support those new boys in those first tentative steps. 

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It is with this in mind that the newly formed MC house embarked on an Induction week where every night different activities were laid on to try and get the boys to integrate that little bit better. 

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The week kicked off on Monday with a table football knockout competition, where the head boy Jonas Schippel and his partner Matthais Leistentritt asserted their authority in the house by beating new boys Tim Sitt and Filip Lazic in the final. 

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Wednesday was quiz night where Hendrik Weidtmann’s team of 4 wiped the floor with the opposition. 

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Thursday was Mario Kart night where a hard fought battle between Trevor Chiu and Eric Liu in the final saw Trevor become the undefeated Karting champion. 

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Finally, after a tiring week at school the boys from MC were able to settle down to a movie and popcorn night where they enjoyed the recent blockbuster ‘Source Code’.

Table football competition

Quiz Night

Mario Kart Night

Inter - House Basketball Competition

MC gets off to a flying start in the first inter-house sports competition of the year, basketball. 

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Following 4 hard fought contests between the various boys boarding houses, MC have come out on top of the baskedball league. With two wins in a row, 16 – 11 against Pelican, 6 – 3 against Lugards and over 20 minutes on court it was understandable that even the lesser teams had a chance at scraping past their stronger opponents, and that is what MF did by just sneaking a win by the closest of margins 16 – 18. 

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Form is temporary, class is permanent and the boys of MC proved this when they trounced SE in their final game 19 – 5 to walk away with the basketball crown. 

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Well done to Kingsley Yap, Julian Ng, Justin Bai, Andrew Suen, Max Bailey, Sam Ho, Lawrence Chan and man of the tournament Andy Wei!