played at the school, and this rotates on a termly basis with rugby, hockey and cricket for boys, and hockey, netball, cricket and rounders for girls. The sports teams compete against similar schools from Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk. Athletics and indoor sports are usually played jointly. Uniform The school has a strict uniform policy of blazers, shirts and ties for boys, and blazers, blouses and skirts for girls in the first five years. Sixth form students wear a different uniform more akin to a business suit. Houses Current Houses The school has four houses, named after significant figures in the history of the pre-merger schools. The school houses compete in a variety of academic, musical and sporting settings. House colours are awarded for service to the house, half-colours for small contributions (a badge) and full-colours for large contributions (a tie for boys, badge for girls). School colours can also be awarded for service to the school as a whole. House history The present school houses are an amalgamation of houses from the boys' Grammar and girls' High schools; in 1971, the houses were named Parke-Southwell, Peckover-Crane, Clarkson-Dennis and Holmes-Sparks. Thomas Parke and John Crane were 17th-century benefactors of the Grammar school, John Dennis was a Wisbech solicitor who was a governor of the Girls' High School between 1904–1932 and Alfred Southwell was mayor of Wisbech in 1903, who chaired the committee formed to set up the school and was subsequently the first chairman of the governors. The Southwell family, incidentally, once owned Bevis Hall, the manor in Wisbech St Mary which once held jurisdiction over the land on North Brink on which Harecroft House is sited. Beatrice M Sparks MA (Oxon) was the first headmistress of Wisbech High School, she left in 1913 and was appointed principle of Cheltenham Ladies College in 1922. Notable staff John Richardson Major, Master of the school 1826–1831 Arthur William Poyser MA, Headmaster of the school and author. Books published by Longman included Magnetism and Electricity, A Manual for Students in Advanced Classes 1901, Magnetism and Electricity, Stage One (1889) and Magnetism and Electricity, Stage Two (1904). John Muriel (1909–1975), born in Hadleigh, Suffolk, aka as John St Clair Muriel, John Lindsey or Simon Dewes, was an author and teacher. Novels, autobiographies and short stories include: Molten Ember (1930), Voice of One, Still Eastward Bound (1940), Suffolk Childhood (1959), Essex Days (1960) and When All