It’s All FUN & GAMES

Mr. Leigh Northrup Answers All Our Questions About Middle School Advisory Games

Punkin’ Chunkin’. Doughnut Duel. Big Wheel Derby. Though these names may all sound a little funny, bring them up to any Cannon Middle Schooler and each moniker is guaranteed to elicit a response. That’s because each is a competition in the yearlong Middle School Advisory Games, an annual challenge between our fifth- through eighth-grade advisories.

We sat down with Mr. Leigh Northrup, Dean of Innovation and Technology, about the origins of the Middle School Advisory Games.

Tell us a bit about the origins of Middle School Advisory Games. How did they come to fruition?

Dr. Matt Rush (former Head of Middle School) was the instigator of all of this. Advisory Games was his brainchild. It happened during the Winter Olympics one year, when we decided to do two weeks of competitions among advisories every day. We did bobsled races, the luge, I think we even did something that resembles cross country skiing. (Sorry, no figure skating.) We realized how much fun it was to have advisories competing in silly games and how much it added to our Middle School culture.

Each year there is a different theme, like GameChangers, which focused on people whose efforts have changed the world, or Cannon Turns 50, which celebrated our 1969 founding. How do you decide on the themes each year?

The Middle School administration team sits down in the spring and summer and thinks about the areas that we really want to focus on in the coming year. These could be things like teamwork, belongingness, or celebrating world cultures. At that point, we usually just brainstorm, and a theme usually presents itself.

What are the important lessons you feel Middle School students have taken away from the Games?

I think it’s the whole work hard, play hard mentality. We push these kids so hard in the classroom and having these games really lightens the mood. Sure, they have fun in their challenging classes, but these games are a nice release.

Do you have a favorite memory from the Games?

Years ago, we were in the middle of a very competitive Doughnut Duel challenge. This is a race in which the kids are not allowed to eat the doughnuts with their hands. One of the Diskin boys (I can’t remember which one), had his doughnut drop on the ground. Obviously, he couldn’t pick it up and eat it, so you can only imagine what happened. It was epic, and he won.