At St Wilfrid's all the children are allocated to one of four Houses when they join the school. The Houses have four Saints, who are important to our school, as patrons. Click on the Saint's name for more information.
   
St Anne St Benedict St Hilda St Wilfrid
The children are awarded House Points, Stars or Merits for good work, kindness to others, achievements and anything that is seen as a positive contribution to the school.
Each Friday we have a Golden Assembly where the whole school celebrates individual and class achievements. We also see which House has accrued the most House Points for that week.
The House Mascot is Wilfrid Bear
and he wears the colours of the winning House for the week.
On Sports Day, the children take part in races wearing their school colours, winning points for their House Team, and there is a cup for the House with the most points.
  
St Anne - Feast Day 26th July
(also Ann or Anna), of David's house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary, according to Christian tradition. Her name Anne is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Hannah. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical Gospels. According to the apocryphal Gospel of James, an angel who told them that they would conceive a child visited Anne and her husband Joachim, after years of childlessness. Anne promised to dedicate the child to God's service. Joachim and Anne are believed to have given Mary to the service of the Second Temple when the girl was three years old. Anne is the patron saint of Quebec, Brittany, women in labour, and miners.
St Benedict (c.480 - 547) - Feast Day 11th July
was born at Nursia in Umbria, Italy, around 480 Ad. He was sent to Rome to study, but disliked the dissolute life of most of the population, and withdrew to a solitary life at Subiaco. A group of monks asked him to be their abbot, but some of them found his rule too strict, and he returned alone to Subiaco. Again, other monks called him to be their abbot, and he agreed, founding twelve communities over an interval of some years. His chief founding was Monte Cassino, an abbey which stands to this day as the mother house of the world-wide Benedictine order.
Benedict drew up a rule of life for monastics. The Rule gives instructions for how the monastic community is to be organized, and how the monks are to spend their time. An average day includes about four hours of liturgical prayer (called the Divinum Officium -- the Divine Office), five hours in spiritual reading and study, six hours of labour, one hour for eating, and about eight hours for sleep. A Benedictine monk vows to live in accordance with the Benedictine Rule, not to leave his community without grave cause, and to seek to follow the teaching and example of Christ in all things.
The effect of the monastic movement, Benedictine and other orders, has been enormous. Monastic scribes preserved the Holy Scriptures but monks were both scholars and workers. They developed windmills and water wheels for grinding grain, sawing wood, pumping water, and so on. The rotation of crops (including legumes) and other agricultural advances were also originated or promoted by monastic farms. The monks, by their example, taught the dignity of work and the importance of order and planning.
During a dispute and riot at St Mary's Abbey in York, 13 monks pleaded unsuccessfully to return to the early 6th century Rule of St Benedict but were exiled and taken into the protection of Thurstan, Archbishop of York. In 1132 he provided them with a site in the valley of the little River Skell in which they could found a new, more devout monastery. Although described as a place "more fit for wild beasts than men to inhabit" it had all the essential materials for the creation of a monastery: shelter from the weather, stone and timber for building, and plenty of water.
Within three years, the little settlement at Fountains had been admitted to the austere Cistercian Order (founded in France in 1098). Under its rules they lived a rigorous daily life, committed to long periods of silence, a diet barely above subsistence level, and wore the regulation habit of coarse undyed sheep's wool (underwear was forbidden), which earned them the name "White Monks."
Benedict died at Monte Cassino, Italy, according to tradition, on 21 March 547 and was named patron protector of Europe by Pope Paul VI in 1964. His feast day, previously 21 March, was moved in 1969 to 11 July.
St Hilda of Whitby, (c. 614–680), Feast Day 23rd June
is written about in The Ecclesiastical History of the English by the Venerable Bede in 731, who was born about eight years before her death.
According to Bede, Hilda was born in 614, the second daughter of Hereric and Breguswith of Northumbria. When Hilda was still an infant her father was murdered by poisoning while in exile at the court of the British King of Elmet (in what is now West Yorkshire). It is thought that she was brought up at King Edwin's court in Northumbria. In 627 King Edwin was baptised on Easter Day, 12 April, along with his court, which included Hilda, in York.
In 633 Hilda decided to answer the call of St. Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne to return to Northumbria and live as a nun, on the north bank of the River Wear. Here, with a few companions, she learned the traditions of Celtic monasticism which Aidan brought from Iona. After a year Aidan appointed Hilda second Abbess of Hartlepool Abbey.
In 657 Hilda became the founding abbess of a new monastery at Whitby where she remained until her death. Archaeological evidence shows that her monastery was in the Celtic style with its members living in small houses for two or three people. The tradition in double monasteries, such as Hartlepool and Whitby, was that men and women lived separately but worshipped together in church. All property and goods were held in common; Christian virtues were exercised, especially peace and charity; everyone had to study the Bible and do good works.
Five men from this monastery became bishops and two are revered as saints - Saint John of Beverley, Bishop of Hexham, and St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York.
Bede describes Hilda as a woman of great energy who was a skilled administrator and teacher. She gained such a reputation for wisdom that even kings and princes sought her advice, but she also had a concern for ordinary folk. As Bede writes, "All who knew her called her mother because of her outstanding devotion and grace".
At The Synod of Whitby most of those present, including Hilda, accepted the King's decision to adopt the method of calculating Easter currently used in Rome, but the monks from Lindisfarne, who could not accept this, withdrew to Iona and later to Ireland.
Hilda suffered from fever for the last six years of her life but she continued to work until her death on 17 November, 680 aged 66. In her last year she set up another monastery, fourteen miles from Whitby, at Hackness and her legend holds that at the moment of her passing the bells of the monastery of Hackness tolled. A nun also claimed to have witnessed Hilda's soul being borne to heaven by angels.
A local legend says that when sea birds fly over the abbey they dip their wings in honour of the saint. Another legend tells of a plague of snakes which Hilda turned to stone - supposedly explaining the presence of ammonite fossils on the shore. In fact, the ammonite genus Hildoceras takes its name from St. Hilda. The coat of arms of nearby Whitby actually include three such 'snakestones'.
From the late 19th century until the present day there has been a revival of interest in and devotion to St Hilda. With the development of education for women she has become the patron of many schools and colleges all over the world. College of St Hild and St Bede, Durham and St Hilda's College, Oxford are named after Saint Hilda. She is considered one of the patron saints of learning and culture including poetry.
St Wilfrid, Bishop, 634-709AD, Feast day 12th October
Born to a wealthy family in Northumberland, Wilfrid was a second generation Christian.
Although the native Britons were mainly Christians when Roman influence waned in the 5th Century, waves of Anglo-Saxons had invaded and brought their Pagan gods. This was also a time of struggle for dominance within the Church between the Irish/Scottish Celtic Christianity and the Roman tradition.
Wilfrid had an interest in the things of God from a young age and went to study in Lindisfarne, a centre of Celtic Christianity, under St Aidan.
To continue his education Wilfrid set out to travel to Rome, but stayed for quite a while in Lyon living the high-life. Eventually he arrived in Rome about 654, when he was about 20. He stayed for a short while, but returned to Lyon where he continued his education under the patronage of the Archbishop. However, the Archbishop's wealth and ways caused jealousy among the secular powers and he was put to death along with many of his entourage. Wilfrid's status as a foreign nobleman saved him from an early death.
At the age of about 27 Wilfrid set up a magnificent new abbey at Ripon in Yorkshire with fine stonework using skilled men he had brought from France. St Cuthbert and his followers returned to Lindisfarne with their Celtic traditions.
The division between the Celtic and the Roman Church threatened to break into violence so in 664 the newly ordained Wilfrid took his seat as an 'expert' at the Council of Whitby and championed the cause of Rome. Rome won.
A year later, Wilfrid was appointed Bishop of York by the Pope and he went to France for his ordination. However, he stayed so long in France that Saint Chad was put in as bishop of York. Wilfrid returned to his abbey in Ripon fuming.
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, came to Wilfrid's aid three years later. He said that Chad had been irregularly ordained. Chad went away meekly to be an abbot and Wilfrid took up York.
Immediately he set about restoring the Cathedral and other churches in the diocese. He provide funds for their upkeep and soon had amassed a great fortune for the Church . His fortune and growing power earned the jealously and fear of the secular powers.
Egfrid, the King of Northumberland, had taken a dislike to Wilfrid and his chance for revenge came in 678, Egfrid called up the Archbishop of Canterbury when Wilfrid was away doing a spot of missionary work. The King suggested that York was too large a diocese and should be split up. The Archbishop agreed as the proposal had much to commend it pastorally. But upon his return Wilfrid, finding his diocese now shrunk was livid and went off to Rome to complain.
It was two years before Wilfrid was back in England, vindicated by Rome. He was accepted back into his somewhat smaller diocese, but only for a while. Egfrid soon banished him, so Wilfrid went off to do missionary work with the Saxons in Sussex and the Isle of Wight.
A year after the death of Egfrid in 685, Wilfrid returned to take up York. He remained in power for five years, after which he was banished by the new king who felt Wilfrid was getting to uppity.
In 703 Wilfrid, now aged 69, returned to Rome to complain. Again he was vindicated and three years later took up the Archbishopric of York for the last three years of his life.
In 706 he died in Oundle and was buried in Ripon Cathedral. Legend has it that a white rainbow appeared in the sky during his funeral. | 
