House System

The house system at Corpus Christi underpins everything which we do as members of our school community. Pupils are allocated to one of the three houses – Arrowsmith, Clitherow and Haydock – according to the form which they are in. Pupils in forms O and U are in Arrowsmith, R and S are assigned to Clitherow, while those pupils in C and P are members of Haydock. All members of staff – teaching and non-teaching – are also assigned a house, with the exception of the Headteacher, Mr Hankin and Mr Warham, who administers the house system.

Pupils are able to earn house points for their house in a variety of different ways. These include excellent attendance, participation and quality of work, as well as making a more substantial contribution to the life of the school. Furthermore, they also receive house points for attending extra-curricular activities and for representing their house or the school. The house system gives the pupils opportunity to build social skills, and it also encourages healthy competition, camaraderie and teamwork.

Pupils are encouraged to earn as many house points as they can. They can also earn points by taking part in various competitions throughout the year, such as Sports Day and when fundraising for charities. However, pupils can also lose house points as easily as they can gain them. Poor behaviour, not being punctual to school and poor homework completion will not only result in associated sanctions but also a loss of house points. In this way, the house system builds collective responsibility; you are not just letting yourself down, you are letting the rest of your form and house down.

We have also recently introduced a comprehensive House Mentoring programme which involves all year 7 pupils being mentored by their Year 10 counterparts to fully participate in all aspects of school life. This is in addition to a targeted mentoring programme involving year 8 pupils being mentored by year 11’s in their own house, to improve their attendance, punctuality, behaviour, homework or extra-curricular participation.

As well as earning points for their form and house, pupils can also earn a variety of personal certificates and rewards throughout the year when they hit certain landmark house point totals. Every year, the school distributes hundreds of pounds worth of prizes to pupils who had demonstrated their commitment to all aspects of school life by amassing impressive house point totals. These include confectionary, free break purchases and Amazon vouchers. These and other prizes are distributed at half-termly rewards assemblies, which also recognise outstanding attendance, homework completion, achievement and contribution to all aspects of school life.

During the year, there are a number of inter-house competitions run by a variety of departments. These include sporting events, language challenges, reading challenges using SORA and both Advent and Lenten fundraising. There are also two major trophies to be contested by the three houses – the Overall House Trophy and the House Sports Day Cup. The Sports Day Cup is competed for over the events on that day, with the large number of points won being added to the house point totals.

The Overall House Trophy is determined by the net number of house points awarded, once any deductions for negative behaviour have been made. Haydock lead the way with five Overall House Trophy wins and three Sports Day Cup victories. Arrowsmith were the first house to do the ‘double’ in the first year of the house system, but since then Haydock have become the only house to have achieved this on two occasions.

Click here to see the Roll of Honour of House Trophy and Sports Day Winners

Year	Overall House Trophy Winners	House Sports Day Cup Winners
2023		Did not take place due to persistent poor weather.
2022
2021
2020		Did not take place due to Covid.
2019
2018
2017
2016

The names of our houses are taken from Catholic saints who gave their lives for their faith, all of whom had a connection to the north of England. These are Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, Saint Margaret Clitherow and Blessed George Haydock.

Saint Edmund Arrowsmith

Born at Haydock, Lancashire, England in 1585, the eldest child of Robert Arrowsmith, a yeoman farmer, and his mother Margery. The family was constantly harassed for its adherence to Roman Catholicism. One of his grandfathers, died a confessor in prison. His parents were taken to Lancaster jail; the four children, were cared for by neighbours. In 1605, at the age of twenty, Edmund left England and went to the English College, Douai to study for the priesthood. He was soon forced to return to England due to ill health, but recovered and returned to Douai in 1607.

He was ordained a priest in Arras on 9 December 1612, and sent on the English mission a year later. He ministered to the Catholics of Lancashire without incident until around 1622, when he was arrested and questioned by the Anglican Bishop of Chester. Edmund was released when King James I of England ordered all arrested priests be freed. He joined the Jesuits in 1624.

In the summer of 1628, Fr. Edmund was reportedly betrayed by a man named Holden, who denounced him to the authorities. He was convicted of being a Roman Catholic priest in England. He was sentenced to death, and hanged, drawn and quartered at Lancaster on 28 August 1628. His final confession was heard by Saint John Southworth, who was imprisoned along with Edmund. Arrowsmith ministered to Catholics of Lancashire at the still-standing Arrowsmith House, located in Hoghton near Preston before being arrested and questioned on Brindle Moss where his horse refused to jump a ditch.

Head of Arrowsmith House: Mr S Chester

Saint Margaret Clitherow

Born as Margaret Middleton, she married John Clitherow, a butcher, in 1571 aged 18 and bore him three children. She converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 21, in 1574. Her husband John was supportive (he having a brother who was Roman Catholic clergy), though he remained Protestant. She became a friend of the persecuted Roman Catholic population in the north of England and her son, Henry, went to Reims to train as a Roman Catholic priest.

She regularly held Masses at her home in the Shambles ,York. There was a hole cut between the attics of the adjoining house to enable a priest to escape in the event of a raid. A house in the Shambles called the ‘Shrine of the Saint Margaret Clitherow’, is presently open to the public.

In 1586, she was arrested and called before the York assizes for the crime of harbouring Roman Catholic priests. She refused to plead to the case so as to prevent a trial that would entail her children being made to testify, and therefore being subjected to torture. As a result she was executed by being crushed to death, the standard punishment to force a plea, on Good Friday 1586. Two sergeants who should have killed her hired four desperate beggars to do it instead.

She was stripped and had a handkerchief tied across her face then laid out upon a sharp rock the size of a man’s fist, the door from her own house was put on top of her and slowly loaded with an immense weight of rocks and stones (the small sharp rock would break her back when the heavy rocks were laid on top of her). Death occurred within fifteen minutes, but her body was left for six hours before the weight was removed. After her death her hand was removed, and this relic is now venerated in the chapel of Ladyewell Preston.

Head of Clitherow House: Mr J Walton

Blessed George Haydock

Blessed George Haydock is an English martyr, born in 1556 and was the youngest son of Evan Haydock of Cottam Hall, Lancashire, and Helen. He was educated at the English Colleges at Douai and Rome and ordained priest (apparently at Reims) on the 21 December, 1581.

Soon after landing in London he was arrested and spent fifteen months in the strictest confinement in the Tower while still suffering from the effects of a severe malarial fever, first contracted in the early summer of 1581 when visiting the seven churches of Rome. About May, 1583, though he remained in the Tower, his imprisonment was harsh but he was able to administer the Sacraments to his fellow prisoners.

During the first period of his captivity he was accustomed to decorate his cell with the name and arms of the Pope, scratched or drawn in charcoal on the door or walls and throughout his career his devotion to the papacy amounted to a passion. It gave him particular pleasure that on the feast of St. Peter’s Chair at Rome (16 January) he and other priests imprisoned in the Tower were examined at the Guild Hall by the recorder about their beliefs. He frankly confessed with reluctance and eventually obliged to declare that the queen was a heretic and so seal his fate.

On 5 February, 1584, he was indicted for having conspired against the queen. Although he pleaded not guilty he was sentenced to death and executed at Tyburn on the 12 February, 1584.

Head of Haydock House: Miss S Caton