Year 4 this term have been rather busy exploring and investigating the questions ‘What is a Saint?’ and  ‘How does a person become a Saint?’  In order to gain the answers to these significant questions we watched videoclips and listened to podcasts of children from other schools giving their own responses and from this deduced that a Saint is someone who is considered to be holy, kind, courageous and a special person who cared for and helped others in their lifetime. However, the children became rather confused to find that a person can only become a Saint after they have passed away therefore never knowing that they had been honored with such a title which our children thought rather unfair.

We then utilised our geographical skills and explored maps of our local and surrounding areas to identify locations which where named after significant Saints.

We identified streets (St Nicholas Avenue; St George’s Road; St Hilda Street), medical centres (St Andrew’s Group Practice), shopping centres and retail areas (St Stephen’s Shopping Centre and St Andrew’s Quay), churches (St Nicholas Church, All Saints Church and St Mark’s Church) and primary and secondary schools/Colleges (St Andrew’s Primary, St Vincent’s Primary, St Thomas More and St Mary’s College). From this we deduced that the councils who govern Hull and the surrounding areas must have recognised the importance of these individuals in order to name significant buildings and roads in our city after them.

The children then explored the lives of significant Saints  – Saint Andrew, Saint Francis and Saint Teresa (Mother Teresa) and considered whether their ‘altruistic cause’ made them worthy of becoming a Saint.

We found that while Saint Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland, that he is also the Patron Saint of Fisherman, Fishmongers and Rope Makers. This further enabled the children to make links with Hull’s fishing heritage and understand why Saint Andrew is an important figure for our city. In addition, it was identified that Saint Andrew was a Christian and a disciple of Jesus whose altruistic cause was to continue teaching people about Christianity after Jesus’ death even though doing so led to his own crucifixion.

Saint Francis was a man who in his earlier life was quite selfish and cared only for himself until he heard the voice of God, which led to him giving his wealth away to the poor to become a holy man who lived a simplistic lifestyle. His altruistic cause was to do God’s work and care for others rather than himself. He is known as the Patron Saint of Animals and the Environment due to his ability to talk with nature.

The story of Saint Teresa leaving her family and homeland behind to commit her life to do God’s work in order help those who were less fortunate in Calcutta, India posed the question of whether we felt able to ever leave our own families never to see them again. We felt that Saint Teresa’s altruistic cause to do this was something that we would find hard to do and unanimously agreed that Saint Teresa was a very special person indeed.

In conclusion, we felt that each of these three magnificent individuals were truly worthy of becoming a Saint and deservedly so for their altruism and dedication to serve others in their lifetimes.

We then went on to explore some ‘inspirational people’ who either hailed from Hull or came to Hull and made it their home, while considering whether what they did during their lives for the city of Hull made them either a ‘Hero or a Saint‘:

Bilocca (Fishing Safety Campaigner)
Jean Bishop – The Bee Lady (Charitable Fundraiser)
Clive Sullivan (Sporting Legend)
Sir Leo Schultz (WWII Air Raid Shelter Campaigner)
Phillip Larkin (Poet Laureate)
Amy Johnson (Solo Aviator)
William Wilberforce (Slavery Abolishment Campaigner)

After hearing the significant stories about these ‘inspirational people’ the children agreed that what they did in their lifetime had a considerable positive impact on our city and for this they were all Heroes: however, now that they have sadly passed away that they are all worthy of being recognised as Saints for their own altruistic causes to put the needs of others before themselves.

Well done Year 4 for your super attitude to learning this term!