The school opened in the fall of 2005 following two years of discussion between David and Awilda Rowe and Howe and Brenda Whitman concerning educational options for their children.

Initially, the school met in the Lutheran Church of the Messiah on Nassau Street in Princeton Borough with classes for kindergarten through third grade.

Ristuccia had served for seventeen years as the head of the Westerly Learning Center, an educational ministry of Stone Hill Church of Princeton.

The club had initially been constructed as a Jewish community center but financial troubles caused that plan to fall through, allowing Wilberforce to move into newly finished school facilities.

[18] "The Wilberforce School was founded to provide a distinctly Christian education characterized by academic excellence and joyful discovery within a classical framework.

Wilberforce applies the trivium by arguing that each academic discipline has three elements: a grammar (set of rules and vocabulary), a logic (organizing principles), and a rhetoric (discourses and applications).

[20] Wilberforce draws on the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason, who pioneered teaching methods that emphasized children's natural curiosity and delight in discovery.

She sought to avoid the tedium and exasperation that can mark overly rote educational environments by seeking to engage children's hearts and imaginations with the learning process.

In the early grades the major academic areas of reading and math are addressed in the morning when students are most alert, with the afternoons dedicated to art, music, and nature studies.

[21] Wilberforce follows Mason's emphasis on the importance of developing good habits, including kindness, diligence, attentiveness, respect, order, and follow-through.

[21] Joyful discovery is emphasized by seeking to bring history and ideas alive through works of biography, fiction, drama, art, exploration, and play that are of proven excellence and age-appropriateness.