St. Stephen's School is an outstanding school and Children’s Centre with dedicated staff and a supportive community committed to excellence in education.
The school continues to enter a new era with the expansion of the school to 3 form entry. We are admitting an additional 30 children into the Reception unit over the next 3 years. We hope that this expansion will allow more children from our community to access the high-quality provision here at St Stephen’s.
St Stephen’s is extremely proud to be awarded ‘The top state Primary School’ in the country as listed in The Sunday Times on 19th November 2017. This achievement is a testament and tribute to our lovely children, the support of the parents, the dedication of a superb team of Governors, and a highly effective and intelligent staff team.
We aim for a real love of learning here at St Stephen’s extending beyond school into each child’s life. We want children to be excited about coming to school, engaged in their learning, and able to articulate their views in a polite, respectful, and harmonious way. We believe wholeheartedly that a child’s education should be inspirational, challenging, and nurturing.
The highly skilled and passionate staff and governors of the school believe that it is essential that every child is prepared to meet their life challenges, with an atmosphere of high expectation and appropriate challenge, memorable experiences together with a reflective, compassionate understanding of themselves and their communities around them.
At St. Stephen’s we offer a wide range of clubs that promote sport, art, and social development. We aim to provide children with a rich, varied, and memorable curriculum, which we enhance with educational visits, themed weeks and days, parent workshops, and through special visitors (to share their expertise).
At St. Stephen’s Federation, we believe that all our pupils, staff, and school community share the same rights. Last year we became a Level 2 UNICEF Rights Respecting School, with the values of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at its heart.
The school offers a broad, balanced, and differentiated curriculum covering all areas of the National Curriculum, which reflects the Spiritual, Moral, Social, and Cultural aspects of learning, including British Values. The areas of learning comprise English, Mathematics, Science, Computing, Design & Technology, History, Geography, Art and Design, Music and Physical Education, as well as Personal, Social, Health & Economics. Our curriculum policies specify teaching strategies, and the breadth of studies sets achievement targets for the children. Parents are very welcome to read our policies and breadth of studies and ask for any further clarification.
We do our utmost to maximize success for all children by giving them the best teaching and learning experiences. We use a range of teaching methods and strategies to suit the needs of children and subjects. The core subjects are taught both stand-alone and as part of our creative curriculum in which the foundation subjects are taught thematically. All year groups have core texts to further enhance the curriculum.
Religious Education (RE) is also part of the National Curriculum. The acknowledgment of the different traditions and faiths represented within our school community and the wider world is an important element of RE learning. The children explore their understanding of different faiths and cultures in their community to celebrate diversity.
At St Stephen’s School, we strive to create an environment that is accepting, safe, secure, welcoming and challenging, to enhance learning and promote success in the social, emotional, physical, and academic development of our school community.
We are therefore committed to the notion of equality of opportunity for all members of our community. Through our curriculum, we seek to provide equality of access for all, to the experiences and opportunities available within our school. Our Accessibility Plan can be found on our School Website.
All children are encouraged to meet high teacher expectations to ensure that they reach their full potential and develop into responsible and successful members of the community in which they live.
