St. Stephen’s Academics
At St. Stephen’s each child is known and loved for their individual strengths. Our campus offers varied experiential opportunities for students to explore these strengths whether in the science lab, outside on the nature trail or on the archery range. It is our belief that, as our students are known and challenged with love, they soar!
Academics
Core subjects are designed to promote mastery of essential skills and concepts. Beyond its core curriculum, St. Stephen's includes studio art, music, technology, daily physical education, outdoor learning, and chapel services. The St. Stephen's program is enhanced by a campus that includes a fully equipped science lab, library, Chapel, main Church, the Jack Johnson Gymnasium, three playgrounds, a playing field, a discovery garden and outdoor classroom, a nature trail and an outdoor chapel. The strong balance between academic approaches and experiential learning creates self-confident students able to solve problems and think creatively.
Individualized/Differentiated Instruction
We recognize that each child is an individual and gears teaching strategies to ensure that students will experience success at their level of learning. St. Stephen's creates a supportive learning environment that responds to learners' needs through a variety of materials, technology, and methods, including differentiation and flexible grouping. Some of our grades are mixed age group classes, i.e. 1st/2nd; 3rd/4th; and 5th/6th. Students are challenged to set higher goals and rise to higher achievement as their individual gifts and talents are discovered and developed.
Curriculum Integration
In an effort to acknowledge various levels of academic ability, social development, and learning styles, while engaging all learners, St. Stephen's provides active and in-depth learning through curriculum integration. This interdisciplinary curriculum approach allows a common framework to facilitate connections across disciplines. This method helps students relate information from various content areas, connecting learning to real life, and making teaching and learning more meaningful.
ENRICHMENT
Outdoor Education
STEAM
Extracurricular Programs
PreK students, based on being a 3-day or 5-day student, have chapel, music, art, Spanish and physical education.
Students in Kindergarten through Eighth Grade have physical education, religious education three times a week, music, Spanish, and studio art weekly.
Beginning in Fourth Grade, students have archery instruction during PE. St. Stephen's had 11 students participate in the Texas State Archery competition in 2021 and out of those 11, 6 competed at the National competition in April of 2021.
Each day at St. Stephen's begins with Morning Announcements. Our upper-grade students lead us in reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, and the School Creed.
This is a holistic and experiential approach to learning that includes various day and overnight trips, special programs brought in from outside sources, and use of resources on campus, including the discovery garden and outdoor classroom, the 1.3 mile nature trail, the labyrinth, and the native prairie preserve.
St. Stephen's includes the Arts in its Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics initiatives to create STEAM. This is an integrated, active, real-world problem-solving curriculum approach which encourages students to be more creative and collaborative. The iPad is a valuable tool for exploration and discovery and is used across subject areas as part of the STEAM initiative. St. Stephen’s utilizes Wonder Workshop’s program to teach robotics and coding in Grades 3 – 8 using the Cue program. In our PreK4 – 2nd Grade classes, students use the Dot and Dash program.
St. Stephen's Episcopal School offers after-school extracurricular courses each semester for an additional fee. Opportunities vary each semester and have included courses such as science adventures, studio art, kids in the kitchen, guitar instruction, theater, archery, robotics, coding, and soccer. St. Stephen's has developed a nationally recognized archery program that begins with instruction in PE class for Fourth through Eighth Grades and is extended through extracurricular course offerings. All of these programs illustrate the School's commitment to experiential learning and the development of skills and teamwork.