St Stephen's Church of England Primary School is one of 192 schools within the Diocese of Manchester. We work hard to develop and sustain our school’s Christian distinctiveness. Our staff, school and trust leaders and local academy committee have a clear vision of a school with a distinctive Christian character. We work in close partnership with St Stephen's Church, Bolton Road Methodist Church and Kings Church, Bolton.
The Church of England’s vision for education (2016) is deeply Christian, with Jesus’ promise of ‘life in all its fullness’ at its heart. In line with the Church of England’s role as the established Church, their vision is for the common good of the whole community.
As a Church of England School, we offer an education that is distinctively Christian. Although each church school is unique, all church schools will share core values based on the Gospel values. Church schools are therefore places where loving God and loving our neighbours, is lived out in the daily life of the school. Therefore “Recognising its historic foundation, the school will preserve and develop its religious character in accordance with the principles of the Church of England and in partnership with the Church at parish and diocesan level. St Stephen's aims to serve its community by providing an education of the highest quality within the context of Christian belief and practice. It encourages an understanding of the meaning and significance of faith and promotes Christian values through the experience it offers all of its pupils”.
Our School is founded upon core values of love, respect, forgiveness, kindness, friendship and thankfulness and time is spent exploring what is distinctively Christian about these particular values. Many other values are explicitly taught throughout the school day such as, compassion, trust and gratitude. We strive for excellent relationships making our school a happy place to work and learn.
Religious Education - we follow the Manchester Diocese RE Syllabus 2023. Please follow this link for our exciting curriculum.
Worship - We have daily Collective Worship. The teachers and leaders lead most collective worships, others are led by the children and some by local clergy. Child Led Worship began in 2017 with the formation of our Ethos group, made up with child representatives from across Key Stage 2. Celebrating with parents each Friday is an important and special time for us when we have a whole school Celebration Assembly. We gather and invite parents to celebrate the work children have done in school. Children are presented with certificates and talk about their achievements with great pride. We celebrate home achievements, birthdays, DOJO team winners and attendance winners too. We sing a worship song together and say prayers, with parents invited to join in.
The children regularly visit St Stephen's Church where the children and Reverand Samuel Eccleston lead our services to celebrate major Christian festivals. These include: Christmas Carol Service, Easter Service and End of School Year Service. Parents, grandparents, siblings and Governors join us on these occasions. The children very much enjoy going into church and see it as an extension of their school.
Prayer - Children pray regularly during the school day. All children are invited to pray during Collective Worship, before lunch and at the end of the day. All children know our School Prayer and also The Lord’s Prayer, which is sometimes said during Collective Worship and at Church. You can find these in the Downloads & Links section of this page.