Curriculum
Saint Stephen School offers a dynamic learning environment. Our school is accredited by the Michigan Non-Public Schools Accrediting Association and has been awarded the National Catholic Education Association’s Outstanding Home and School Association Award.
Educating the Whole Child
The Saint Stephen community is proud of its commitment to educate the whole child. Small class sizes allow our dedicated teachers to provide the instruction, attention, and guidance necessary to help students reach their full potential. Traditionally our students score above the national average in standardized testing and are well prepared for the challenges of high school.
3 & 4 Year Old Preschool
K-Prep
Kindergarten - 5th Grade
6th - 8th Grade Middle School
A Saint Stephen Education
We offer excellence in academics for all learning levels, including multiage math and reading classrooms, a dedicated resource room, and the Arrowsmith School Program, an internationally recognized program for students with learning disabilities which focuses on rebuilding the learning capacity. In addition to the core subjects: mathematics, reading, writing, handwriting, science, history, and literature, we offer a unique Way of Beauty Program, a sequence of workshops and studios wherein students learn to discover beauty and create it through handiwork and the fine arts. Additional support services includes: an Enrichment Teacher who works with students above grade level, Reading Specialist, and a school counselor.
Literature and Saint Stephen School
Here at Saint Stephen School we agree with John Senior that before you can read the “100 Great Books,” you have to read the “1,000 Good Books,” ones that form the moral imagination and whet the appetite for the True, Good, and Beautiful. Below are highlights from our reading lists.
Kindergarten/First Grade
Aesop’s Fables, M. Winter
Blueberries for Sal, R. McCloskey
St. George and the Dragon, M. Hodges
Second Grade
The Courage of Sarah Noble, A. Dalgliesh
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne
Third Grade
The Legend of Sleeping Bear, K. Wargin
Paddle-to-the-Sea, H. C. Holling
The Birchbark House series, L. Eberlich
Fourth Grade
Pocahontas, D’Aulaire
George Washington: Our First Leader, A. Stevenson
Ben and Me, R. Lawson
Fifth Grade
Amos Fortune, Free Man, E. Yates
Sacagawea, American Pathfinder, F. Seymour
The Mitchells: Five for Victory, H. van Stockum
Sixth Grade
The Arabian Nights, G. Tenggren
Call it Courage, A. Sperry
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, J. Steptoe
Seventh Grade
Pyramid, D. McCaulay
The Children’s Homer, P. Colum
Greek Myths, O. Coolidge
Eighth Grade
Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis
The Chosen, C. Potok
The Hiding Place, C. Ten Boom
Way of Beauty Program
“Through his artistic creativity man appears more than ever in the Image of God, and he accomplishes this task above all in shaping the wondrous material of his own humanity and then exercising creative dominion of the universe which surrounds him.” -John Paul II, Letter to Artists
The Way of Beauty curriculum at Saint Stephen is a core k-8 sequence of workshops and studios wherein students learn to discover beauty and create it through handiwork and the fine arts. This sequence is integrated with our liberal arts curriculum in such a way that the student grows in the image of God by crafting his or her own life to be beautiful in response to the beauty encountered in the created world and expressed in the student’s own creative work. This creativity is a gift to be put at the service of others.
Examples of our workshops and studios include but are not limited to: carpentry, calligraphy, stained glass window making, surveying, plays, iconography, architecture, the art of cooking, drawing, singing, painting.
Homeschool Partnership Program
Saint Stephen School partners with parents in their God-given role as the primary educators of their children. Our Homeschool Partnership provides the opportunity for homeschool families to participate in our rich liberal arts curriculum, including our Way of Beauty program, logic, science, literature, and our Arrowsmith cognitive exercises course.
