St Stephen's College (Chinese: 聖士提反書院) is a ChristianDirect Subsidy Scheme co-educational secondary schoolinStanley, Hong Kong. With an area of about 150,000 m2 (15 hectares), the college is the largest secondary school in Hong Kong, and is one of the very few boarding schools in the territory. Many buildings in the campus are listed in the list of historic Buildings and Declared Monuments by the Antiquities Advisory Board. When the college was founded in 1903, there were only six boarders and one day student; in the academic year 2014–2015, there were approximately 910 students studying in the college. The current principal is Mrs Julie Ma, commencing duty since 2023. St Stephen's College mainly uses English as a medium of instruction, and Chinese language for Chinese, Chinese history, Putonghua, visual arts and physical education. St Stephen's College is the first school in the territory having its own Heritage Trail in the school campus. The college's oldest building, the School House, was declared a monument in 2011, being one of the few schools in Hong Kong to own a Declared Monument in its campus.
The establishment of the college dates back to 1901. A group of prominent Chinese businessmen approached the Church Missionary Society to administer a school for their sons. The inspiration came from Sun Yat-sen. The aim was to achieve a standard of teaching and level of equipment comparable to the best public schools in England. In 1903, St Stephen's College was officially established on Bonham RoadinWestern District. In the 1920s, the government granted the school 37 acres (150,000 m2) on the Stanley Peninsula in recognition of outstanding contributions to education. The foundation stone was laid in April 1928 by the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Cecil Clementi, and in May 1929, the college was fully functional in its new buildings, many of which are still in use today.
The college reopened after the war and a chapel was built in 1950 to remember those who died during the Japanese occupation.
Originally a private school, St Stephen's College became a government-funded public school during the late 1900s. Since the 2008–2009 academic year, the college has become a Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) school, which is a historic change to the college as it freed the school from the centralised funding system that currently administers secondary education in Hong Kong. Students enrolled in the 2002 Primary 1 class at St Stephen's College Preparatory School, also based in Stanley, were the first group of students to enter the DSS system. In order to upgrade the school administrative level, this is the first secondary school in Hong Kong to employ a registered professional housing manager on its staff to manage and handle all property and facilities-related issues for and on behalf of the school.[citation needed]
St Stephen's College has a house system and divides its students into six houses with six different colors. Some names of the houses came from the names of the first few principals of the college:
Barnett House (Orange) - The Ven. E. J. Barnett;
Stewart House (Purple) - The Revd. A. D. Stewart;
Hewitt House (Red) - The Revd. W. H. Hewitt;
Martin House (Blue/White[16]) - Canon E. W. L. Martin;
Before the 2009–2010 academic year, as a local school in Hong Kong, the college had been providing three years of junior secondary, two years of senior secondary and two years of matriculation education under the English 3223 education system.
After the educational system reform was launched by the government, the college has started providing three years of senior secondary education from Form 4 since the 2009–2010 academic year under the New Senior Secondary334 Scheme.
Meanwhile, the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) had also commenced in the academic year of 2014–2015. The IBDP is a two-year curriculum and is monitored under the International Baccalaureate Organization rather than the Education Bureau of Hong Kong. Since IBDP is two years long, the college will provide a one-year IBDP bridging course to help student adapt to the essay and discussion emphasized IBDP education mode.
St. Stephen's College Preparatory School (Chinese: 聖士提反書院附屬小學) is the preparatory primary school of St Stephen's College. St. Stephen's College Preparatory School was founded in 1938 with only one building for classrooms, boarding house and dining hall. During the Second World War, the preparatory school was used for guard quarter by the Japanese. The preparatory school re-opened in 1947, with a new building. Another building of dormitory was built in the 1950s. The preparatory school has started to give boarding places for girls in the 1960s. The preparatory school has 21 classes of more than 600 students.
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations.(September 2023)
Ip Man (葉問) - martial arts Wing Chun master, martial arts teacher of Bruce Lee, attended school in 1917 at the age of 18.
Kin-yee Wan - track and field sprint athlete who competes internationally for Hong Kong, 6 record breaker of Hong Kong; wife of another alumnus Kwok-wai Pak.
Royden Lam - professional dart player in Hong Kong, winner of various international dart cups.
^Martin House used to use blue as the house's color. However, the House switched to white in the 1980s due to coloring problems of PE uniforms. Martin House has switched back to use blue as their house's color since 2013.
^College House is not named after any principal, they are however named after the College itself.
^Choi Choi (采茞) is the publication of Students' Association. "Choi" (茞) is a beautiful fragrant plant; and "Choi" (采) means "Choi" (採), meaning picking. "Choi Choi" (采茞) actually means the publication picked all the beautiful memories of the college. The name of the publication is normally but wrongly regarded as "Choi Tsz" (采茞 (coi2zi2)), but the correct way in pronunciation of this phrase is "Choi Choi" (采茞(coi2 coi2)). The pronunciation of the character "Choi" (茞).
