In 2004 the school received an award for mathematics and computing and in 2008 engineering specialist status.

After almost a century of attempts by the Church to found a church secondary school in Enfield, Bishop Stopford's was founded on St. Polycarp's Day 1967 and opened its doors to its first pupils on 7 September 1967.

[4] The former Heads of Bishop Stopford's have been Geoffrey Roberts from 1967 to 1988, Brian Robin Pickard from 1988 to 2001, Bridget Sarah Evans from 2001 to 2008, and Jim Owen from 2009 to 2012.

They attend a residential singing week every year, which has been at Bradwell on Sea, Seasalter, Walsingham, and Winchester.

Antony Homer left in February 2011 to join the Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church.

A lay chaplain, Jonathan Seabrook, was then appointed, who is an assistant head teacher with responsibility for religion and worship.

[citation needed] All pupils must attend one assembly a week, normally as a year with their forms .

Several notable organists have given recitals on this instrument, including Carlo Curley, Peter Hurford, Stephen Darlington, Thomas Trotter, and John Scott.

Every year pupils from Years 7 to 10 undertake an eleven-mile (seventeen kilometre) sponsored walk known as the School Pilgrimage along the canal tow-path of the River Lea Navigation from Ware to Enfield Lock.

In 2009 the route was blocked and the Pilgrimage was completed by proxy (as has always been stated on the sponsor forms) a fortnight later.

[5] Every year, on Ascension Day, a group of pupils used to go round the boundaries of the school striking selected areas with special whips.

This has since been modernised, but a special Ascension Day assembly is still held, remembering the practice.

An offending pupil was offered a choice between receiving a caning and performing "forgiveness".

A pupil who chose forgiveness was made to carry out arduous tasks or physical exercise for approximately one hour, after which he was said to be 'forgiven'.

[6] With the outlawing of corporal punishment in state schools in England in 1987, the "trial by shorts" procedure became defunct.

Although corporal punishment is no longer practised, for a while the school displayed the old canes in the Great Hall and the Head Master's study.

On special occasions one of the three cylinders is carried to signify the roll's importance in the life of the school.