Letter from Director
Middle School is a special time for our students. Like all children their age, our students are embarking on a period in their life defined by growth – intellectual, physical, social, and emotional. At Canterbury, the faculty and staff recognize that a complete middle school education requires us to develop the whole child in mind, body, and spirit, while placing academics as the cornerstone of our educational approach. From a rigorous academic program building on the foundation of the lower school to an athletic program fielding nine teams to an integral theology program to a brand new Stafford Arts Center, Canterbury’s middle school truly addresses the needs of the whole child.
As part of our approach we seek to foster strong, trusting, and respectful relationships among students, parents, faculty, and administration. Advisory is central to the culture of the middle school. Through our program, based on the philosophy of Developmental Designs ©, students learn and work in a community that is accepting, caring, and safe. We work each day to ensure our students’ social and emotional well-being.
The adults in the building have one guiding principle in all decisions: the students’ best interest. This is a responsibility of such significant magnitude that we continually research, develop, and implement middle level education best practices. We set high expectations for every member of our community and support each other to meet those each and every day.
Those expectations manifest themselves in programs which foster 21st century skills through an emphasis on scholarship, leadership, and service. Our students leave Canterbury with a life-long love of learning, as well as an engrained sense of duty to serve others in a leadership capacity. Venture Out, 8th Grade Sermons, Chapel Buddies, Millennium Development Goals, and Student Council are just some of the many programs which focus on these two core objectives.
Besides a Canterbury diploma in their hands, our graduates leave the middle school with all the tools to embark on a meaningful life, a life meant to learn, to love, to serve: to live.
Director of Middle School
