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Mission & Values


Our Mission

Founded in 1915 and guided by our Catholic heritage, Canterbury is a college preparatory, coeducational boarding and day school for students in grades 9–12. The School prides itself on creating a community based on its Five Values—Honesty, Respect, Compassion, Spirituality, and Self Reliance—in which students and faculty forge lasting bonds and every student experiences a broad and challenging program in a small school setting. The School’s educational environment fosters academic rigor, athletic development, artistic enrichment, and spiritual growth, and strives to ensure a superior experience that prepares students for leading colleges and universities and for life.

With its rigorous and humane approach to students, both in and out of the classroom, Canterbury’s program inculcates vital intellectual and ethical habits of mind. The School sees all students as individuals, encourages them as necessary, challenges them as appropriate, and inspires them to become moral leaders in a complex, secular world.

As a Saint, you will grow as an intellectual and compassionate leader and develop the confidence and values to truly make a difference in whatever you do.

Our Five Values

Students and adults at Canterbury live and learn as a close-knit community and together create a climate of acceptance, understanding, and belonging.

Here, we challenge you to excel academically, to think critically, and to engage purposefully with and for others. Your education here molds you as a moral leader, always reflecting on your role in the world and intentional about how your values play out in your daily actions.

Honesty

Building character and courage to stay true
to ourselves and others

Respect

Learning each other’s stories and treating all with dignity

Compassion

Being fully and humbly present so that we may
empathize with others

Spirituality

Growing in faith through reflection and service

Self-Reliance

Developing strength and independence to become
intellectual and ethical leaders in a complex world

 
Group of students standing together outside of the Chapel.
Two female soccer players laughing together.
3 female students standing in front of the sunset smiling.