A Country Day Education
From junior kindergarten to our most rigorous Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, students explore possibilities, gain skills and knowledge, and prepare to take their place in the world. Country Day students grow in confidence as they tackle intellectual challenges, accomplish their goals, and begin to understand their own unique interests and capabilities.
What makes a Country Day Education so extraordinary?
Step by step, Country Day students learn how to break large problems into small parts, to conduct research, and to express their ideas. Guided by teachers who expertly move each student toward his or her own highest potential, our students learn to trust curiosity, value knowledge, and push themselves beyond what is easy.
Innovative, Integrated Curriculum
Beginning in Lower School, students are immersed in math, science, social studies, and language arts, as well as foreign languages, public speaking, physical education, research, technology, and the arts. Each experience is a building block for a program that grows in challenge from year to year. By the time Middle School students complete the eighth grade, they have the skills and confidence to thrive in Upper School, where they can choose from a wide course catalog that includes IB and AP courses in every discipline.
Dedicated educators work in close collaboration with each other, constantly seeking new ways to integrate curricula and strengthen their students’ experiences. They are profoundly committed to discovering the key to each student’s talents and abilities—and to helping each one grow in character, intellect, and confidence.
Leadership is a cornerstone of the Country Day mission and a quality we live and model every day. Students learn to lead with heart by following the example set by exceptional adult and student leaders—both those they encounter every day and those who have guided the school through decades of success and stability.
Country Day educators, advisors, coaches, students, and parents work together closely and openly to create remarkable outcomes. Our commitment to collaboration, communication, and the exchange of ideas keeps us connected to each other, the broader community, and the world.
Butterflies Form the Basis of an Integrated Course of Study
Each year, North American monarchs begin their lives at Country Day. When they are released, our students follow them on their long journey south, building language skills, relationships, and cultural understanding along the way. Sixth graders study the monarch in Spanish classes, exchanging letters with their counterparts in Mexico, where the butterflies overwinter. Rural Mexico meets urban Charlotte as students exchange details of their daily lives. Older students study the monarchs as social scientists, relating butterfly migration to nomadic cultures. Student artists create watercolor monarchs—symmetry in nature—and science students explore food webs in the Bissell Campus milkweed patch, a source of essential nutrition for our monarchs.