
- Awards
An independent school education can provide a variety of benefits for a student in the early stages of their education and development.
A great school understands the importance of guiding their students towards their own personal version of success. Canterbury students experience a supportive and challenging academic curriculum, where they build college readiness skills and discover their postgraduate ambitions. In this blog, we’ve checked in with Canterbury alumni Matt Authement, who’s career path and success began at Canterbury and our College Counseling program.
Canterbury School of Florida recently honored Head of School Mac Hall and his family with the dedication of its baseball field on the Knowlton Campus.
Learn about Canterbury tuition and how to afford private education. Read how to obtain financial aid and scholarship opportunities for financial assistance.
Canterbury School of Florida introduces Motor Lab on Hough Campus.
Achieving academic success is directly linked to a child’s motor skills and early childhood development.
Dante Tornello has always embraced the value of confronting challenges—no matter the pit stops or hairpin turns that may lie ahead.
A proud Canterbury alum, Tornello joined the CSF community as he entered third grade.
At Canterbury, we’re known for our many advanced academic offerings and signature programs, like our Character Education program (also known as LEADS). However, one program that sets Canterbury apart is our Marine Studies program, which teaches our students the importance of conservation as well as how to become environmental leaders. Canterbury students also have the opportunity to learn through our state of the art Cousteau Center for Marine Studies and local partnerships with other key environmental leaders.
Canterbury School of Florida is offering summer camp programs to provide students with an active, educational, and explorative summer experience. Providing full and half-day camps, the summer program is open to all Tampa Bay youth in PK3 through Grade 12, not just Canterbury students. Attendees will be able to choose from a variety of unique camps that will encourage them to step out of their comfort zone and try something new.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, character education is defined as “a learning process that enables students and adults in a school community to understand, care about and act on core ethical values.” To put it simply, the definition for character education can be found in its name—it is the idea that education can not simply teach the mind, but it must also help to develop a student’s overall character.
Great schools are made up of an ongoing partnership between parents, students, teachers, and alumni, and when students join the Canterbury community, they become a part of that unique family for a lifetime. In this blog, we’ve checked in with Canterbury alumni Miguel Turcios, who is constantly redefining success and pushing through boundaries.
When choosing an elementary, middle, and high school for their child, most parents have their own unique predispositions about what is the right fit for their child, but what truly makes a school stand out above the others?
Great schools are made up of partnerships among parents, students, and teachers. The Canterbury community is no exception. In this blog, hear from Kai Tomalin, an alumni student, and his mother, Dr. Kanika Tomalin, about what Canterbury’s LEADS program and character education mean to them.
Q&A with Linda Garrison, Librarian/Media Specialist
Selecting a school for your child’s education is one of the most important decisions a parent has to make.
Q&A with Julie Cove, Spanish and ESL Instructor.
Q&A with Michael McGourin, Grade 4 Teacher
Q&A with Carrie Wilson, Director of Center for Academic Success.
Q&A with Melissa Kokenzie, PK4 Teacher
Q&A with Matt Thompson, Director of Athletics.
We are pleased to announce that the Florida Athletic Coaches Association (FACA) has named Canterbury as the Cary McDonald Athletic Program of the Year in the 2A classification!
Q&A with David Gould, Chaplain.
Q&A with Susan Holsonback, Grade 3 Teacher
Q&A with Jeff Donnelly, Dean of Students.
Q&A with Molly Smith, Dean of Student Life.
Last year, our middle school art program partnered with Johns Hopkins All Childrens’ Hospital to provide artwork for the radiology department waiting room. During the COVID-19 lockdown, it became extremely important for our students to experience the unique catharsis of creativity during a stressful time, and create artwork to help inspire other children and their families during potentially stressful moments.
After completing a national search, Canterbury School of Florida is excited to announce Hollis Amley has been unanimously appointed as their ninth Head of School, effective July 1st, 2022.
A welcome letter from the Head of School, Mac H. Hall.
We’re pleased to announce that Canterbury has been recognized as St. Petersburg’s best private school by St. Pete Life magazine in their “Best of St. Pete” issue, published this summer.
Now, you are beginning your adult lives, and as you go out into the world on your own, it will be your responsibility to let your light shine. Every day, you will find yourself facing a decision that boils down to whether or not you are going to let your light shine, whether or not you are going to have the courage to be you. Will you raise your hand to contribute to a challenging discussion in your first semester college class? Will you submit your piece to an art show? Will you stand up for a stranger who is being called a hateful name that you know is wrong? Will you try a new sport or club because you are curious about it even if you have no experience with it? Will you accept a new job offer that is simultaneously promising and intimidating, or will you stay where you are comfortable and known? It’s quite simple...you have to get out of bed, say “yes” to the opportunities the universe offers you, and see where it leads you, all the while shining your light in this world that can be dark and might even try to put out your light.
Congratulations to the Class of 20211
Remember your roots, use your wings, and never forget that you will always be a Crusader!
Welcome to the final Athletic Awards ceremony for our 2020-2021 school year. It’s been a year like no other, and we’re so grateful to be here this morning and celebrate all of these amazing student-athletes.
We are thrilled to celebrate all of these student-athletes who have overcome adversity all year long throughout the pandemic, maintained hard work, and dedication to their teams. You will hear of many stories in which student-athletes have gone above and beyond the call of duty to stand out for their teams. At the conclusion of this program, we will honor our Female and Male Athlete-of-the-Year.
Student-athletes will receive certificates of participation, Varsity letters, pins for first year of service, and a service bar for continued commitment to their sport.
The Winter Sports Awards Ceremony is a celebration of our student-athletes for their commitment, desire to compete, and dedication to their sport in the middle of a pandemic.
This year would not be possible without the support of parents, coaches, teachers, and peers. All too often, we had to learn lessons in patience, flexibility, and communication. We nailed that this year!
We were thrilled to announce the 2020-21 Merit Scholarship winners!
The scholarships is offered to well-qualified applicants who met academic and leadership criteria determined by a committee. The recipients earn a reduced tuition discount, but they also earn the honor of recognition for exceptional academics and character.
It was a blustery day in early December when St. Nicholas, after tying up his reindeer in the parking lot, abruptly appeared in Chapel on our Hough Campus.
What was the occasion of his visit you may ask? Well, to tell us all about himself of course! His big day is just around the corner.
St. Nicholas, known to historians as Bishop Nicholas of Myra (270-343), told us that his parents died when he was a teenager and after their death, he inherited a large sum of money. His uncle, who was a priest, took him in and raised him. Nicholas grew up learning about how God loves all people and how he could show people love through a generous spirit.
Would you move to the bottom of a volcano? That was the question I posed to my 4th graders during our persuasive writing unit. Most students will tell you that they don’t like writing. That is mainly because they are required to write about topics that are not authentic. With the help of Rev Sonia and her husband, Mr. Rev, we were able to create an authentic writing experience that crossed content areas to make a meaningful unit of study for the students that they will remember for years to come.
For Sarah Young, Wednesday was a day she's been waiting for since elementary school! Her love for playing softball transcends nine innings. Nestled within the long practices, the sweaty visors, the clay-stained jerseys are lessons to be learned, taught, and carried with you.
Wednesday was a celebration of it all when Sarah signed her National Letter of Intent to play softball at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in front of her family, her teammates, coaches, and a virtual audience of friends and fans at Canterbury!
Shonto Begay is a nationally known Navajo author, poet, children’s book illustrator, and fine artist. Shonto is a born storyteller, who grew up listening to his father, a Navajo Medicine Man, tell the ancient stories of his people. Shonto tells these stories through his paintings, which are featured in museums around the country - including our very own James Museum. We were unable to go to the James Museum because of Covid-19, but that didn’t stop us from bringing Shonto Begay and the James Museum to us!
Day of the Dead is a holiday mostly celebrated in Mexico but is rapidly spreading to other countries. It is not Halloween. In fact, it would more closely align with the Christian celebrations of All Saints Day and All Souls Day.
The Day of the Dead celebration is Nov. 1 and 2. It is marked by parades, special foods, festivals, and the creation of ofrendas to celebrate the deceased. An ofrenda is covered with marigolds, pictures, candles, and symbols of the deceased's life. It is believed that the spirits of the deceased return to visit their families during this time.
As you would imagine, plans for returning to school this fall vary across the Tampa Bay area just like they vary within our own Canterbury community.
We checked in with a few of our families to get their perspectives.
Jelani Memory is the CEO and co-founder of the A Kids Book About series. He started the series by writing “A Kids Book About Racism”. In this interview, we speak about his books and how to have tough conversations with your kids about important topics. His books are an incredible resource to parents.
As much as we want to shield our students from the atrocities of life, we cannot. With our students being online more than ever, they are exposed. Video clips and news headlines pop up on every social media site there is. Students hear their friends talking and overhear their parents. Even if they don’t know exactly what is going on, they sense the tension in the air.
I am thinking about bigger things, and recently, I couldn’t get my Muslim brothers and sisters out of my mind. Why them and why now? Because we are connected to the person half-way across the world just like we are to the neighbor next door. COVID-19 has taught us that.
How does an egg drop experiment become a drivers' education lesson? Read one to learn how Ms. Suchanek is teaching the importance of driving restraints to students by demonstrating the force of impact on an egg.
It surely feels like much longer than a couple of weeks ago that we started thinking about how the coronavirus could actually affect us. Yet now we find ourselves in a world that resembles one of those rides at the fair where the car goes every which way and then more.
It is truly difficult to comprehend what is happening around the world and particularly in our own community. There is so much unknown in the midst of our knowing. This creates great anxiety among adults and therefore in our children. Even our pets sense our being off-balance.
In a ceremony focused on scholarship, leadership, service, and character, which speaks to Canterbury’s Mission and Core Values, twenty juniors and seniors were inducted into the National Honor Society (NHS) the morning of Tuesday, March 3.
It’s not every day that you come in contact with a real-life Barbie. Upper School students were paid a virtual visit on Monday by tennis great Billie Jean King, who was recently honored with a doll in her likeness for the ”Barbie Inspiring Women” series. A longtime human equality activist, King discussed everything from creating a platform to make a difference to the birth of women’s tennis and her lengthy career as the number one women’s tennis player in the world to equal pay for women.
What do you call someone you mentor? Mentee? Protege? Padawan? While hotly debated among word purists, I don’t know that it actually matters. It’s the relationship that matters and the magic that happens in learning from and with another person.
Third-grade math teacher Meg Hart explains what Eureka Math is and how it supports learning math for students each year at Canterbury.
In a fight to the semifinals, our Crusaders pushed through their perceived limits to form a stronger team than they thought possible. They credit much of their success to the dedication and guidance of their coaches: Head Coach Kevin Bouis and Assistant Coach Adam Fitch.
What is vaping? Vaping is the act of inhaling and exhaling the vapor produced by the heated nicotine liquid (often called “juice”) of an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette or e-cig), vape pen, or personal vaporizer. It’s also commonly called JUULing (pronounced jewel-ing). These e-cigarettes come in flavors such as cotton candy, creme brulee, mango, and watermelon.
Last week, Sean Daly from ABC Action News visited the Hough Campus to cover a story about kindness in St. Pete. What better place is there to study kindness in action?
Daly was blown away by the breadth of our Character Education program, and even though this year's theme is focused around kindness on the Hough Campus, he was surprised and encouraged to hear how Character Education and kindness reach throughout our entire school from the Buddy Program to service-learning and beyond.
Exciting news spread across campus last Friday. Not one, but TWO of our science teachers won The Barrett Family Foundation Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teacher Award this year! One of those teachers is a two-time recipient of the award.
Crusaders showed their school spirit during Homecoming week. Blue and gold filled the campus for Spirit Week festivities. Check out the costumes, class colors, decorations, parades, games, the FLASH MOB, and more!
Butterflies. Rows and rows of butterflies...each one as delicate as the next. Three whole stories dedicated to butterflies. No wonder the museum was so big! A simple display showed how they pinned and preserved butterflies. Looking at the rows of preserved butterflies, I wondered how long all that pinning had taken.
They don't remember 9/11 as we do. They weren't even born the day our nation was put on pause 18 years ago. Yet, our middle school students put together a moving tribute in remembrance of those events for Patriot's Day Chapel.
Mono no aware roughly translates from Japanese to an umbrella term that describes the bittersweetness of a brief and breathtaking moment of transcendent beauty... and the tranquility it inspires within.
It was in this lesson that I truly came to understand the beauty that lies within the ending of all things spectacular.
There's a misconception about Canterbury. Now is the time to address the matter. No longer can I sit idly by while this issue persists.
I had the joy of visiting Eckerd College, my alma mater. A former professor asked, “Have you heard that Eckerd students now get tracked into research as incoming freshmen?”
This was startling. As an eighteen-year-old freshman, I began college with zero science research experience. As an upper-level high school science teacher, I had to ask big questions: Are Canterbury students prepared for this elevated expectation? What should they be able to do as incoming freshmen? What research skills do I wish I had at the time?
Canterbury has a variety of academic options for students. These options give students the opportunity to challenge themselves at a level that matches their skills and interest. Being challenged in the classroom is not a bad thing. An educational experience should involve some level of academic challenge. In fact, being academically challenged can encourage the development of study skills, clarify a student’s learning style, initiate curiosity and increase motivation. The key is to find the right balance. Too little challenge and a student can become easily bored. Too much could be overwhelming.
We saw the stats - only 3% of high school seniors nationwide get to play basketball at the collegiate level. Such a small number get a chance, and most days you don't see college basketball coaches roaming the Tampa Bay area to recruit kids for basketball directly unless they are part of one of the big schools. You have to make it happen for yourself, and not everyone realizes that, unfortunately.
As an educator and a parent, I can attest that the terror is real. We want our kids to be happy, we want them to be kind, we want them to feel successful and to go as far as they want to in life, or at least a little bit farther than we did. Those of us who have been around long enough know that every generation has a few “sky is falling” moments that we somehow manage to push through, and every generation has looked at the one coming up behind them and wondered if these kids will have the mettle to handle as yet unseen challenges and still somehow move the world forward.
World War II statistics are staggering. The numbers are too big to comprehend and, simply, become sad and distant data. In order to dive deeper into history and create an experience of understanding and empathy, one must take relevant content, like Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, David Benioff’s City of Thieves, and Antony Beevor’s D-Day: The Battle for Normandy.
The idea of neurodiversity is a paradigm shift from looking at student deficits to , instead, embracing the differences in how students think and learn in the same way that we value ecological and cultural diversity. While the origin of the neurodiversity movement is in special education practices, the term is relevant to all students as educators acknowledge the complexity of human potential.
My name is Rivers, and I have attended Canterbury since Pre-K, earning me the title of “lifer”. I have always greatly valued academics, but I am also heavily committed to basketball-I am striving to play in college, and have taken part in many clubs over the years. My biggest asset towards success in all of my activities has been time management and balance.
Just in time for the season of gratitude, Fourth-grade teacher Allison Lester worked with her students to practice showing gratitude. Each of her students wrote sweet sentiments to the Hough Campus teachers. Just before the break, Ms. Lester shared their words with the lower school faculty and staff. Needless to say, their unexpected kind words touched the hearts of many.
I had just turned 16-years-old in January of 2014. I remember getting my age wrong when the man at TSA asked me. I still believed I was young – yet I was about to leave the country for the first time in my life. My parents were frightened, to say the least, I had never traveled farther south than the Florida Keys, and now I was going to another country without them.
In 1968, Canterbury School of Florida was born. Its legacy is the product of passionate families of the St. Petersburg community over the past half-century. To commence a yearlong celebration, the Canterbury community came together on Friday, September 14 to rediscovery its history and pay homage to its humble beginnings.
I read an article years ago that was tailored to anxious parents of preschoolers worried if their children were really ready for Kindergarten. The author said that only two things really matter for a child preparing to enter Kindergarten: Does the child have rules at home? and Do you read to your child at home?
LOVE… what does this mean to you? For many it means a hug, acts of kindness, words of praise, and shared experiences. Acts of love are often inspired by personal experiences. Since 2012, Canterbury students have shown love to orphaned children in South Africa by participating in The Love Quilt Project. |
The week after Spring Break, students in grades 9-12 immediately jumped into grade-wide adventures we call Upper Class Trips. These trips are not only learning experiences ranging from building a fire to exploring some of Florida's state colleges but are also opportunities for fellowship and leadership as a class. No matter what the destination of the trip, this week is undoubtedly full of growing experiences for Canterbury's students.
Senior Maria R. wrote this poem in Spanish about her Puerto Rican roots and culture.
Freshman Focus provides students in grade nine with the opportunity to learn about the college application process. They interact directly with college representatives who offer insight into how various parts of the application are evaluated. One might ask, are freshmen ready to focus on college admission? The answer is yes!
It is that time of year when people decide to make this New Year better than their last. What is your New Year’s resolution? Maybe it is to eat healthier, become more active, spend more time with friends and family, or pick up a new hobby. Everyone desires for self-improvement but how many of us actually stick to our New Year's Resolution? According to Forbes magazine, a whopping 8% of people actually achieve their goal. What is it that these 8 % do in order to reach their goal? |
Show of hands, who is hoping to raise autonomous, competent, creative kids? In her practical book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed, author, parent, and educator Jessica Lahey explains the way today’s overprotective, failure-avoidant parenting style has inadvertently undermined the independence of many of our children. |
Our Fall issue of CSFeatures magazine is here, and it's chock full of stories about our students, faculty, alumni, and parent volunteers! Take a read... it's a great way to get to know what makes Canterbury, well, Canterbury!
Canterbury encourages students to promote good citizenship by making a contribution, in some way, to our society’s common good. In many ways their Veterans Day ceremony, as well as other events and commemorations that are part of Canterbury’s character education program, are as essential for our children’s development as other curriculum subjects.
My friends and I started the long, hot work that ended up being insanely messy. We came here hoping to help the world one plant at a time. It was hard work and very dirty indeed but I personally had a very good time. I really took away from this that if I want a better world, I’m going to have to work for it. -- Oliver S., grade 7
Most students think photojournalism simply equals photos plus journalism. “Oh, I love taking photos!” they’ll say. “I’ll take the photos!” And then they freeze. Literally. Teaching photojournalism is not just about good pictures. It’s about getting students out of their comfort zone.
Planning an event always has its challenges. Planning an event for a school in Florida during the peak of hurricane season... well any precedent at that point goes out the window.
Life is busy, and I often find myself running from place to place or task to task, without focusing on the bigger picture. But, with a few volunteer hours, I step away from the hectic schedule I keep and do something that not only benefits me and my family, but also others, outside of the narrow place in which I typically stay.