CDS Teachers Truly Care About Our Children’s Learning
Over the past six years, I’ve helped guide the direction of the School’s marketing strategy based on personal observations, testimonials from others, and plenty of collaboration with colleagues. A recurring theme has always been how much CDS faculty show their care for students.
It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to – whether a student, parent or member of our alumni – each is eager to share examples of CDS teachers who go above and beyond.
This of course shouldn’t come as a surprise: one would think that anyone who enters the teaching profession would do so with a powerful intent to help. But it is the selfless way that our teachers go about demonstrating this that is so remarkable. Whether through a willingness to curtail their lunch to provide extra help, arrive early or stay late to offer an individual or group tutorial session, or volunteer to coach a third term of sport or club activity simply because there is a need, our teachers manage to lend a hand wherever and whenever possible.
I’ve always witnessed this display of kindness and concern, but until this year hadn’t personally been privy to it. What I have experienced as a new CDS parent has deepened my insight and further substantiated everything we have been promoting in our marketing materials. In fact, a quotation that I gathered a few years back from a new parent now rings personally true:
“When we first visited CDS, we felt an overwhelming sense of community. We saw it in the faces of the teachers and students. Then we heard the words ‘education with balance.’ What more could we hope for as parents?”
In November, my husband and I attended our first CDS Parent-Teacher Interviews. Our decision to become CDS parents was validated 110% after hearing how much each teacher knew about our child and how caring and understanding they were in their approach to his learning.
Offering an ‘education with balance,’ delivered by teachers who support, know and inspire on a daily basis, is what CDS does best. This genuine quality is what our graduates remember most about their CDS experience.
At Closing Day each year, graduates are asked to provide 100 words or less summarizing their CDS journey. Each comment is unique, some funny, some more poignant, but the evidence of the long-lasting bond between teacher and student resonates throughout. Here is one of my favourites:
“To my teachers, if it were not for you, I would not be who I am today. I have been encouraged, inspired, motivated and loved.”
Providing CDS students with this level of care and understanding is what our teachers do best. I now bear witness firsthand.
Kim Sillcox
Director of Marketing and Communications