The City Day Approach
Challenging students with a rigorous academic program, supporting them with a culture of kindness
Our curriculum, which combines engaging classroom work with real-world experiential learning, encourages students to stretch themselves and take risks.
Our students compose poems, build rockets, cast a critical eye to the past, and design solutions for the future. They run a campus business, and they research wildlife habitats in the waters of the Bahamas.
The curriculum at Chicago City Day School centers around core academic experiences in math, science, language arts, and social studies. To these, we add study of a world language (French or Spanish); a robust arts program that features visual art, music, and drama; a design-centered technology program; physical education; and a resource-rich school library.
As a whole, our uniquely rigorous and compassionate academic program helps students understand the world, the systems that underlie it, and their places within it.
Learning Happens Everywhere
The classroom is just the start of the learning experience at Chicago City Day School. Our students regularly explore museums, attend live theater, and study wildlife along the Chicago River. As part of our service learning program, students remove buckthorn trees from forest preserves and spread beneficial seeds in local prairies.
These hands-on experiences continue during a series of trips taken by older City Day students, including a STEM expedition trip to Space Camp in Alabama, language immersion trips overseas, and a research expedition to the Bimini region of the Bahamas.
At City Day, the world is an extension of the classroom.
Chicago City Day School provided our children with a wonderful, nurturing, engaging, positive, and constructive learning experience. Thank you to the excellent teachers, staff, and community members for such an outstanding academic environment. W.M.SCity Day parent
We Challenge, and We Care
Teaching
City Day teachers are intelligent, passionate, and creative. They establish strong, trusting relationships with students, encouraging students to aim high and providing support when they fall short. Recent, and even not-so-recent, graduates regularly visit the City Day campus to reconnect with beloved former teachers.
We Challenge, and We Care
Differentiation
City Day understands that students learn differently. Our academic program has been designed to reach students where they are, intellectually and emotionally. This means students feel engaged, inspired, and supported as they advance through our program.
We Challenge, and We Care
Assessment
Our narrative-based assessments provide a nuanced view of a student's current performance, as well as the student's growth over time. We give students and their parents/guardians information they need to set appropriate goals and meet future challenges.
