We believe that education is a life-long process, a moral act, and its focal point is and should always be the human person. Its primary purpose is the person’s integral formation, done through close home-school collaboration.

This opening statement expresses some aspects of the school’s convictions about what education is all about. It is a process that will last for the duration of one’s whole life. This belief is the basis for the educational goal of the school to make of its students life-long learners. The aim is to equip them with the skills to be learners for the rest of their lives. Education is not limited to the time the students will spend in the school: even after they have left the school, or even after finishing their university studies, the student will still have to learn many things. The school will have to teach the students good study habits; they will have to bring with them this virtue all their lives.

By saying that education is a moral act, the school believes that the task of education is a fruit of an intentional act of the persons involved, which also engages their freedom and responsibility. It will be an act subject to the principles of morality. As such, it cannot be separated from the moral qualifications of good and evil. High standards of ethics and morals must inform the entire task of education.

The primary purpose of education is stated as the person’s integral formation. This means that all aspects of the student’s life: intellectual, volitional, physical, emotional, social, psychological, religious, etc. must be affected and shaped by the process of education; this task must conform to the ideals that are set by right reason and by Christian Revelation. “Integral” also means ‘complete’: the education of the different aspects of the student’s life must be harmonized into a complete organic whole, each aspect affecting and influencing for the good, and complementing the other aspects of life. We do not want isolated compartments in a person’s life; we want to achieve a unity of life (Escriva, 1985).

The manner in which this education will be carried out is specified as “home-school collaboration”. This belief is based on a more primary one which states that the parents are the primary educators of their children. The school does not want to take away from the parents this right and duty of theirs. The school wants to complement the parents’ task. To achieve this, there must be close communication and cooperation between the school and the parents.

We believe that the responsibility for the upbringing and education of children belongs primarily to the parents, with the school as their active partner.

“Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs” (Vatican Council II, 1965a).

We believe that the school is the entire community of persons composed of parents, teachers, staff, students and alumni that form an ethical community and, as it were, one family.

This belief defines the persons who compose the school: parents, teachers, staff, students and alumni. The school is a community of persons who are bound by a set of common values: these are the ideals and goals, its history and traditions. The school is united through communication: the sharing of goods, ideas, desires, dreams and projects, fraternity and charity. The school is qualified as an ethical community: its members are bound by the strictest and highest standards of ethical and moral norms. The School has been compared to a family: a communion of persons. The atmosphere its members strive to breed in their relationships is one found in a big and united family; at the same time that they strive to follow high standards of professionalism in the school.

We believe that the school must undertake the task of achieving the integral formation of the students; that is, all Southridge activities must contribute to their integral formation.

All the activities undertaken by the school must be in line with this primary goal. The school not only conducts classes, which is the main educational activity undertaken by the school. There are also clubs, outreach projects, theatrical plays, seminars, bands, liturgical celebrations, academic contests, athletics and sports tournaments, etc. All of these activities must push forward the integral development of the students. Approval will only be given to those activities that forward the students’ education.

We believe that to achieve the integral formation of students, the school must likewise give an adequate formation to the parents, teachers, staff and alumni.

“No one can give what he does not have”: a trite statement yet very true. If the parents, teachers, staff and alumni are to perform their task of education effectively, they must teach by word and by example. For this purpose, they too need help in knowing what to teach and how to lead the way through the example of their deeds and lives. Their good spirit needs to be sustained through educational activities designed for them. This conviction will demand a commitment on the part of the school to set up programs and activities addressed to the teachers, staff, parents and alumni for their continuing education. This conviction will also demand a commitment on the part of the teachers, staff, parents and alumni to attend the educational activities the school provides for them.

We believe in fidelity to the principles of the natural law and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church as the foundations of our task of education while respecting delicately at all times the freedom of consciences.

The natural law is the law of right reason that is found in all men. Everyone ought to recognize this law and live according to it. Each man’s conscience, if upright, will demand from him compliance with the tenets of the natural law. Respect for each person requires respect for his conscience. The Church teaches that: “The Christian faithful, in common with all other men, possess the civil right not to be hindered in leading their lives in accordance with their consciences. Therefore, a harmony exists between the freedom of the Church and the religious freedom which is to be recognized as the right of all men and communities and sanctioned by constitutional law” (Vatican Council II, 1965). The freedom of consciences referred to here means respect for the religious freedom of individuals. The truths of Revelation are proposed to man; they cannot be imposed. The School is free and duty bound to teach the truths of Divine Revelation while at the same time respecting the religious freedom of each person, the freedom of consciences.

We believe that the learner is fundamentally a person, created in the image and likeness of God, with a spiritual and immortal soul, endowed with intelligence and free will, and destined to God as his ultimate end.

The human person cannot be understood adequately without reference to God, whose image he is. The human person has an inner principle of life — his soul. It not only is the principle of his life but it is also the seat of his intellect and free will and it is immortal. No other class of creatures on earth has these same qualities. His most sublime calling is to be united to God in a life that will never end.

This conviction leads all educators involved in the school to give respect to the learner and to uphold his personal dignity and his rights.

We believe that work well-done is a proof of the primacy of the person over material things and is a means of developing one’s personality and obtaining his own personal good and that of others.

This conviction expresses the value the school gives to work well done. The School wishes for each student to develop his personality to the full: this will happen when he acquires and develops human virtues. Many human virtues, both personal and social, can be developed through work well done. It is through work that each person realizes the dominion the Lord God gave to man over all creation. Consequently, the School will demand from everyone: students, teachers, staff, parents and alumni, the highest standards of professionalism in whatever work or task at hand.

 

 We believe that freedom and responsibility must go hand in hand in a life of dedicated service to God and others, especially the needy, for the common good of society in general, and Filipino society in particular.

Commitment and dedication are the highest expressions of the use of personal freedom and responsibility. The School wants her students to be men capable of making commitments and persevering in them. A life becomes useful and worth living when it is lived in the service of God and fellow men. The School wants her students to be patriotic: that they love their country, the Philippines. They should maintain an outlook where they are convinced that they owe much of their lives to their country and they should make returns through service, solving the problems that confront Filipino society and working hard to bring it forward to true development. At the same time her students must be open to the entire world: they are educated such that wherever they may be in the world, they will work for the common good of the society of which they form part.

We believe that our best contribution to the community, to the nation, and to the world is the gift of well-formed and principled people.

This last statement expresses a hope about how the School helps communities (families, companies, enterprises, neighborhoods), the nation and world: coming out with students, teachers, parents, staff and alumni who are educated totally and holistically: persons who have principles and values in their minds and hearts with a strong will backed by solid virtues to stand by their principles through the challenges and difficulties of life.