By personal formation we refer to the entire education that a student receives in Southridge. The academic program, mentoring, spiritual means of formation, sports and even the facilities contribute to his formation as a person with an intellect and will. Everything in Southridge exists and is done for the sake of the total personal development of the students.

A more specific way of understanding personal formation, however, is to consider it in contradistinction to academic or intellectual formation. Taken in this context, the school understands it to mean the efforts of specific agents to form each student such that he pursues wisdom and virtue. By wisdom is meant the knowledge a human being must have to be happy in this life and in the next. By virtue is meant those habits that make a human being good.

The personal formation program consists of means of formation over and above the academic program that aim for one’s integral development. These means of formation endeavor to lead each student to a greater self-knowledge to prepare him for life here and hereafter. The program consists in a deliberate and systematic program of character formation that is

founded on the academic program considered as the primary venue for forming character

directed to all the students in a personalized manner

permeated by a Catholic ethos and the lay spirituality of Opus Dei

carried out through the collaboration of the parents(who are helped to become first and foremost parents) and the teachers (who are trained to become agents of formation)

 Mentoring System

In the mentoring program, the mentor coordinates the efforts of various persons to develop virtues in the child. He helps parents to be systematic in the way they form the child in virtue.

The development of wisdom is goal of the mentor. The mentor must teach his mentee to be wise, to know his own self, to understand others. He must teach him to be humble, to recognize his talents and limitations, without being neither vain about the former nor depressed about the latter. He must teach him how to deal with others and with material things. He must teach him to be prudent, just, strong, and self-controlled. This done by means of the chat, a regular informal conversation between the mentor and his mentee.

Spiritual Formation Program

The fourth education goal is a light in which one sees the other three. Its light is the light of faith. Spiritual Formation in grade school and high school is especially education in the faith (fides quoud) and formation in faith (fides qua). The activities which make up the spiritual formation program are religious instruction, the sacraments, and spiritual direction. The student who takes the spiritual formation program seriously grows in the faith and Christianizes the human formation he is given in the very act of assimilating it.

Needless to say, the child’s disposition towards the faith is formed at home. Parents have a most important role in spiritual formation. The spiritual formation of the child is primarily their duty, and secondarily, by delegation, the school’s.

The teacher teaching his students in the classrom, the mentor conversing with his mentee on the bench: these are the essential activities of Southridge. They are the heart of the school. Education takes place there. Everything else in the school exist to make them possible, to make sure they succeed, and to protect them.

 Other Means of Character Formation

Job Assignment

You are given the opportunity to carry out tasks other than those required by the curriculum. Job assignments are means to develop a sense of responsibility, to eliminate señioritismo, to live the spirit of service, and to break the routine of regular school work. The general areas for Job assignments are the classroom, dining hall, and the campus.

Classroom job assignments can be any of the following: errands, door, beadle, desk alignment, time keeper, lockers, litter, windows, ledge, teacher’s table, diary, blackboard, repairs, cleaners for the day, lost and found, lights and fans. Assignments, ordinarily, are made by your class adviser although he can delegate this to the class council. The class officers can also be tasked to monitor the performance of the assignments which are quarterly.

Homeroom and Testing

A Homeroom period is held twice a month in every class. It is during Homeroom that developmental issues are discussed such as boy-girl relationship, preparing for college, dangers of substance abuse, coping with peer pressure, difference between grade school and high school, etc. Study techniques are likewise imparted during Homeroom. The following take turns conducting the program: an invited guest, a senior teacher or school officer, or your class adviser.

The program has a testing component. Aptitude and achievement tests are given in all the levels once a year. The Grade 5 and Grade 7 students take a personality test. The Grade 11 students take a career test while the Grade 12 students do practice tests for college entrance exams. The mentors relay to their mentees and their parents the result of the tests they took. They can also go to the Personal Formation Office to request for an interpretation of the test results.

 Student Seminar

This activity is organized once a year for every level. The seminar aims to develop self-reliance, toughness, leadership and teamwork, spirit of service, piety and order in the participants. It is also an opportunity to get to know their classmates and teachers better. Part of the schedule is time for norms of piety, community outreach or work mission, pilgrimage, sports, talks and workshops. The teachers and mentors try to chat with everyone during the seminar.