If your son or daughter is a student at ACS (International) or any of the ACS schools, then you have chosen what is often referred to as a ‘mission school’ for your child. What can you expect? What does a mission school offer that others may not? Here are some of the things you can expect.

1. A commitment to truth. You might think that this is obvious. Of course schools are are committed to enquiry and the pursuit of truth, you might think. But we live in a time when students, and maybe some parents, are tempted to think that there are no absolute truths and that everything is relative.

   Particularly in questions of morals and in matters of religion, nothing, it may be thought, is absolutely wrong or always right. It depends upon your opinion or it depends upon the situation. But a mission school is one where there is an underlying conviction that God has created the world and established its laws and that they are absolute. Students are encouraged to question, to investigate, to explore ideas and to challenge opinions in the belief that there are ultimately right answers to be found.

2. A commitment to certain values. All schools must have some value system – that is, certain standards which they try to uphold in their community life and which they aim to inculcate into their students. A mission school will believe that these values have a religious basis. Christians see these values exemplified in the life and teaching of Jesus. They include things like mutual acceptance of one another, compassion, forgiveness, humility, honesty, service, global responsibility, justice, commitment and faith. These values will provide students with a framework for their own lives. Of course, individual students may choose to reject these values, but they will have at least been challenged to think about them.

3. A commitment to individuals. Mission schools believe that everyone is created by God and therefore that each individual is of infinite worth. They will therefore be committed to the all-round education of each person – mind, body and spirit. They will have programmes of personal development, a wide range of CCAs and a high level of pastoral care, not as additions to the curriculum but as central to it. They will offer a broad choice of subjects and courses to cater for individual talents and interests. Above all they will try to tailor the educational program to the needs of individual students and help them achieve their God-given potential.

4. A commitment to build the school as a strong and disciplined community. One way of thinking of religion is that it is a way of living together as a community. In particular Christianity involves loving one’s neighbour as oneself, and, in the spirit of Christ, accepting one another as brothers and sisters. In a mission school, we are not just a group of people who happen to live and work together. We see the school as a community in which we feel valued and accepted and grow as people, it is the place in which values are learned and lived out.

5. Finally, a commitment to prayer.  A mission school is one in which teachers pray for students and students are taught to pray for one another. A mission school is one in which God is praised for achievements and in which his help and guidance is sought for the future. It is this which puts everything into its proper perspective. It is my prayer that this is what you will find at ACS (International).

Rev Dr John C A Barrett
Principal, ACS (International)