Where in the world can you find a school that gives so much premium to values formation that it even requires the parents of the students to “go back to school” to learn tried-and-tested family values?

Westbridge School, a private school for boys in MagsaysayVillage, Iloilo City, opened its doors to 32 students on June 1992. It has grown steadily dring the last 8 years and it is now offering education to students from Grade 1 to 4th Year.

Under the PAREF System of education, Westbridge has introduced landmark initiatives which other schools are also trying to adapt into their school system. One such program is the tutorial system, in which every student is assigned a teacher who acts as an adviser, a counselor, or an older brother who tries to give the student the guidance he needs to become a responsible and independent individual.
Westbridge students know this system as the regular “tutorial chat,” held usually once every two to three weeks. The tutor talks with the student about anything that may have bearing on his growth as a person or anything two good friends would usually talk about. The school is able to do this since it tries to maintain a ratio of about 10 students to one teacher.

Following the principle of advertise, the school devotes time to discuss and remind the students regularly on the merits of a particular virtue each month. The virtue of the month or VOM is concretized in most classes especially the Advisory period and the Student Assembly for the entire elementary and high school departments. To further provide them with a reminder, all students use a diary that has haikus related to the VOM. It is hoped that the constant repetition of the virtue inclines the student more to practice it better.

Westbridge, however, considers the parents as the more powerful agents of formation. In fact, that oft-repeated phrase, “Parents as the primary educators of their children,” is so deeply engraved in the minds of the Westbridge officer that they have taken another groundbreaking and audacious move: the setting up of a School for Parents, where parents actually attend a series of special lectures on parenting and child-rearing. Aside from attending these lectures, the school also asks them to sit down with their sons’ tutor around three times a year to discuss ways and means by which the school and the home can further help their sons improve.

Now celebrating its 9th year, Westbridge has a lot of reasons to celebrate. Many of its graduates have done and are doing well in college. A good number ended up in some of the top universities in the country – UP, Ateneo, La Salle and UA&P. The first batch just graduated from college recently and one alumnus has come back to Westbridge to teach. Many other have started their careers in top companies in Manila and have promised to teach after a few years.

But Westbridge is not just a values school. It is a real school that trains its students to also be equipped with all the necessary skills to do well in the university. There is always a constant drive to push for academic excellence.
The teacher plays a very important role in pushing academic excellence among students. Westbridge knows this fully well. Thus, teaching training and faculty development occupy a very high position in its list of priorities. A faculty development seminar is organized at least once every month.

Much has been said about values formation. Much has been said about training of students and the school’s drive for academic excellence. At the bottom of all these aces is one card that integrates everything else that has been said, so far: Opus Dei.
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It is the spirit of the Founder of Opus Dei that gives clarity to the whys and hows in Westbridge. We are thankful to him for inspiring PAREF with the philosophy of “Parents First, Teachers Second, and ultimately the students.” The young people are looking for models and they find them in their parents and the teachers.

The author is the founding director of Westbridge School in 1992. He is also one of the first graduates of Southridge, the first PAREF school for boys located at Alabang. He is presently an officer of Southridge since his transfer in 1994.
PAREF stands for Parents for Education Foundation. Among the schools in the PAREF system are Southridge and Woodrose in Alabang; Springdale and Southcrest schools in Cebu and Northfield School in Quezon City.