Parent Partnership

One of the core mission areas for Green Point Christian College is the support of families as the cornerstone of a flourishing society. As a College, we take this mission seriously as we seek to equip students for life.

We hold this view because we believe that God instituted the family unit as a foundational element in His creation. In Genesis 2, it says, "a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." This leaving of one family and becoming one flesh with another is the process of creating a new family unit. The family is of creational importance in God's world.

As we read through Scripture, we see that families take on many different shapes, sizes, and blends. We also see that it is within the family that the primary role of education and learning resides. In the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses is giving the Israelites the law, he says:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."

Here, Moses is encouraging families to teach their children about the world as it really is, at all times and in all they do. He affirms that our creator God placed the primary responsibility for educating and raising children in the hands of parents.

However, we all recognise that raising children in the way they should go is a challenging task and it truly takes a village. Therefore, as a College, we seek to partner with families and support you in this vital task.

In our current cultural moment, which is awash with consumerism, it is tempting to place schooling and education in that same category. We can sometimes think about school as simply purchasing a product and expecting an outcome. Here at Green Point, we do not subscribe to that view. For us, partnership is not so much transactional, but relational. When it works well, it sees parents and the College working together to support our young people to navigate the world in front of them and turning towards one another to solve inevitable challenges. It respects the expertise we both have in our respective domains and honours and upholds each other with our children.

As a College, this is our heart. While we will not get it right in every circumstance, we continue to strive to cultivate a deep partnership wherever we can.

Over the next few weeks, I will be writing about some of the parenting pressure points present in our culture and how we seek to address them here at Green Point.

Have a great week.

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Joel van Bentum