Chaplain Chat

At ACC we advertise this slogan; “Well Known, Well Taught, Well Loved”. Is that just a catchy slogan or is that something we as a school truly provide for our students? Are they well known? Are they well taught? Are they well loved?

If I am to be a man of integrity then I don’t think I could work for a school or company that claimed to be something that they are not without doing my best to hold them to account. So where does that leave me in regard to our school? How do we even measure this? Do we just compare our school with other schools? I don’t think so.

I have worked at ACC now for one and a half years. As a staff member, personally, I feel well known and well loved by the staff here. It has been modelled by the senior leadership. The staff seem to truly care about each other and from what I have seen they truly care about the students too.

I regularly see our principal Dave Ramsay making time for our staff, our students and the parents in our community. Just recently I witnessed him skipping with our secondary students during a couple of break times and as students ran in to skip, while he and another student swung the rope, he would know each of them by name.

Does he know every student we have by name? I don’t think he does but I do think he would like to. But why? Why is this so important to him? Couldn’t he get away with not knowing students' names? He is the principal, and surely he could get away with doing other things, “more important things”. I think he understands that he is well known by God, he is well taught by God, and he is well loved by God.

As I reflect on this I can’t help but think I too am well known by God, I too am well taught by God, and I too am well loved by Him. And you know what, knowing this and seeing this from our principal I feel compelled to live this vision and these values to the best of my ability. To the best of my ability, I want the students at ACC to be well known, well taught, and well known by me.

It's not that I have to. It's what I want too. I care and I know our principal does too. And not just him. I believe our staff, the whole staff group, care. They care about you, they care about the students they teach and they want to the best of their ability to know their students well, to teach them well and to love them.

1 John 3:16 (ESV); By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.