Intercultural Connections

INTERCULTURAL CONNECTIONS CAPTAINS’ REPORT

The Intercultural Connections Captains was a newly established role under the Social Intelligence pillar for the strategic direction of the College, ‘diversity as a path to unity’. We had to set a vision and create a direction for the role, which we did by creating a theme ‘Knowing People, Knowing Pymble’. We aimed to encompass this into all our activities and projects throughout the year.

Lunar New Year

At the beginning of the year we celebrated Lunar New Year, which was a first for Pymble. We had daily activities where girls from Kindergarten to Year 12 were involved in traditional activities. At the conclusion of the week, we had a dragon dance, which everyone found very enjoyable. Throughout the week we collected many videos and written stories from staff and students that discussed the importance and meaning behind Lunar New Year to them.

Katherine Gibson and Claudia Vowels, Year 12

Sophie Harris, Year 5, Alice Liu, Year 3, Charlotte Ma, Year 3 and Vivian Liu, Year 5

Literature Diversity Week

Later in the year, we organised a Literature Diversity Week where we provided opportunities for students and staff to enjoy storytelling from diverse backgrounds. It involved inviting a variety of guests to present their narratives through a range of storytelling forms such as dance, writing and poetry, plus public speakers and workshops. The aim of the festival was to bring the school community together to share unique stories and celebrate its cultural diversity with 60 cultures represented within the school.

Reconciliation Week

More recently we focused on Reconciliation Week, which reminded us not only of a sad part of our history, but of a call to be proactive and become part of the positive change in our country and in our world. We held a special assembly where we invited a guest speaker to share her past as an Indigenous woman and with the theme for the year being ‘More than a word, Reconciliation takes action’, we focused on action and moving forward. As a school community, we made a pledge to our Indigenous people during our Reconciliation Week assembly. We also sold yellow ribbons for a gold coin donation to raise funds to support the charity Children’s Ground. As well as this, an Indigenous round of sport was held with other local schools to celebrate Indigenous culture and the role sport has in bringing us together as a nation. Claudia Vowels and Katherine Gibson, Captains of Intercultural Connections

Intercultural Connections

LUNAR NEW YEAR AT PYMBLE

Lunar New Year marks the first moon of the lunisolar calendar. It is a time for new beginnings and family reunions. It is celebrated through cultural festivities, family gatherings and delicious feasts. In Term 1, we celebrated Lunar New Year – the year of the ox, at Pymble. In the Secondary School, many exciting activities were held, such as lantern making and Chinese lion dancing. The lanterns were displayed proudly on the Colonnade and showed the creativity of our girls. The lion dancing brought together our community and excited us with its amazing tricks and culturally relevant festivities. The talented lion dancers were accompanied by traditional musicians who lit up the atmosphere.

“The dragon did thrilling tricks such as when the two people inside would stand on top of each other. Then the amazing staff came out with delicious fortune cookies for everyone, of which we happily took one each,” said Cameron Stoodley and Zoe Rose, Year 8.

There were also a couple of dedicated Year 10 students who spent nearly two weeks perfecting a beautiful display of the Year of the Ox. Sasha Wong and Elina Wu, Year 10, volunteered their time to complete an intricate hand-painted typography on the glass of the Conde Library. Meanwhile in the Preparatory School, the girls embraced Lunar New Year with great enthusiasm as they made paper lanterns, red envelopes and cherry blossoms. Our celebrations began the term with roaring success, and we hope all Pymble families had a happy Lunar New Year! Christiana Soo, Year 8