Mandarin
SISTER SCHOOL - KUNSHAN EXPERIMENTAL SCHOOL
'Chinese Visitors at Sherbrooke Forest, Dandenong Ranges' -
More information coming soon about the Pen Pal Program between students at Sherbrooke & Kunshan Experimental School in China.
Kunshan Visitors at Sherbrooke - 2013
Today our Kunshan visitors left for Sydney where they will have a short stay before returning to China. They have had an amazing experience visiting our school and left after making many new Australian friends. I want to thank those families who had students to homestay with them as we could not have hosted such a successful visit without the input from our families. Both staff and student families were involved and I know it was an intense experience and very exhausting. To have strangers who don't speak the same language in your home for seven days and nights is a huge task and every family has made these students feel so welcome and contributed to an amazing experience for these young people. Over the weekend they were taken to so many wonderful places. I have heard about visits to Healesville, Puffing Billy, Southbank, Victoria Market, Bowling, Pizza restaurants, Westfield Shoppingtown, Football games, Sporting Activities and many other activites to make them feel special and to give them an aussie experience. They attended an official welcome from the Minister for Education Martin Dixon at the Zoo on Friday and then spent the rest of the day at the Zoo in the rain. They have been in our classes and spent time with all of our students. Yesterday we had a farewell in the hall and were treated to a dancing recital, 2 piano performances (Tchaikovsky and Beethoven) and a rendition of 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree' which they learned before leaving China. We also gave some wonderful performances arranged by Luc with the band (Yum drums, Jayden guitar,Ruby vocals, Justin guitar, Luc keyboard) solos by Zoe and Samantha and dancing by Sha'uri. I noticed that the students from China were very keen to take a lot of photos and videos so our performances were very well received. Our school is very different to Kunshan Loujiang Experimental School. They have 1600 students and over 120 teachers. That is not taking into account all the support staff and cooks who provide a cooked lunch daily for everyone. The resources they have are outstanding and no expense is spared to have everything the teachers and students need for learning and teaching. It is a very different story from us who have to prioritise our spending and make sure we have enough money to fund our utilities while providing the resources for teachers to use in classes. A small group of our teaching staff will be visiting them again in the September holidays so we will renew our friendship with our Kunshan sister school. All the students at Sherbrooke have been told by the Principal of Loujiang Experimental School that they have a school in China that is their school that they can attend any time. It would be a big shock for our students as they start at 7:00am and finish at 5:00pm. However, if any of your children think they might be up for it, let me know. More information and photos will be updated shortly, regarding our 2 Sister Schools, and including our visits to China in 2011 and 2012. |
Student Work - 2014
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