Culture Week 2024

We were really excited to celebrate culture week this week. It is an opportunity for students to positively highlight the many different cultures that enrich our school community! It is a week to learn and share, respect and be respected, understand and acknowledge, and to celebrate the world of cultural diversity in which we live today.  Through an understanding of each others cultures we hoped to highlight diversity and to bring our school community together through shared understanding.

On Tuesday, we kicked off culture week with greeting students as they arrived to school with “have a good day” cards printed in different languages according to each of the nationalities that enrich our school community Students were tasked with finding someone who could teach them how to pronounce the phrase! 

We also had a fun face painting workshop during tutor time for our junior students where students were able to have a flag from around the world painted on their faces or hands. This opened up lots of rich conversation about the different ethnicities, nationalities, similarities and connections our students have. 

We had a tree of life displayed in the atrium with flags from all the different parts of the world that our students and teachers have connections to. We also have a world map displayed in the library with a pin in each of the countries our school community has a connection to! It was a wonderful and fun way to start the week!

Some of our talented students created videos where we leave our stereotypes at the gate. Thanks so much to talented fifth year student Robert Bucur for creating this video short and all the students who participated in the filming of our tongue-in-cheek video on the stereotypes of just some of the many different nationalities that attend our school! 

Class 101 and Ms.Meehan were busy during CSPE creating posters and fact sheets on various countries around the world. Students took part in a class Kahoot on flags of the world, alongside a competition for who can name the most countries in 1 minute. Some of the posters were excellent, a particular well done to Yu Fei Zhong and Dani Smyth who won the best poster and Spartak who won the flags of the world kahoot! Well done guys!

On Wednesday, 1st year students were treated to a Flamenco Dance workshop by Sandra Palomar. The students had a fantastic opportunity to immerse themselves into Spanish culture. Students had a lovely morning, Thanks to Mr. Kenny for organising.

Jean and Ms. Raftery hosted a coffee morning for parents in the library. Students created some wonderful desserts from Croatia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania, Poland , the Philippines, and Mauritius. They were all delicious! Well done to our students. It was a wonderful morning. Thanks to all who attended!

Jean held a  Speak Dating event in the library on Thursday. Students came to the library at lunch time and were able to learn a new phrase in a different language or make a new friend!

Mr. O’Donnell organised a football tournament during lunch! Participating students played as various teams from around the globe such as Japan, Italy, Colombia, and the Netherlands. Semi finals and finals were played on Friday. Well done everyone!! 

On Friday Third year students had the opportunity to make authentic Italian “gnocchi alla Sorrentina” (Sorrenyo style gnocchi). Lots of fun was had Thanks to Ms.Macari, Ms Tyrrell & Bea for making it a very fun-filled and successful morning! Amazing work by our third year Italian students.  To complete the week, Ms' O'Dowd organised a whole school Kahoot! for last class of the day . Thanks to everyone who participated in the week!