Schools celebrate Chinese New Year
Pupils at Warwickshire schools have been wishing each other Kung Hei Fat Choy (Happy New Year) as they celebrated the Chinese New Year last week with their partner schools in Ruyuan, China.
Three years ago, Warwickshire County Council established Official Area Links with the Yao Autonomous County of Ruyuan in Northern Guangdong, China and set up successful partnerships between schools in Warwickshire and Ruyuan.
Since then the schools have visited and communicated with each other and have developed innovative ways to support language and cultural learning through comparing and contrasting the two countries and their ways of life. This official link has been generously funded through the Chinese Government, HSBC bank and the British Council.
In the past few months there have been two exchange trips involving the county’s schools. In September a delegation of artists, performers and teachers from Ruyuan worked with Warwickshire primary pupils, teaching them a range of traditional Yao culture arts and performing their cultural festival of dance and music.
In November a group of students from 4 Warwickshire secondary schools: Rugby High, Kingsbury, Queen Elizabeth Atherstone and Stratford High, visited China to perform Romeo and Juliet to an audience of thousands at the Yao festival where they were introduced by the British Consul.
Other schools in the partnership will be continuing their collaborative art and communication projects, teacher and students exchanges, mandarin teaching and summer schools. All of these activities have been planned to continue the success of the partnerships and to equip our young people with the global skills and awareness they will need for the future.
Charlotte Marten, Headteacher from Rugby High School accompanied the young Warwickshire actors on their recent trip. She said: “The schools involved in the Ruyuan links are planning many more opportunities for the students to take part in exchange trips and to work together and communicate ‘virtually’ using different technology.
“This programme has proved to be an excellent way for the pupils to learn about and appreciate the different aspects of our cultures as well as develop new skills.”
Cornelia Smith from Queen Elizabeth School in Atherstone added: “These projects with international colleagues help to enrich the curriculum and offer varied learning opportunities to expand pupils’ knowledge and enable them to become global citizens.
The Queen Elizabeth students involved in the trip to Ruyuan last term learned so much and truly benefitted from the whole life changing experience. We held a special Chinese New Year assembly at the school on 3 February where the pupils talked to the rest of the school about their time in China.”
Queen Elizabeth School has recently received funding from the British Council which will enable them to take 10 pupils back to Ruyuan to work on a partner link project comparing traditional Chinese medicine to modern medical techniques. Pupils will be making the week long trip on 30 of March and will stay with host families, reciprocating the hospitality their students enjoyed in school family homes in Atherstone last year.
Chinese New Year, also known as the spring festival, is the most important celebration in the Chinese calendar. The spring festival celebrates the start of new life and the season of ploughing and sowing. New Year festivities start on the first day of the lunar month and continue until the fifteenth, when the moon is brightest. 2011 is the Chinese year of the Rabbit.