This week, St Mary’s paused to explore the wonderful continent of Australia! We started the morning by looking at where Australia is situated in the world; its many beautiful landmarks and tourist attractions; some famous faces that we might recognise from the big screen and finally some of its local heroes that have blown people away with their courage and steadfastness towards the bush fires.
We then split into our classes and began carousel of activities throughout the school. In Willow, we were looking at some traditional Australian treats, such as Lamingtons and Fairy bread. The children had a go at decorating biscuits, using fruit, to represent the Australian flag and tasted Vegemite – this definitely had mixed reviews! In Lilac, we were learning all about Saint Mary MacKillop, who was the first Australian saint, and her impact on people’s lives. She is still celebrated in Australia today and she is said to have performed two miracles! As well as this, we tried our hands at Aboriginal Art, using paints. It was really interesting and therapeutic designing and creating patterns! Lastly, we explored some Australian traditions. We started by looking at boomerangs (thank you Rory, Kishi & Kaya for bringing these in to share with us!) and then learnt a traditional Indigenous game called ‘Boogalah’ – this proved to be very popular, if somewhat competitive… We created actions for a song called ‘Kookaburra’ and everyone came together at the end of the day to perform this to parents in an assembly. We had an amazing day – it was so interesting to learn about a different part of the world and share in their culture!
Impact & Knowledge Gained
International Day has allowed pupils to have a broad enhancement of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Each pupil came away from the day having learnt or experienced something new. Days like this allow us as a school to promote equality and diversity and, as a result, pupils understand, appreciate and respect difference in the world and its people, celebrating the things we share in common across cultural, religious, ethnic and socio-economic communities.
