Above: Noa, front, and other students at Cranbourne Secondary College perform the Haka.
By Sarah Schwager
ALL cultures were represented at Cranbourne Secondary College last week in a celebration of the students’ backgrounds and ethnicities.
Organised by the year 12 Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) students, year seven pupils were treated to a day of karate, dance and mini Olympics last Thursday.
First the students learnt kimekai karate from instructors and some world champions who volunteered their time. Then a Samoan group cooked a traditional feast in an umu as a free lunch for the year seven kids.
Year nine and 10 student also volunteered their time to teach some of their younger peers the Haka and Pacific Island dances.
VCAL and Languages Other Than English teacher Anita Templin said the day aimed to celebrate the diverse cultures that made up the local community.
“It was a really good day. The feedback from the kids has been really good,” Ms Templin said. “We wanted the kids to show pride in their background and ethnicity as well as the rest of the school gaining some understanding and respect.”
Another feature of the day was a mini Olympics, where kids participated in a variety of games based on international sports, as well as an opening and closing ceremony.
Ms Templin said all the year sevens came to school dressed either in their school uniform or traditional dress.
“The hardest was Australian because there is no traditional costume, so the kids were quite creative in what they came dressed in,” she said. “Invariably it included the Aussie flag or jeans, flannelette shirts and hats with corks.
“A couple of the year sevens were quite irate about it, actually, that there’s nothing that unifies us as Aussies.”
The VCAL students also organised cake stalls, with cakes donated by the local community and businesses, and a sausage sizzle for the other year levels.
At lunchtime they organised international music, which was broadcast over the school’s local radio station.
