In week 2 this term we welcomed 17 students and 3 teachers from our Chinese sister school, The High School Attached to Yangzhou University.
The week was extremely successful with the Chinese students and teachers commenting on how much they enjoyed visiting our school and staying with our host families. At the welcoming assembly at the Junior Campus, our students introduced the visitors and they in turn gave a speech and presented the College with a beautiful gift.
During the week the students attended a formal Welcome Reception at Government House and thoroughly enjoyed doing some activities with their host families including a visit to the city and Chinatown, shopping at DFO and Highpoint, going to Rugby games and much more. They also spent three days in classes with our students, including Accounting, Maths, English, Chemistry and History.
Congratulations to our Concert Band students who performed tremendously well at the Government House function in front of almost 1000 people! We received this feedback from Mr Simon Mott, Senior Project Office at the Dept of Education:
“I would like to extend an extra special thanks to Balwyn Primary School, Officer Secondary College and Victoria University Secondary College who performed beautifully for us all. What a wonderful way to showcase the talents of your students and the strengths of your cultural programs. A big thanks to all students and staff who worked tirelessly to bring together these wonderful performances.”
At the farewell assembly the students and teachers were presented with gifts and certificates, as well as a commemoration plaque to take back to their school in China. One of the Chinese teachers did a thank you speech, and the Chinese students got up and did some amazing performances – singing and a traditional Chinese dance.
We would like to thank our host families for generously volunteering to host the students and our amazing Chinese teachers – Mr Ding, Ms Wang and Ms Yang – for their invaluable time and support of the three visiting teachers.
