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Posted on April 3rd 2015
Chinese New Year
2015 is the Year of the Sheep according to the traditional Chinese calendar. Chinese New Year was officially celebrated on 19 February and marks the start of the 15-day long Spring Festival in China. Here at Chobham Academy, we celebrated Chinese New Year during the week before the half-term break. Students learnt about traditional New Year celebrations in a series of special assemblies and activities co-ordinated by the Mr Wang and the Mandarin Department.
The Atrium was decorated with red lanterns and traditional decorations to mark the celebrations. Red is an important colour in Chinese culture symbolising prosperity and at the end of the week teachers came to work wearing red items of clothing in the hope that they would prosper in the year ahead!
Students learnt about different aspects of Chinese culture in their subject lessons. In Dance, students explored the theme of conflict resolution and used traditional martial arts movements in their work. There is a video clip of some Year 8 work here. In Music, students prepared a traditional Chinese drumming performance – you can see a clip of their finished work here. Students in Art produced work using Chinese Calligraphy and made name stamps using Chinese characters. In Food Technology students learnt how to cook Chinese style noodles. You can see some photos of their finished work here.
There were some fantastic competitions running throughout the week also. Mr Wang launched a New Year greeting competition. All students and teachers were taught to say ‘Happy New Year’ in Mandarin, and were rewarded with fortune cookies if they were able to greet Mandarin teachers correctly during the week. Mr Patel and the Student Charities Commission ran a chopstick eating competition during lunchtimes with all profits going to charities chosen by students. There was also an assembly quiz with traditional Chinese New Year red envelopes filled with Chinese sweets up for grabs.
The Mandarin Department have worked hard this year to establish and develop two links with partner schools in China. Students in Years 7 and 8 have sent penpal letters to students in our partner schools introducing themselves and are waiting to receive their replies. The schools have also sent Culture Boxes to each other filled with items that represent the culture of their country. The items received from China will be on display at Chobham Academy, and we also look forward to exchanging photos of our New Year celebrations!
Our full gallery of images can be seen here.
