China Trip and Asia Awareness Programme at Oropi School
As part of our school Charter, we talk about our school providing an education so our children "become contributing members of society”. We state that "we will reflect New Zealand’s increasingly multicultural society by providing students with a range of opportunities to celebrate the diversity of other cultures”.
Our Annual Plan specifies goals in relation to this which encompasses learning an Asian language, learning about an Asian culture and making connections with Chinese people, schools and students. Fostering Asia Awareness amongst our students is vital in preparing our children for their future world of work as adults.
In September 2014, we took a group of students and some staff to Nanchang, China. This new idea that has been put in place very much connects with our strategic planning. China and learning Mandarin has become our Asia Aware ‘focus region’ that students at Oropi learn about.
The children spent some time in Nanchang Foreign Language School, interacted with Chinese families and learnt about Chinese history and culture. Our staff need to be educated about all this as well because it is a new area of learning for most teachers and of national importance and priority as supported by the Ministry, Government and Universities.
Oropi is very much at the cutting edge with our Asia Aware programme and many institutions are looking at our example that we are pioneering.
Click this link to read the 2014 China Blog
Click here to have a look at Languagenut, a great resource we use to support our learning of Mandarin.
Click here to read the results of the Perceptions of Asia Survey 2015.
Click here to watch an interesting report about how learning Mandarin is set to be the job ticket of the future!