Multicultural education

The Student Representative Council (SRC) have initiated a variety of successful programs to create harmony both within the school and the local community. These projects have been expanded and aided by a “Living in Harmony” Department of Immigration grant of $30000 and a shared DET Cultural Exchange Grant from Birrong Girls High.

Students have been given the opportunity to meet and communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds by continuing our exchange program with Birrong Girls High, Marrickville High, and Beverly Hills Intensive English Centre and by opening new partnerships with Punchbowl Boys High. Students from Years 7-11 have attended a cultural exchange project. Senior female student leaders attend the International Women’s Day Breakfast at Darling Harbour with Birrong Girls High each year to listen to women from different cultural backgrounds who have overcome adversity and whom deliver a message of strength.  

Our Japanese exchange program has been expanded to include a trip by our students and staff to Japan for ten days in the October holidays every second year. We also host students from Hitachi-Omiya at our school for 5 days every year.

To promote better relations between people of different religious backgrounds, interfaith visits to the Nan Tien Temple and the Hitachi-Omiya Buddhist Temple are organised. Years 7 and 9 took students take part in drama performances and interfaith workshops run by the “Together for Humanity” project with leaders from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities attending.

A Social Justice Committee was formed by the SRC and events were held during Refugee Week to encourage students to think about our common obligations to people who have no secure home, as well as to acknowledge the 700,000 refugees and humanitarian migrants over the past 60 years who have made Australia their home.

Students run a successful Harmony Day assembly each year and discuss ways in which we can recognise and accept cultural differences, as we work toward a society of equality for all.