By Krisha Lad
International Prefect
On 11 February , the International Department celebrated the Chinese New Year with packed lunches and little gift bags and on 22 February, we had our very first International assembly of the year 2022.
The Chinese New Year is celebrated every year by the Westlake Girls High School International Department. Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, is the most important festival in China and a major event in some other East Asian countries. Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. It was traditionally a time to honour deities as well as ancestors, and it has also become a time to feast and to visit family members.
This year, in light of the Covid-19 situation we weren’t able to put on a shared lunch, instead the International Department put together a packed lunch to celebrate this festival. The International students enjoyed Pad Thai, yummy dumplings and a little gift bag with some chocolates and lollies. It was an amazing experience as an International Prefect, considering it was our first ‘event’ (of many!) of the year and it was a way for us to meet almost every International student. The girls had a wonderful time, coming and going, as well as, catching up with our amazing International team that were able to pull off this incredible lunch – Mrs Croot, Miss Moon and Miss Owen. I think it’s safe to say we all had a really amazing lunch that day!
On 22 February, the International students had our first International assembly of the year in our new Events Centre foyer! It was a first of a lot of things – it was our International prefects very first assembly as the leaders of the International students. We were finally able to introduce ourselves to the students after not being able to have the awards ceremony last year. Roori, Clara and myself, Krisha Lad are very excited to work with our small, but strong, International cohort of 42 this year! The theme for our assembly was based around trying and not giving up.
We chose to play a song – ‘Try’ by P!nk, encouraging our students to try, and not give up, as it is the beginning of the year. For our Year 9s, the beginning of their first and for our Year 13s, their last year of high school. We had our Principal, Mrs Stanley, come and speak a little around this theme, as well as our Senior Leadership Team member, Mrs Wilson, encouraging the girls to join various clubs including the choirs! I think this assembly was very successful for us prefects, and we are very excited to have many more over the course of this year!