By Colin MacGillivray
WALLAN Secondary College students and staff emulated their literary heroes and immersed themselves in cultural activities last week as part of the school’s Languages Week program.
The school organised fun-filled activities for students throughout the week, aimed at promoting student engagement and raising the school’s profile in the community.
College languages learning area leader Sian Clarke said some activities that would normally form part of national Book Week were incorporated into the school’s Languages Week instead.
“Book Week is actually in August but that goes over our production week dates, which is why we’ve put it here in May,” she said.
“We’re trying to get [the students] to think about what language means – it’s not only inclusive of English, but also Indonesian, which is the other language that we teach here.
“On Monday we held an Indonesian immersion day where students got to try Indonesian food, do Indonesian dancing and things like that.
“On Tuesday we had the author Simmone Howell come and visit us and she gave a talk to some of the students, which she found really fun.
“We also had a Book Week dress-up day and fashion parade, and we had lots of kids get really into it and the staff were keen as well.”
Other activities during the week included a literary trivia competition, a library treasure hunt and book cover redesign competition.
Ms Clarke said Languages Week was one of many themed weeks organised by different faculty leaders at the school during the year.
“We’ve already had Maths Week in term one, Languages Week now and then in a couple of weeks I believe it’s going to be Science Week,” she said.
“We’re trying to get positive things happening, and I think weeks like this are a really good idea.
“It’s about increasing student engagement and wellbeing within the school, because we know COVID has hammered that, not only at this school but with many schools. All the staff are working really hard to bounce back from that.”
Ms Clarke said the Book Week fashion parade had been a hit and was likely to become a recurring fixture on the school calendar.
“This was our first dress-up fashion parade for Book Week ever. It was our first go at it, but the kids seemed to love it and had lots of fun,” she said.
