Silver Award Presentation
On Monday, 3rd February, we were delighted to hold the Duke of Edinburgh’s Silver Award presentation ceremony. The school was ...
Culture Week
The school hosted its very first Culture Week this week to celebrate our rich diversity of cultures within the school.
Our pupils have been at the forefront of organising this event and have been busy behind the scenes to ensure there is something for everyone to enjoy. With daily events including dance and singing performances, art workshops, exhibitions and readings, pupils, staff, and parents were all involved in making this a successful week.
Hutchie has so many different cultures and languages, and pupils wanted to showcase the diversity in the school. This is something we are proud of as our world is ever changing and learning from each other can help broaden our horizons. In our school we see this daily from students to teachers to curriculum, but this is not enough. We want to share our culture with others through food, fashion, music, art, and Culture Week is an opportunity to learn.
On Monday, a dance event took place in the Georgeson with performances in various styles from Indian classical to Bollywood along with a workshop to teach Jewish dancing. Pupils and staff had the opportunity to join in or sit back and enjoy the energetic routines.
A story-telling event and exhibition was held in the library on Tuesday with readings in Urdu, Punjabi, Gaelic, Italian, Persian, and Dutch. Pupils also had the opportunity to have their name written out in Punjabi script for a small donation to our school charity, Cure Leukaemia. Thank you to Mrs Jyoti Virhia who taught us Punjabi and to Mrs Nasira Wasim for her Urdu poem. Stories and books are an important part of our many cultures and the exhibition of books and cultural artefacts on display in the library have given a magnificent insight.
An Art Workshop was held on Wednesday, and everyone was welcome to come along and get their hands dirty making a Henna hands art display and creating patterns of geometric Islamic or African tiles. Coincidentally the Hindu festival of Holi was also on Wednesday which focuses on colour, and colourful rangoli was created to decorate the library corridor.
Culture week culminated in a cultural non-uniform day which brought an array of colours and designs, and a Cultural Fashion Show was held in the Assembly Hall to celebrate cultural diversity in terms of dress. Staff and pupils made a special effort to wear clothes that represented a part of their culture. Voluntary donations for the school charity were collected to attend the much-anticipated show. It was a huge success with over 250 people attending.
A range of food from all over the world has also been on offer in our canteen with a different cultural theme every day. From falafels and shawarma to pizza and Swedish meatballs, chicken ramen to achari potatoes, and gulab jamu to churros, along with delicious Hamantaschen to celebrate the Jewish festival of Purim – it’s been a mouth-watering experience.
As Culture Week came to an end, a final singing event was held on Friday where our Hutchie singers showed off their musical and language talents.
It has been a wonderful week of cultural diversity bringing our Hutchie community together to celebrate our inaugural Culture Week. It has built conversations and confidence; we have embraced different backgrounds. Thank you to everyone involved.