Our inaugural OWL day!
- Created on 11 October 2022
- Last changed on 27 October 2022
Our whole school community, students, parents and teachers recently came together to celebrate ISH's inaugral OWL Day!
What did our students (our reason for doing what we do) say ...
"The food from different cultures, the different kings day games and the fact that we had a full day just learning in different languages."
"There are so many different cultures so it was very interesting to learn about them."
"I loved that everyone was trying something new and out of their culture."
"Slovakia has the most castles in Europe with over 100."
"I learned that Kiswahili is a mix of Portuguese, Arabic, and original words."
"That food is delicious, hahaha ... I learned much about the Swedish culture, and how to write my name in 3 different languages!!!"
From our parents (our partners in the education journey)...
"It was a fantastic day today. Could meet friends, talk to kids and also get an opportunity to c other cultures. Great."
"Thank you for such an inspiring day! For us it was even more important than for the kids, I guess. I had so much fun and rest today! Hopefully, everybody enjoyed it as we did ;)."
"How wonderful our community is! We are so rich with cultures and languages and it was a great pleasure to be involved and to see all the smiles and experience the joy of the students."
Lasty, from our wonderful Mr. Claxton ... our official OWL day CEO), our students and our parents about our first ever OWL day ...
What is OWL Day and why 26 September?
OWL Day is when we stop and take time to celebrate Our World Languages (OWL) - we have more than 40 languages and cultures here at ISH.
26 September is the European Day of Languages - an initiative of the Council of Europe since 2001.
As an international school - and an IB school - our diverse cultures and languages are really important to us.
In celebrating our huge diversity of languages and cultures we really wanted to do 4 things -
1. start a conversation - between students and students, students and teachers, teachers and parents etc. etc. - about what our languages and cultures mean to us as individual
2. learn first-hand about our languages and cultures
3. give students and parents and teachers (and all our staff members) - an opportunity to 'show off' their own language and culture and share their favourite elements with the wider school community
4. engage the whole school community - and make sure that no student regardless of age was left out
Sounds amazing! Do tell us ... what happened?
Thanks to the amazing efforts and contributions of our students, parents and all the school staff, we were able to enjoy a massive variety of activities based on our languages and cultures. Highlights of the day included -
- classes and activities in PYP led by MYP and DP students - ranging from traditional King's Day games to apple pie baking to learning about the French language
- market place stalls in the aula led by MYP and DP students showcasing their languages and cultures - and food - from Indian treats to Tunnocks teacakes (Mr Claxton's favourite treat from Scotland!)
- classes and activities in MYP led by parents - ranging from rangoli making (still making our main staircase more beautiful) to Italian lessons on how to talk with your hands
- market place stalls in the aula led by parents - and by students - including our very own languages of the month, Arabic and Farsi. The market place was so big it even spilled over into the playground to include even more fun activities and food - there was even an authentic braai (thanks to Ms Neethling and our SA DP students!)
- mother tongue presentations in the library - thanks to students and staff members who presented to a packed audience (who knew that the Lion King characters' names came from Swahili - we do now!)
- languages disco in the PYP - with a playlist especially chosen by our parents to represent their languages
"These are just a few of the highlights - and we hope that the conversations will continue."
We will continue to try and stimulate and encourage the conversations - with Language of the Month (Japanese in October) and more initiatives taking place throughout the year to celebrate our languages and cultures.
OWL Day will be back in 2023 - Tuesday 26 September - mark the date in your diaries now - it will be even bigger and better!
