INTERNATIONAL MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY

Tuesday 21 February was International Mother Language Day. The College acknowledged this significant day with conversations, discussions and investigations throughout many learning environments in the Junior, Middle and Senior Schools. Scotch Oakburn College’s student body currently has over 180 students who were either born overseas, or primarily speak a Language other than English at home. This is a substantial increase from around 100 in 2019! These students are nearly evenly split between Elphin and Penquite campuses.

There were wonderful examples of Internationalism at Scotch Oakburn College this week which is one of the Round Square IDEALS. During this week’s fortnightly Round Square session, the Round Square Committee arranged a celebration of the diversity of International Mother Language by having a conversation panel with students in Year 10 and TCE from the College’s EAL/D class. Thank you to the College’s International Student Coordinator, Hayley McLeod, for her support with preparing the five students who showed Courage and stepped outside their comfort zone to share about their culture, and their many languages!

The second part of the Round Square session was the College’s first Year 10 Round Square exchange student since 2019, Jakob Withöft, from Schule Schloss Salem (schule-schloss-salem.de) in Germany, who shared about his journey. Jakob’s first impression of Scotch Oakburn College has been “the first three weeks were great, I got a great idea of Australia and especially Tasmania. Everything at Scotch Oakburn is relaxed and everyone is nice”. Welcome to Tasmania, Australia and Scotch Oakburn College, Jakob!

Leigh Cordell
Director of Round Square