In Language, the past couple of weeks have involved students being studious all round as they try their best during assessment time – yoku dekimashita!

Year 9 are writing letters to friends in Japan while practising their three scripts of kanji, katakana and hiragana on traditional Japanese writing paper, genkoyoshi, which requires writing from the right side of the page to the left while writing vertically.

Year 8 have completed their exams for discussing events at school in calendars. They are excited to be able to soon attend the Consulate of Japan as well as eat teppanyaki early in Term 3.

The Japanese students in Year 7 are grateful to Alison Collins for visiting our class and sharing her knowledge about symbols that represent water and landforms in her Indigenous craft. Prior to her visit, the class learnt about the value of water in their Geography unit, hieroglyphs in Ancient Egypt and they know the Japanese kanji for water 川. The students were actively mesmerised and they respectfully asked Ms Collins questions.

Recent Kahoot lessons to our sister school in Japan have involved our students learning about culture and geography in Japan. We think the students in Japan are so kind that they let us win! In return, Year 7's are now creating their own Kahoot about Australian sports, hobbies and tourism to share with Mr Kawana’s students in Japan.

We are currently looking at options for students in Year 9 to Year 12 at Ripley to visit Japan during the Easter holidays of 2025, and more information will be available soon.