Culture Connects Us All

Cultural Diversity Week is a special time to celebrate Victoria’s rich multicultural identity. This year’s theme, “Culture connects us all”, highlights how sharing intercultural stories and experiences fosters understanding, belonging, and connection within our community.

Important Cultural Events

During this week, we also recognise several significant occasions:

Ramadan (18th February – 20th March) A sacred month of fasting, prayer, and reflection observed by Muslims around the world.
Lent (18th February – 2nd April) A 40-day period of preparation leading up to Easter. It is a time of fasting, prayer, and reflection observed by many Christians.
Holi (4th March) A vibrant Hindu festival celebrating the arrival of spring, love, and new beginnings.
Harmony Day (21st March) An Australian celebration promoting respect, cultural diversity, and a sense of belonging for everyone.

Cultural Diversity Week at ENPS

Throughout Week Eight, students will explore different cultures through engaging classroom activities and shared experiences. Our Lunch Club will also be running special activities each day, and all students are welcome to join in the fun with our Education Support staff and student leaders in the undercover area (near the Year Three classrooms).

Family Task – ENPS Connection Mural

As an inclusive school community, and in recognition of Cultural Diversity Week, we are excited to create an ENPS Connection Mural.

To recognise and include our families as we celebrate this year's theme (Culture connects us all), we have designed a small family task for you to complete together. This task will be returned to school and combined to create a whole-school display that represents what connection and belonging at ENPS means to our community.

This collaborative family project will be showcased as a celebration of the strength found in the diversity of our ENPS community.

Attached below is a body template for families to decorate. Body templates will be cut out and laminated at school. Your design is completely up to your family.

We encourage you to complete this task together as a family (siblings may create one per family or one each).

Please:

Use only the body template provided (on one side only).
Include your family name.
Stay within the template outline.
Draw or design something that represents your family, your culture, or a tradition that is important to you.
Your design may be in colour or black and white.

Completed bodies need to be returned to your child’s class teacher by Monday 16th March.

Thank you for your ongoing support and cooperation. For further information, please contact your child’s home group teacher or the school office.

Friday 20th March – Countries of ENPS and Harmony Day Celebration

Students are encouraged to wear traditional cultural clothing or add a touch of orange to their outfit for our Harmony Day celebration. The colour orange is worn on the day to represent social communication, meaningful conversations, and mutual respect.

Students will also participate in Countries of ENPS on Friday 20th March between 8:45am - 10:45am, where parent volunteers will support classroom teachers in leading cultural activities and sharing their heritage with students.

Each classroom will be transformed into a country where students will 'fly' to and learn about the culture, traditional values and celebrations these countries hold. Students will visit two countries, they will be given a passport where they can record some of their learning and bring it home to share with their families.

This is such a wonderful event at our school and we are excited to provide students with an opportunity to experience it this year, thanks to our fabulous volunteers, as we bring our community together.

Intercultural Celebration Assembly

We will conclude our celebrations with a special Intercultural Celebration Assembly on Friday 20th March at 2:20pm in the school gym.

Students, staff, and families are warmly invited to showcase their cultural talents.

We welcome:

🎶 Traditional dances and music

📖 Storytelling and poetry

🎨 Art and craft demonstrations

🎤 Instrumental or vocal performances

Get Involved!

If you would like to perform or share personal narratives and stories at the assembly, please email Mrs Mac at sharon.mcwhinney@education.vic.gov.au by Monday 16th March 2026.

Let’s come together to celebrate the amazing cultures that make up our ENPS community!

ENPS Cultural Inclusion Calendar

As we approach Cultural Diversity Week celebrations, we also take this opportunity to share our school's Cultural Inclusion Calendar. Providing opportunities for connection, belonging and inclusion are incredibly important to us at ENPS, for all members of our community. Our Cultural Inclusion Calendar has been developed with our rich community diversity in mind and is a way for us to acknowledge, learn about and respect our diversity, along with celebrations, traditions and customs.

Acknowledging these dates can look like many different things across our school. For many, recognising, asking questions and sharing an appreciation of an event is what is important. Some we will acknowledge in class, across the whole school, in our assemblies, through specific learning experiences, commercial exposure and/or sharing through our newsletters.

As a school with over forty-two different languages spoken in our homes our diversity is a strength. By learning about each other’s cultural backgrounds, we are actively promoting our school values of safe, kind and respectful.

Please let us know if we have missed a special date/event for your family so we can include as well.

Date

Event

17th February - 3rd March

Lunar New Year

17th February - 3rd March

Chinese Lunar New Year

Year of the Horse

17th February - 3rd March

Tet (Vietnamese) Lunar New Year

Year of the Horse

17th February - 3rd March

Seollal( Korean) Lunar New Year

Year of the Horse

17th February - 3rd March

Tibetan (Losar) New Year

Year of the Horse

18th February - March 30th

First Day of Ramadan

1st March

Clean Up Australia Day

3rd March

Lantern Festival

4th March

Holi (Festival of Colours)

17th March

Saint Patrick's Day

16th March - 22nd March

Harmony Week

19th March

National Close the Gap Day

20th March

Eid al-Fitr

21st March

Persian New Year

21st March

Harmony Day

21st March

World Down Syndrome Day

2nd April

Autism Awareness Day

3rd April

Good Friday

5th April

Easter Sunday

12th April

Orthodox Easter

25th April

ANZAC Day

10th May

Mother's Day

15th May

International Day of Families

17th May

IDAHOBIT

18th - 22nd May

Education Week

26th May

National Sorry Day

27th May

National Simultaneous Story Time

19th June

Dragon Boat Festival

27th May - June 3rd

National Reconciliation Week

3rd June

Mabo Day

5th June

World Environment Day

8th June

King's Birthday

20th June

World Refugee Day

21st June

Father’s Day

5th July - 12th July

NAIDOC Week

4th August

National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day

9th August

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

15th - 23rd August

Science Week

22nd - 28th August

Book Week

10th September

R U OK? Day

26th September

AFL Grand Final

5th October

World Teachers' Day

25th October

Grandparents' Day in Australia

31st

Halloween

31st October

Deepavali

2nd November

Day of the Dead

3rd November

Melbourne Cup Day

8th November

Diwali

11th November

Remembrance Day

13th November

World Kindness Day

20th November

Universal Children's Day

25th December

Christmas Day

Warm regards,

The ENPS Community Engagement and Cultural Inclusion Team

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