Japanese Sister School

Japanese Exchange Program 

On Friday the 4th August, five Japanese students along with their teacher Ms Takeda arrived at Melton Secondary College from Showa Junior High School and Ishin Primary School from the Okayama Prefecture in Japan. After their long journey from Tokyo students arrived feeling very excited but somewhat nervous about their Australian school experience. Noah Collins, Shenali Rajendran, Flynn and Dakota Chapman, Chloe Rees and Elijah Cashen were student buddies and represented our College with great pride and enthusiasm. Most of these students took their Japanese students to live with their family creating some wonderful memories and sharing exciting adventures and stories.

The Japanese visitors were given a terrific week of fun with a host of local and regional activities. The Japanese students participated in a range of incursion activities at Melton Secondary College learning about the Gold Rush with Mr Muller, attending a Year 12 and 8H’s Japanese classes and also a very delicious technology class cooking sausage rolls with Ms Cook.  One of the highlights of their experience here was being able to participate in local indigenous events including indigenous history, boomerang throwing and indigenous cultural understanding.

The Japanese visitors went to an excursion to Sovereign Hill with their buddies with Mr. Muller, Hiroka and Ms. Mori. All students enjoyed gold pounding and were excited to find some gold. They also visited Arnolds Creek Primary School  and they enjoyed making frogs in Origami.

All host families were invited to the dinner at Witchmount Restaurant.  Japanese student Yuya demonstrated his calligraphy skills, Mako and Kota played Kendama, Mika made a rose using origami paper and Takumi was very skilful in showing us his soccer ball balancing tricks. It was a bittersweet occasion with families saying their goodbyes to the Japanese students but it has been a really terrific experience for all involved.

Sister School Dinner

On Thursday 10 August hosting families, students and sister-school students attended a wonderful evening at Witchmount Restaurant to celebrate our visitors from Japan. The exchange students performed an entertaining concert and in particular a beautiful traditional dance about fishing wearing their bright costumes. Many life-long memories were made and friendships and cultural understanding were formed. Many thanks to those families, many for the second time kindly hosted students. Again, Ms Mori has led a wonderful program and we encourage all of our students to consider hosting or attending the Japanese Exchange program in future.