An avowedly Christian bilingual school has opened in the grounds of St Paul’s, Chatswood.
The International Chinese School has been constructed next to the church, remodelling the old hall and surrounds to accommodate students as well as church events.
Classes began with 10 kindergarten students in January but the school – which has “Christ is my Light” as its motto – was officially opened late in the term by Bishop Chris Edwards as part of a service that included songs from the children and a lot of celebration that long-held plans had finally come to fruition.
“The church already has a Cantonese, a Mandarin and an English-speaking congregation, so how do you keep reaching out to these new families – one way is through a school,” Bishop Edwards says. “You establish a community, that community builds links with the church and I think you can do great things evangelistically, really helping people who are in your country and loving your neighbour as yourself.”
The primary co-ordinator for the school, Mrs Wendy Yu, says at this stage the school has a specialist Mandarin teacher and a class teacher, with specialist teachers also brought in for music, PE, chapel and Scripture classes.
“Parents think the idea of a bilingual school is really new, but language is just an extra component to a normal school,” she says. “As much as possible we try to integrate the two because we’re very aware of not wanting to have language as just a stand-alone topic. So at school assemblies the children sing songs in Mandarin as well as English, and when they do ‘Show and Tell’ or news, they can perform their news in both Mandarin and English.
“It’s all about developing the whole child and being able to give them a really global education that’s rooted in Christian faith.”
Bishop Edwards is enthusiastic about the Anglican Church providing clear opportunities for people from a range of backgrounds.
“We’re the ‘Anglican’ Church and that’s not necessarily a welcoming title for people who are not Anglo,” he says. “In Australia now you don’t call people ‘white’, you call them ‘Anglo’. So then we’re the white church, but at the same time we’ve got a message for everyone. It’s international. We want to tell them about Jesus.
“We can’t expect everybody to turn up to our place and fit in. We need to be the ones to make the change. There’s a pretty good model for that – that’s what Jesus did. He became one of us... so we could understand. To step into other people’s language, world and community is an exciting adventure for us as a church.”
Mrs Yu agrees. “It really is very exciting. And the kids, their minds are like sponges. Research tells us that the best time to start learning a language is before children are nine years old. Here, we see our students moving from one language to another without any problems at all, and how much they’ve been able to absorb even in the first term has been incredible!”
Pictured: Big day out: students from the International Chinese School at the opening with local Federal MP Paul Fletcher and State MP Gladys Berejiklian. photo: Chris Jones
