The Primary year students of The Overseas School of Colombo (OSC) celebrated the Sinhala/Tamil New Year at a special assembly on April 8 at the school's basketball court prior to closing for their mid-term vacation. All students were encouraged to wear Sri Lankan attire for the assembly.
New Year customs are part of the 'Host Nation Studies' lessons in Grade Two. "At OSC, we firmly believe in our students having a sense of their own identity and in particular their own culture. As an International School this manifests itself not only in students from a variety of countries around the world, but also an appreciation of our host country's culture," said Primary Principal, Adam Campbell.
Campbell goes onto explain that by giving OSC's Sri Lankan students a sense of their own cultural identity and conversely giving their international students a sense of what it means to be living in Sri Lanka, they are empowering students to have a sense of empathy and perspective for others, no matter what race, colour or creed.
Founded in 1957, The Overseas School of Colombo is Sri Lanka's oldest internationally accredited educational institution. It is the only school in Sri Lanka to offer the International Baccalaureate Programme from Pre-school to Grade 12.
The most significant distinctive feature of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) is the six trans-disciplinary themes. The programme offers a balance between learning about or through the subject areas, and learning beyond them. The six themes of global significance create a trans-disciplinary framework that allows students to step up beyond the confines of learning within subject areas. The six themes are Who we are, Where we are in place and time, How we express ourselves, How the world works, How we organize ourselves, and Sharing the planet.
The themes provide the opportunity to incorporate local and global issues into the curriculum. The traditional disciplines retain a role in the IB Primary Years Programme. The six specified subjects are language, mathematics, science, social studies, arts and personal, social and physical education. In addition to the specified subjects all students have classes in Information Technology, Library Studies, and Host Nation Studies.
Campbell says, "Our mission includes reference to our cultural diversity and linked to this mission is a clear vision of what our community of learners should all strive to be - including the disposition of 'open-mindedness'." |
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