Korean culture comes to Sarah Redfern Public School

The school welcomed the Korean Cultural Association for an incursion on Tuesday as part of Education Week, with students taking part in their Ride the Korean Wave activities.

Assistant principal Fiona Pereira organised the visit and said it was great to open the kids up to different cultural experiences.

"It was a great day, really engaging, and it's so nice to have people back in schools after so long because of COVID," she said.

"It's a wonderful opportunity. We have a very diverse student population, and learning another language helps to understand how languages work, and that enhances skills in English."

Ms Pereira, as a LOTE-certified (Languages Other Than English) teacher, teaches the students Korean. As just one of the school population has a Korean background, the rest of the students have embraced the language as non-native speakers.

Ms Pereira said the incursion and Korea lessons tied in with NSW Education Standards' Cross Curriculum Priorities, specifically Asia and Australia's Engagement with Asia.

"I'm a stage one supervisor, so I go into the classrooms in year one and two, and do some lessons in Korean," she said.

"We introduce Korean language and culture and we often do it as an integrated approach, so some of the classroom instructions are given in Korean.

"There's also programs like with fitness, where counting in Korean is done while doing fitness activities."

The visit from the Korea Cultural Centre saw a whole school performance demonstration of K-Pop dancers, tae kwon do instructors and official ceremony.

Then several classes took part in rotational activities which included cooking traditional Korean meals bulgogi and salad bibimbap with chef Heather Jung, practising K-Pop dance moves with Geneva from 9Bit Dance Crew, learning traditional Korean patchwork sewing techniques in a Jogakbo lesson with Claire Taerim Jeon, and trying out tae kwon do with the Taekwondo Demonstration Team.

"The students were really, really engaged with the performances," Ms Pereira said.

"All of the rotational activities were very interesting, and the cooking was certainly a highlight for many of our students."

Ms Pereira said the school would continue to upskill staff in LOTE and develop activities in Korean language and culture.