Over the course of six school weeks, the boys in Years 1 and 2 explored and unpacked their second unit of inquiry’s central idea, ‘People share their feelings, beliefs and values through cultural traditions.’

The unit of inquiry was a wonderful way of getting the boys to explore their own cultural backgrounds, as well as those of their friends, their family and even some of the staff.

Terms like ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ are fairly big ideas to comprehend for younger students, but the boys did a fantastic job of making the terms more concrete and less abstract. To help them understand further, the boys were invited to bring in artefacts to discuss, had talks from parent guest speakers on certain cultural traditions, and took part in various Australian traditions, such as the Easter Hat Parade and the school’s ANZAC Service. They sampled foods from different cultures and Year 1 also presented at assembly on their interpretation of culture.

As well as investigating the various differences between cultures, the boys celebrated the similarities, which is in line with the IB’s ethos of encouraging the development of ‘internationally minded, global citizens.’ This was particularly relevant in Stage 1 where there are many cultural backgrounds within the classes including Australian, Chinese, British, Belgian, Irish, Indian, Singaporean, Taiwanese and Greek to name but a few. The boys learnt about each other’s cultures and beliefs, which I think broadened the minds of many of the boys.

The boys also looked at what it actually meant to be Australian through the concept of perspective, which was open to various interpretations. Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable but also deeply meaningful unit, that I think the boys took a lot from.

Sam Watson – Year 1 Teacher