A group of 10 students visited Takayama-mura Junior High School in Gunma Prefecture. Gunma is about an hour and a half north-west of Tokyo. The students travelled from Kyoto, catching two bullet trains or shinkansen and then a private coach to the school. Takayama-mura is a very small, rural village with a population of about 3,000 people. The Junior High School has a population of just over 100 students, but a lot of energy and enthusiasm for learning, particularly English. The local Education department is keen to promote intercultural learning and have set up a program whereby students in 2nd Year (the equivalent of our Year 8) travel to Australia to experience life.
Sienna Pallone is one of our Year 10 Japanese Elective students who participated in the April school holiday Japan Trip. She was asked to reflect on the sister school experience. This is what she said:
"The highlight of my Japan trip was when we went to our sister schools. I went to Takayama Junior High School where my favourite part was going to English class with the 3rd Year students and played fruit salad with them. One of the challenges of being with the students was the language barrier as I know my Japanese isn’t the best but thankfully their English was better than my Japanese. One of the many lessons I learned in Japan was that Japanese students are put under a lot of pressure from a young age when it comes to schooling. They have to work very hard to get into good schools so that they can get a good education and a good job."
Mrs Fiona Byrne
Languages Coordinator