Celebrating Lunar New Year at Oakham School

Oakham School has been celebrating Lunar New Year, honouring the cultural richness that our Asiatic students bring to our community of pupils from 38 nationalities.

Community Connections: Our Voluntary Action students celebrated Lunar New Year with members of the local community. Jason, Alessio and David delivered a basic Mandarin workshop to pupils at English Martyrs Primary School, playing games and teaching numbers to the pupils. They were supported by Mrs Kaur who helped them with their preparations. Meanwhile at VA’s weekly “Cuppa and a Chat” dementia group, Rena and Natalie demonstrated how to make paper crafts to decorate the 1584 cafe. One of our visitors, Peter, really enjoyed chatting to the students and watching how they folded and cut the intricate pieces of red paper. Peter also improvised a challenge to make red aeroplanes and race to see who could fly theirs the furthest.

House and School Festivities: Pupils in Oakham’s Houses learned about the story behind the Year of the Snake in House time and discussed their favourite celebrations and festivals. Lower School pupils put up decorations and enjoyed reading some fortune cookies.

The Smallbone Library has been decked out in Chinese New Year decorations, including a display of recommended books. At lunchtime, the Catering team put on a special Lunar New Year menu in the Barraclough Dining Hall with an array of delicious CNY-themed dishes, including Szechuan Chicken Supreme, Marinated Tofu with Pak Choi, and Stir Fried Oyster Beef.

Form 7 Latin IB students translated a passage from Seneca the Elder which spoke about lunar eclipses and looked at a coin of the emperor Augustus with the comet which confirmed for the Romans Julius Caesar’s deification. Dr Leveritt also spoke briefly about ancient Egyptian dating being tied to the rising of the star Sopdet.