How the Wellington College Community celebrated Chinese New Year

It is the Lantern Festival today, which marks the final celebration of Chinese New Year.

Every year, all Wellington College schools host a series of events to celebrate Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival. We hope that these celebrations can expand our pupils' horizons by immersing them in China's rich customs and traditions.

With this in mind, here is recap of the celebration events that took place throughout the Wellington Community!

Tianjin

Wellington College International Tianjin

Wellington College Bilingual Tianjin A Level Centre

Wellington College Bilingual Tianjin Nursery

Highlights of CNY celebration activities 

at Wellington College Tianjin

Every year, Wellington College Tianjin (Wellington College International Tianjin, Wellington College Bilingual Tianjin A Level Centre and Wellington College Bilingual Tianjin Nursery) organises a Chinese New Year Culture Week. The campus is full of festive tidings this time of the year with colourful decorations and pupils dressed in traditional outfits like qipaos and tangzhuangs.

The door decoration competition

The College kicked off festivities with a Chinese New Year door decoration competition. Pupils and teachers decorated their classroom doors with couplets, red envelopes and symbols of fortune, abundance and longevity made from coloured paper.

The Chinese culture quiz

Our Junior School and Senior School pupils demonstrated a keen interest in this competition between the school's five houses. Two houses tied three times before one of them finally won. The activity presented exciting opportunities to reflect on Chinese culture while fostering house spirit.

The Spring Festival Overture

The Spring Festival Overture presented by Wellington College Tianijn's Senior School pupils took us on a journey through ancient and modern times, from China to the world. The folk music of "Spring Festival Overture" immediately drew us into the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year, and the performance of the traditional Chinese performing art, "Wu Song Da Hu", was inspiring. The pupils enjoyed a stimulating and educational experience immersing themselves in Chinese New Year festivities.

Shanghai

Wellington College International Shanghai

Huili School Shanghai

Huili Nursery Shanghai

Chinese New Year charity art auction

Wellington College International Shanghai pupils ushered in the Year of the Ox with a variety of events and activities ranging from art auctions to stage performances.

The College's annual charity art auction presented original works by our pupils in Early Years through year 5. This year, it raised over 30,000 RMB, a wonderful result for a great cause!

Winter Celebration Showcase

This year, our Huili School Shanghai pupils, guided by our music and performing arts team delivered a series of wonderful performances in line with safety guidelines.

Pupils put on a rich repertoire of performances. Classic orchestral ensembles, dynamic rock music, dance, traditional Chinese opera, choral works and folk music performances all made for a stunning show that celebrated the diversity of talent at Huili School Shanghai. 

Spring Festival performance

Teachers at Huili Nursery Shanghai selected a range of titles for the children's performance. This provided our pupils with an excellent opportunity to learn about the rich and fascinating traditions surrounding this special holiday.

Signing songs such as "The Zodiac Song", "Lucky Doll" and "Idioms for Chinese New Year" were fun and engaging activities for the children.

Highlights of CNY celebration activities 

at Huili Nursery Shanghai

Hangzhou

Wellington College International Hangzhou

Huili School Hangzhou

Huili Nursery Hangzhou

The house singing competition

Highlights of CNY celebration activities 

at Wellington College International Hangzhou

Pupils and teachers from Wellington College International Hangzhou presented a spectacular fashion show followed by five exciting house activities. The houses also showcased their singing talents in a competition held in the Grand Theatre.

Chinese culture appreciation events

A series of celebration activities was held at Huili School Hangzhou as well. These activities were an opportunity for our pupils to get in touch with and gain a deeper appreciation of traditional culture in China.  

Using coloured clay, pupils created pictures of Chinese oracle elements. In so doing, they developed greater literacy while learning about China's long, fascinating history. 

Pupils also got to learn about classics of Chinese literature as they visualised what was written in the Book of Poetry and turned its profound verses into beautiful ink paintings.

Building a dragon

Huili Nursery Hangzhou pupils read Chinese New Year picture books. This activity taught them about the holiday and inspired each class to build dragons with recyclable materials.  

In fact, the Spring Festival is not celebrated in our Wellington and Huili schools in China only, but in our sister school in Bangkok as well. This February, fun celebration activities were held at Wellington College International Bangkok for every pupil and teacher to enjoy and embrace this festivity.

As festivities come to an end, we would like to send our wishes to everybody in the Wellington College Community. We wish you a fruitful year full of amazing achievements. Good luck!  

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