CRANBOURNE is home to the first government school in Australia to introduce Hindi into their curriculum for Preps to Grade 6 students.
Rangebank Primary School included the compulsory language in 2012 and principal Colin Avery said the program has taken off.
“It’s given our students a better understanding of multiculturalism, India and their customs as the Indian population grows in Australia,” Mr Avery said.
Hindi was chosen to replace the Auslan (Australian Sign Language) program after the teacher left the school. Mr Avery said the entire school community had a choice in the decision.
“We chose Hindi regardless of the small Indian community at the school and took on board the Asian languages push from the State and Federal governments.
“We took some parent groups through general discussion – there were quite a few schools teaching Japanese, Indonesian and Mandarin. By doing something a bit different we were hoping it would put Rangebank on the map. When I first arrived, there were people living in Cranbourne that didn’t even know where Rangebank was,” Mr Avery said.
Rangebank Primary School has incorporated the new class into the school wholeheartedly and now celebrates the Holi and Diwali festivals.
“We have a Hindi dance group at the school, and we have Bollywood dancers coming to teach the students. It’s certainly very much a part of our school and the students are gaining an awful lot and there’s no doubt learning a foreign language is extremely good for brain development,” he said.
To further support the Hindi program, Rangebank Primary School has established a relationship with a sister school in India. The school is called The Bluebells School International and is located in Delhi.
“We conduct Skype sessions with their students once every week. We are excited to announce, that in October 2016 we are having our first student exchange programme with our sister school,” Mr Avery said.
“This year we will be hosting eight students and two teachers from Blue Bells and next year some of our students and staff will visit India. This provides a great opportunity to students from both schools to understand each other’s culture and lifestyle.”
