Daylesford Dharma School

The L21CSV project extends the achievements of the highly successful national program conducted by the Asia Education Foundation in supporting principals to develop Asia inclusive curriculum across the learning areas and years. This work is guided by:

• The National Statement for Engaging Young Australians with Asia in Australian Schools
• The draft Australian Curriculum
• The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians
• Education for Global and Multicultural Citizenship strategy.

This project aims to support principals to develop an Asia inclusive curriculum. The goal is to equip students with knowledge about the people and countries of the Asian region and the intercultural skills that will assist them to fully participate in the ‘Asian century’. The focus is to include studies of Asia in all learning areas, particularly in the Humanities, English and The Arts with an emphasis on China, Indonesia, Korea and Japan. It is not an additional subject. Flexibility allows principals the opportunity to determine the approach that best suits their particular context.

The Dharma School joined this project in 2010 and has so far undertaken an internal audit of its curriculum and audited the township of Daylesford and Hepburn Springs to investigate what visible and unseen links support its students to connect with Asian culture. This information will form the context for our teachers during Term 3 of this year to coincide with the Inquiry focus of Cultural Diversity where they will spend planning time making formal curriculum links. A Chinese language and cultural studies area will be set up in the new Environmental Learning building.

Our School is well placed to support our students with this project. As a Buddhist philosophical school, there are natural opportunities to make  links to ancient Indian culture and the various Asian countries that Buddhism spread to. The study of Chinese language at the Dharma School through our LOTE programme is lead by Liena Li, a native speaker who brings her passion for Chinese food, music and painting into the classroom as an authentic and engaging link.