Chinese dragon dancing comes to Brookfield Primary

17 January 2019

Pupils discover Chinese culture thanks to UCLan Confucius Institute

Pupils from Brookfield Community Primary School have been learning about Chinese traditions with help from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan).

Staff from UCLan’s Confucius Institute, which aims to bring Chinese language and culture to the community, spent the day with Year Five pupils to show them Chinese brush painting, calligraphy and dragon dancing. The pupils also learned about Chinese characters inscribed on Oracle Bones some 3,500 years ago in ancient China.

The visit was part of the school’s China Day, which launched Year Five’s spring term topic looking at the Shang Dynasty and Chinese New Year.

Year Five teacher Leonie McNee said: “Wow, what an amazing day. The students thoroughly enjoyed it and the teachers have left me with lots of things I can build on in my lessons this half term - exactly what I asked for.

“The children particularly enjoyed the painting session - I am going to continue working on this in the next few weeks and hopefully create some traditional water colours in the style of Chinese.”

The Director of the UCLan Confucius Institute, Feixia Yu, said: “It’s always rewarding to see young people inspired by the sessions we run. To be able to show them first-hand how to write Chinese calligraphy or take part in a dragon dance really enhances the children’s learning experiences and hopefully broadens their horizons, which is essentially what the Institute is about.”

Visit the Confucius Institute for more information.