Singok Festival Day

Last week was my school's (Singok Elementary) Festival Day. Festival Day is a huge event that the whole school, students and teachers, spend weeks preparing for. From what I can gather, each school has a this kind of event once every two years so it was my first experience of Festival Day and what a great day it was too!

It was the first time in just over a year that I have seen the whole school, everyone one of the one thousand (PLUS) children, grades one to six,  together in one place because for obvious reasons, getting that amount of children together regularly would be difficult never mind the lack of space. The students here don't have morning assemblies like they do in England. Instead they have a morning broadcast in which the principle (and sometimes other staff and even chosen students) address the school but with each class watching from  the comfort of their own classroom. The school anthem is always played as is the National Anthem which the children sing along to. Assembly time at my old school, as boring as they sometimes were, were always a happy time. A feeling of warmth and togetherness and belonging. And it's a shame that Korean students don't get to share that special time together.

That was the main reason Festival Day was so nice for me. Everybody together for the first time. It felt really special and I couldn't help but smile all day. It was actually a little overwhelming at first seeing the school for the first time on this scale and realising for the first time, 'Wow. This school really is seven times the size of the tiny little one-form entry school that I used to work at!' It really was a special event and I really felt part of it and like I belonged there.

There were sports (many running races) and dance events for each grade throughout the day and even the parents and grandparents were involved in some of the activities too which was nice to see. The whole day was very well organised and managed which was impressive because I know how difficult it is to organise 'big' events in a school one seventh of the size. So I can't even begin to imagine how difficult this must have been!

The whole grade dances were my favourite. They were so impressive simply because there were so many students (approximately two hundred per dance) dancing together in time to the music. Each dance was very well done and I was so proud of all my students.

To end the day off nicely we finished early and all the teachers went for a big dinner together. Lovely.