Today marks Lunar New Year and Royal High School Bath's first cultural event of 2022. Firstly happy New Year to all students, parents, guardians and staff for whom this is a special date. We are honoured to have the opportunity to mark Lunar New year with you in our own way, led by Natalie Cheers our Head of International Students.

During Period 2 there was a lion themed dance choreographed by two year 7 tutees, Pepper Woods and Milly Scott, and performed by the whole of year 7, with the Music department supplying the drum accompaniment. There is a house competition element as each tutor group has prepared an individual solo section of the dance.

In January, boarders started the creation of dragon heads, with students from different houses taking up the reins to help decorate them ready for the dragon parade which followed the dance in the latter half of Period 2.

Our catering team also put on a fantastic lunch for the occasion at the Prep and Senior schools, which the girls thoroughly enjoyed!

We cannot pretend that our dragons are traditional Lunar New Year dragons but Miss Cheers notes that this makes the sentiment even greater. She adds, "Indeed, these aren’t traditional - the process of creating the dragons had both staff and students researching traditions and sharing stories of past New Year celebrations and experiences. I’ve worked in several schools where Chinese New Year celebrations were limited to solely Chinese students, denying everyone the opportunity to share cultures and important times together and for others to learn. So I’m glad these Royal High dragons are created by students from a range of nationalities and cultures - a school twist on traditions that celebrates the diversity and unity of our school community. Intercultural dragons, if you will."

The International student association look forward to all students informing future events. There are many forms of identifying as ‘international’, in some sense we are all international.

As a school community we recognise all there is to be gained on so many level from the richness of our staff and student body. Our students are truly fortunate to be studying in such a diverse community. They are able to gain new perspectives on the lives of others around them as well as around the world and become empathetic and educated global citizens.

Arguably more importantly, cultural events help us all spend some time together which means we understand and appreciate each other's cultures so much more.

As an awareness of intercultural communication becomes increasingly important in the modern world, we aim to equip our students with an increasing ability to look at a situation through the cultural eye of others. We develop an intercultural mind by gaining an awareness of our own cognitive processes and cultural configuration as well as interacting with others whose configurations are different from our own, thus developing new cultural intuitions.

In the Lunar calendar, the year of the tiger represents a year of significant changes, a chance to overcome difficulties and renew your strength - so with this in mind, we wish you all a Happy New Year.