Pretoria - With the rich diverse cultures South Africa has, Lycée Jules Verne French International welcomed even more nationalities to celebrate heritage day on Monday in Arcadia.
The school which hosts nationalities such as Togo, Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Russia and many more caters for students from the nursery year through to Grade 5.
School Principal Ban Gratien said he thought it was important for the children to know where their classmates are from and for them to embrace their roots no matter where they are.
“It is special to the parents because they get to dress in their traditional clothes ass well and come inside the school and share with other parents about their cultures.”
“It helps the children as well when they explain where they are from and share, they get to understand each other better,” he said.
One parent, Ophelia Onibom said she was from Ghana and loved how the school gave them the platform to celebrate their cultures and teach the children about it as well.
“A lot of the parents here are diplomats and are not from South Africa, so having all these kind of events is fun for the kids and educative for the parents. When our children go to other countries it will become easier for them to know different languages and be exposed to the world outside of them,” she said.
Onibom has both of her little boys, Laolu and Tomi, enrolled at the school and said that she was very pleased with the school.
The children began with singing French and English songs performing for their parents and beamed with pride when parents applauded for them.
Klitsgras Drumming Circle were invited where drum instructors facilitated a lesson and parents also got to join in and dance along.
Each child had their own djembe drum and listened carefully to what the instructors told them to do.
Gratien said the school predominantly spoke French 70 percent of the time and said that it was very easy for the children to communicate in both English and French.
He also said with school projects they had for the children, they include all nationalities to include each learner and made them feel comfortable.
“When you see excited the get, it warms my heart and I am very happy about that,” he said.