Today is the lunar new year and the Chinese Year of the Horse. Mountain class (Years 3-4) have been celebrating Chinese New Year by making paper dragons and ‘lucky’ red envelopes and learning some simple phrases in Mandarin, including 恭禧發財 (Gong Xi Fa Cai) which is one of the most common Chinese ways of saying Happy New Year.They also paraded a big gold dragon around the school grounds and we all had delicious Chinese vegetable stir fry with noodles for lunch!

Children in Ocean and Lotus classes (Years 3-6) have been discussing kindness and compassion after watching this online video, Kindness Boomerang, which was shared by class teacher Ross Young. They were also inspired to launch an ‘It’s cool to be kind’ poster campaign around the school, to promote ‘interconnectedness’ and random acts of kindness.

Here’s what they had to say:

“The kindness spread from the first person. Maybe the other people wouldn’t have helped if the first act of kindness hadn’t happened.”

“They kindness went round in a small circle.”

“It is like a boomerang because you let it go and it might come back to you.”

“When something nice happens it gives them a warm feeling & they want to spread it.”

“Each person has to contribute for the boomerang to work.”

“Kindness was like a gift that got passed around.”

“Buddha taught us about karma - that we usually get back what we give out. It’s not always guaranteed, but being kind can lessen suffering in the world.”

“It’s enough to do something nice because it makes us feel good even if we get no act of kindness back.”

The Year 6 pupils at nearby Patcham Junior School have been studying comparative religion and one of the Year 6 classes has been named ‘The Dalai Lama class’ for the duration of the school year. The Dharma Primary School’s Head Teacher, Mark Lambert, and Bea, our Deputy Head of Administration, visited the school to answer questions from the class about His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Buddhism. They also talked about the practice of mindfulness and shared a mindfulness exercise with the children, and took them a paper Lotus flower as a token of their visit:

“The Lotus symbolises each person’s buddha nature (innate goodness). The Lotus grows in water, its roots buried in the mud, no matter how deep the water, the flower will always reach the surface. Buddha likened our struggle to enlightenment with the struggle of the Lotus flower and noted that it was often the flowers that had overcome the greatest struggle which were both the strongest and the most beautiful.”

We hope to develop our relationship with Patcham Junior School and other local schools and community organisations over the coming year.

Today the ‘Oscar’ nominations will be announced for this year’s Academy Awards in Hollywood and here at The Dharma Primary School Lotus class (Years 5 & 6) will be hosting a very special ‘Film Night’ of their own, to showcase their class topic ‘The History of Motion Pictures’.

WELCOME TO LOTUS FILM NIGHT

“On Thursdays we’ve been doing ‘The History of Motion Pictures’ as our topic. For our first lesson we did one of the very first steps in motion pictures - shadow puppets.We all went off in groups and made up imaginative scenes and animal stories and all we used was a torch and our hands to make wonderful and hilarious things.

Next we looked at the history of ‘Magic Lantern Shows’. These are made by moving glass slides in different ways and then projecting them against a screen, which gives the effect of moving pictures. We really enjoyed this. The Victorians could not believe their eyes when they came to watch these shows, they truly thought it was magic. We didn’t have a real magic lantern so we used Google Drive on our laptops and to be honest we thought they were a real success.

We then practised making a GIF file. It basically works by creating lots of little pictures that, when played chronologically and quickly, gives the illusion of moving pictures. We also went to Hove Museum which was very fun and discovered that Brighton and Hove played a big part in early cinema in the UK.

This has all led to our big project: creating our own motion pictures! We split into groups and then planned out plots on a storyboard; we also thought about the camera angles and type of shots we would use for different scenes and why. We used ipads to edit our films with special FX, film music and sound FX. For ‘Film Night’ we will show our three titles ‘The Thing’, ‘The Suffragettes - Let Us Vote’ and ‘Murder in the Attic’, as well as our GIFs, Shadow Puppets, Silent Films and Magic Lantern Shows.

Although one of our films is called ‘Murder in the Attic’ the theme is more about creating mystery and suspense. Making our films gave us an opportunity to talk about different themes and topics and we talked about film ratings and how to be responsible in film making in what you show to an audience.

We’ve made posters and decked out our classroom to get our audience excited!”

- Lotus class

Yesterday we welcomed Tenzin Kunzang Jigme Rinpoche, the seventh Taklung Matrul Rinpoche, to our school. Rinpoche is one of the main teachers of the Taklung Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and head lama of the Taklung Yarthang monastery. He spoke with staff and parents and visited each class.

“We asked Rinpoche some questions about his life as a monk and he told us he was 10 years old when he joined the monastery and he chose to join because he felt inspired to live a spiritual life.He lives in Nepal in a valley near a forest.”

“Rinpoche told us about his meditation practice and spiritual life. He said it was important for him to also be part of the world and when we asked him about things he likes eating and doing in his free time he said that he sometimes eats pizza and watches movies. This was useful because it showed us that you can be ordinary, and like things like that, and still have a meditation practice.”

- Lotus Class pupils, Years 5 & 6