The Loreto Language Exchange Program: I
n November 2014, a group of three Loreto teachers and 21 students will set off for France, marking the 10th year of the French Exchange with St Joseph de Tivoli School in Bordeaux. In 2013, we celebrated 10 years of exchanges for the German and Japanese students of Loreto. What began as a dream in the mind of Mrs Eleanor O’Mahony, the then Languages Department Coordinator, became a reality in 2003 when groups from Loreto Coorparoo went to Germany (with Mrs O’Mahony and Mrs Ward) and Japan (with Mrs Hada-Baxter and Miss Tilly) for the first time. The inaugural French exchange (with Mrs O’Mahony and Ms Carty) took place in November/December 2004. The first group of girls was, in fact, called “The Dream Team”. They laid the foundations for the subsequent visits to Australia of students from our sister schools in Germany, Japan and France and our return visits to their families. As Mrs O’Mahony stated recently, “Not often can teachers say an educational dream has been fully realised within their career span, but in the case of the exchange program at Loreto, this was indeed the case. Two teachers dreamed a dream and in 2003, they saw it realised.” Sr Berthilde (later Sr Rita) Schneider, retired principal of the Mary Ward School in Bad Homburg, shared the dream with Mrs O’Mahony, “of linking both schools and further extending the Open Circle of Friends so loved by Mary Ward”. “This deeper learning of languages, not just a superficial smattering, was one of the key points in Mary Ward’s education exhortations to her teachers.” It is this philosophy that is at the heart of our language-based cultural immersion program. The program’s aim is to “open the minds in both schools not only of the students, but of their whole families and the wider Loreto community as well.” The Japanese Exchange Program took place initially between Sacred Heart College in Kagoshima in southern Japan and Loreto Coorparoo. In 2007, our sister school became Kangawa Gakuen in Yokohama. The French Exchange Program has always been with St Joseph de Tivoli School in Bordeaux. We are indebted to Mrs O’Mahony for her pivotal and inspirational role in setting up each of these exchanges. That all three exchanges continue to flourish is testimony to her dedication in preparing and implementing the program’s main features, policies and practices. They have stood the test of time and have developed even further in terms of their success through the use of new technologies such as social media and the continued enthusiasm of the current language teachers at Loreto and our sister schools.
6 – Loreto Chronicle
Celebrating 10 years of friendship and enrichment We take this opportunity to thank the many students, both here and abroad, and their families, who have made the Loreto Exchange Program such a resounding success. We thank also the many teachers who have participated in the program. And of course our gratitude is extended to the principals of the exchange schools and our own Ms Carmel Dunne and Mrs Cheryl Hamilton for allowing the dream to stay alive. We often hear from students who have kept in contact with their host sisters and have visited them after leaving Loreto. We are keeping a record of such contact and return visits, so if any past pupils would like to send us their stories and accompanying photos, we would love to hear from you. These stories will enrich our archival record of the exchange program.
Prue Hempel with Sr Rita who began the first German exchange with Mrs O’Mahony in 2003
Mrs Peita Ward German Exchange Coordinator
Mikayla Hughes, Nile de Jonge and Elyce Moran were on the second exchange trip to Germany in 2005. They met up in Salzburg a few years ago where this picture was taken. Mikayla spent some years living and working in Jena, Germany
Mrs Peita Ward, Mrs Eleanor O’Mahony and current Principal of the Mary Ward School, Frau Michaela Eder, in front of a portrait of Mary Ward in the school assembly hall in Bad Homburg
Japanese Exchange
German Exchange
French Exchange