Sydney Japanese International School

Sydney Japanese International School (SJIS) (シドニー日本人学校 Shidonī Nihonjin Gakkō) is a Japanese international school located in Terrey Hills within Northern Beaches Council, New South Wales, Australia, in the Sydney area.[1]

The school serves elementary and junior high school levels. The school accepts non-Japanese students,[2] offering them international classes. Australian students take entrance examinations to enter these international classes while Japanese students are automatically accepted into the classes.[3] SJIS is the only Japanese international school in the world to have an English-language division.[4]

The international classes follow the New South Wales curriculum, while there is also a Japanese division following the Japanese curriculum.[4] As of 2007,[3] according to Tetsuo Mizukami (水上 徹男 Mizukami Tetsuo[5]), author of The Sojourner Community: Japanese Migration and Residency in Australia, the international classes are "so popular" that Australian parents have requested that the SJIS introduce them at the high school level.[3]

Curriculum and instruction

Each division of SJIS focuses on one stream of Education. The International Division delivers the New South Wales Curriculum from Kindergarten through to Grade 6. The Japanese Division delivers the Japanese Curriculum from Grade 1 to Year 9. Japanese division students, as of 2014, do five hours of English each week. International division students, as of 2014, do five hours of Japanese instruction each week.[4]

The students in both divisions combine classrooms in three of their subjects: Music, Physical Education and Visual Arts.[4]

Bilingual assemblies are held weekly and all students study and play on the one campus allowing for friendships and interaction throughout the day. By mainstreaming the two divisions the students feel very much part of one school.

Bilingual Education

At SJIS significant advances in second language teaching and learning are made through an affiliation with the Centre for Language Teaching Research at Macquarie University (Sydney). Curriculum development is monitored by some of Australia’s top researcher’s in second language acquisition to ensure that our approach is the finest on offer.

All SJIS students from Kindergarten to year 6 are enriched by a 45-minute language lesson and high school is 50 minutes either Japanese or English.

As of 2005 the school usually places two or three non-Japanese students in each class.[6]

History

It opened in 1969 due to an increase in the Japanese population.[2]

In May 1969, the Japanese Society of Sydney founded the first Japanese School in Australia to provide the children of Japanese expatriates with Japanese primary school education. The original school was located in a church site in Lindfield, starting with a single classroom with 33 students. It was the first overseas Japanese School in a developed country. In 1971, the school relocated to the current site in Terrey Hills to accommodate the rapidly growing number of enrolments. Up until 1975 SJIS offered one stream of education for students in Year 1 to Year 9 which was the Japanese Government Curriculum, predominately catering for Japanese families. But in 1975 the school recognised a need on the Northern Beaches for a culturally based private primary school. In 1975, SJIS established a second stream of education, the Australian Curriculum for students in Kindergarten through to Year 6. The school purchased the adjoining 5 acres of land in 1984 for further expansion. Since then, further developments have continued. A 200-metre running track was completed in 1993. Three years later, a new double storey building complex was built for administration and additional classrooms. The International Division started a Kindergarten grade in 1997.

Campus

The school is on a 14-acre (5.7 ha) campus located 25 kilometres (16 mi) north of the Sydney CBD. It includes a soccer oval and a track field.[7]

The campus has 14-acre (5.7 ha) of and including a field track and soccer oval.

Classrooms include smartboards and telephones connected to the school’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system. The campus has computer rooms, science laboratories, and special subject rooms such as those for music and home.

Operations

Students are required to wear school uniforms. As of 2014 the annual tuition is $9,000 Australian dollars per child.[4]

Student body

As of 2014 the international division has 87 students while the Japanese division has 79 students.[4]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "School Location." (Archive) Sydney Japanese International School. Retrieved on 4 January 2014. "112 Booralie Road, Terrey Hills, NSW 2084 Australia"
  2. 1 2 Mizukami, p. 140. "A well-known example of a Japanese school, which accepts local non-Japanese students, is the Sydney Japanese School. In response to the increase of the local Japanese population, a full-time Japanese school was established in 1969,[...]"
  3. 1 2 3 Mizukami, p. 161.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ham, Melinda. "Bilingual bonus for families" (Archive). Sydney Morning Herald. March 1, 2014. Retrieved on February 28, 2016.
  5. ↑ "水上　徹男." Rikkyo University. Retrieved on March 5, 2015.
  6. ↑ (Catalan) Fukuda, Makiko. "El Col·legi Japonès de Barcelona: un estudi pilot sobre les ideologies lingüístiques d'una comunitat expatriada a Catalunya" (Archive). Treballs de sociolingüística catalana > 2005: 18 (2004). See profile at Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert (RACO). p. 216: "8. El Col·legi iapones de Ciutat de Mèxic i el de Sidney són els casos excepcionales: el primer ofereix un curs destinat als fills de les parelles nipomexicanes i als de família mexicana, i el segon obre el centre de manera que es distribueixin dos o tres alumnes no japonesos a cada classe."
  7. ↑ "Facilities." Sydney Japanese International School. Retrieved on 4 January 2014.

Further reading

External links

Coordinates: 33°40′32″S 151°12′07″E / 33.67556°S 151.20194°E / -33.67556; 151.20194

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