Middle School – Shine Your Light Lantern Festival
Posted on February 13, 2025
Middle School students, staff and parents gathered on Thursday 6 February for our very first, annual Shine Your Light Lantern Festival. Together, we celebrated our strong sense of community, belonging, and the inner light that shines within each person at the Middle School. Lantern festivals are thought to have begun in China during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE). Often originally commemorating the death of a much loved member of the community, lantern festivals later became for Buddhists occasions of optimism and new beginnings. Hope for the future and inspiring possibilities were signified by using heat to float lanterns into the air, or onto the surface of a body of water. So the Middle School’s Shine Your Light festival connected us not just with the light in one another, but with the light in other faith communities around the world and therefore celebrating the Quaker values of community and diversity at the same time.
Starting with a smoking ceremony and welcome to country on the top green, we paid respects to those who had inhabited the land on which our Middle School stands long ago and their present ancestors who continue to teach us about their culture today. Trish Hodge, from NITA Education, welcomed us and even taught the community an emu dance, connecting us to a powerful teacher and guide for their culture, encouraging diligence, hard work, respect and humility.
After an official welcome by Lindy Gannon, Head of the Middle School Campus, Year 7 students processed into The Farrall Centre with their lanterns, co-constructed with Year 8s on their respective Orientation Days last year. Year 8s joined the procession, after welcoming the new students to our campus. Within each lantern carried by the Year 7s, were origami hearts, containing the goals, hopes and wishes for themselves and the Campus in 2025. These created the strikingly colourful backdrop for our celebration.
The night consisted of many illuminating items, including musical performances, reflections and the presentation of our Semester 1 Student House Leaders. Students shared their wishes for the campus, and staff showcased their lip syncing talents in their video of When I Grow Up, from Matilda Junior, promoting the upcoming Years 5-8 Musical auditions. The evening closed with an inspiring address from our Principal, Esther Hill.
At The Friends’ School, our Torch is the symbol of the Light that creates our community and guides us to live through the Quaker values. Our Shine Your Light Festival embodies these ideas; we welcome new students and their families within the Middle School community, sharing the collective Light of our students and staff that unites us all. We can’t wait for 2026!
By Esther Hoggart (House Leader – Middle School) and Mark Macleod (The Friends’ School Quaker Advisor)
