Winter Market brings the festive season to life
On Friday 1st December, the Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai Early Years setting held its second Winter Market event. Bigger than last year, the event was designed to bring the whole Wellington bilingual community together and give its pupils a taste of the festive season.
Over 50 highly reputable vendors set up stalls throughout reception, the hallways and learning spaces. They offered plenty of exciting Christmas gifts to delight the whole family, including luxury candles, children’s fashion clothing, handcrafted jewellery and decorations, LEGO kits, children’s books and even experience packages.
Naturally, there was plenty to eat, with food stalls offering delicious treats ranging from Vietnamese and Singaporean dishes to wagyu beef sausages.
Instrumental in organising the Winter Market, Mr Zhang, the parents’ representative, was delighted to comment: “We really want the event to be small but special. That’s why we have invited so many vendors who design and create their own goods. We really wanted to allow parents and pupils to access something special and unique, rather than just something that they could easily find anywhere in malls across Shanghai.”
Each early year’s class was brought through the market one at a time, so the pupils could look at everything that was on offer and enjoy the market with their teachers and classmates without it being too crowded.
The children also helped bring the Winter Market to life. Each class had its own stall with gifts and pieces of art made by the children. The money raised from selling these items will all go towards funding class events in the future. Each child also contributed to decorating the reception area with individual and whole-class pieces of art and colourful Christmas-themed decorations.
This year, the early years setting welcomed the visit of children with special needs from Qihui school. The children were invited to come and share the Christmas spirit and cheerful atmosphere and they also joined in with many of the day’s activities. The guest pupils had a wonderful time and provided many pieces of art of their own to sell. There was also a second-hand book collection which led to the generous donation of over 700 books. These books were gathered and prepared by Wellington parents, ready to sell at the Winter Market. The funds raised from the second-hand books and pupils’ artwork will be used to help fund additional resources for the special needs school itself. Any unsold books will also be donated to the school. Not only was this a terrific way to help raise money for a very worthy cause, it was also an excellent lesson for the children about the importance of kindness and inclusivity. These are qualities that are especially appropriate during the Christmas season.
Surrounded by children and parents enjoying the event, Mr Zhang had the following to say: “The idea of the Winter Market is to provide everyone with a very happy and energetic atmosphere where we can celebrate Christmas as a community.
Involving the children is very important because we can show them the meaning of Christmas by sharing gifts and being kind to one another. We wanted all the children to receive a gift today, so they can take home something that reminds them of this day and the fun, kind and happy spirit of Christmas.”
Mrs Szucs-Hussain, Head of Early Years, added her message of congratulations and appreciation for another excellent event: “Everyone has worked so hard to bring this wonderful event together. I’d like to thank those involved – from the vendors to the amazing Wellington College Bilingual Shanghai parents and staff who were so generous with their time and made this Winter Market such a great success. Without them, without this collaboration, we wouldn’t be able to organise events that are so enjoyable but so meaningful as well. It’s through moments like this when we all come together that we make Wellington College a community and one bilingual family.”
