Past Event Highlights

Pal Buddhist School offers scholarships to students who demonstrate solid academic abilities as well as a willingness to learn and contribute to the community. Scholarship entries are available to local students commencing Year 3 to Year 10 the following year only. Students are required to sit a scholarship exam in English and Mathematics followed by an interview with the principal.

Successful applicants will have the opportunity to study and grow in our innovative, paperless, 4D learning environment and have their tuition fees covered. Scholarship holders must maintain an average academic standard of 90% and adhere to the behaviour policy as outlined in the Student handbook to secure their scholarship.

Pal Buddhist School celebrated Vesak Day on 18th May, 2019. Students, teachers, and parents came together and paid respects to the Buddha by bathing the statue with holy water. Because the Buddha generated lotus flowers as he walked right after his birth, the flower came to symbolise the purity of the body, speech, and mind of an innocent man without any desires. The bathing ritual cleanses one off his inner greed and hatred, allowing him to be content with his present life, and, hence, experience less suffering. By lighting up candles, students further remind themselves to think in the correct mindset, undermining any thoughts, feelings, speech, and actions that would harm both himself and others.

Just as the mother is the first teacher to a child, the dhamma also offers guidance to one’s actions. While one can pay homage to the Buddha by offering flowers and fruits to the Buddha statue and wearing basic-coloured clothing, these actions are tokenistic and do not reflect the learning of the dharma. To truly demonstrate gratitude towards the Buddha, one must appreciate the teachings through demonstrating it in his everyday life.

This sense of gratitude for the mother is also demonstrated in the foot-washing ceremony. Because the foot represents the dirtiest part of the body, the act of washing one’s mother’s feet demonstrates his humility and appreciation for his mother’s hardship. Who can ever replace the mother’s sufferings of carrying a baby in her body for nine months?

Through the bathing-the-Buddha and foot-washing rituals, students grow their inner selves by appreciating the hardship of others.

At the Gala Ball, Pal Buddhist School invites the community to celebrate our growth throughout the year. Students show their gratitude towards our benefactors, donors and parents by portraying the best side of themselves through their performance pieces. Through these performances, the community gains deeper understanding of the school culture, which aims to cultivate future wholesome leaders in all aspects of life.

Through their performances to further build the school, students demonstrate their appreciation for their learning at Pal Buddhist School, which reflects the school’s tradition of demonstrating gratitude. By selling raffle tickets, students develop life-long skills such as confidence and public-speaking skills, both of which important in the 21st century society workforce. As representatives of the school, Pal students constantly adjust their behaviour to positively reflect on the school, this process also making them understand their inner selves by understanding their bad habits. With exemplary behaviour at the Gala Ball, Pal students attract more funds to the school, which, by illustrating that every action of theirs count, encourages them to be more mindful of their actions.

To support the ever growing population of our school, we have decided to build a new campus at Leppington.

While we have raised $154,043 from the 2019 Gala Ball, more is needed to build the new campus. Any help to build the new school is appreciated.

Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) Night is a platform for Pal Buddhist School’s students to showcase their creative talents. Each year, students illustrate their understanding of the event’s theme by participating in various art forms such as singing, dancing, acting, and painting. For CAPA 2019, students came together and illustrated their understanding of the theme, “Tradition”. While various skits illustrated the importance elements of tradition such as respect and gratitude, other performers demonstrated the theme in other ways – including traditional Chinese dance and Waltzes! Furthermore, students’ artworks such as Chinese painting bookmarks were also very popular with the attendees.

Besides that, the Year 5s also put together an Ukulele performance that reflected the school’s values. The song, “To Light Up the World”, is produced by choosing words and phrases from the school’s mission and vision statements, emphasising the values the school wish to instil on students. By creating a song that reflects the school’s values, students understand the tradition of the school, thus reflecting the theme of the night. Exposed to the values from a young age, students grow to become wholesome leaders.

Students develop their resilience through practicing for CAPA Night, a skill necessary for future success. To present the best performance, students continuously practice their skills, which helps them overcome the fear of people judging them. The constant practice to improve their performances allows them to overcome their egocentrism which is heightened with worry and self-doubt. While students should gain confidence with each “successful” performance, their success is still determined by the applause from the outside world. But why should their success be judged by others other than themselves? Therefore, students’ success should be measured by their growth, that is, their ability to overcome their worry and self-doubt.

Although CAPA Night focuses a lot on the students’ performances, the non-performers also worked hard to make the event a meaningful one. Through their hard work, non-performers also gained deeper understanding of the school’s values. While they did not perform and hence, not the centre of attention, it was through their actions that enhanced the experience of the attendees. Back-stage crew demonstrated selfless love for their peers by actively ensuring the best performance conditions for the performers while minimising attention drawn to themselves. The ushers also contributed to the overall outcome of the event by ushering people to their seats to maintain an orderly entry to the location, minimising the potential disruption to performing students. While non-performing students did not directly contribute to the night, their love for their peers, reflected through the roles they played at the event, contributed to the overall experience of attendees. As a Chinese saying goes, “Helping others is the secret to happiness”.

On 28th September, 2019, Pal Buddhist School welcomed members of the public to discover the school’s approach to education. With a motto of “Wisdom, Morality and Diligence”, our school aims to nurture wholesome leaders to can make a difference, or, “light up”, the world. With academic knowledge to support their school development and the ability to discern right from wrong, two very important of wholesome growth, students develop positive human traits such as confidence and energy. By modelling Right Speech, which is speaking only the truth and beneficial, Right Livelihood, which is making one’s living through a profession that does not bring harm to others, and Right Action, which is promoting moral, honourable, and peaceful conduct, Pal teachers demonstrate how they guide their students to improve themselves every day.

Competitions such as the Right Speech and the Right Livelihood, while allowing students to deepen their understanding of Buddhist teachings authentically, also, by promoting interaction with others, promote a strong sense of community within the school. Attendees were given a tour of the school, giving them the opportunity to experience the Open, Honest, and Real culture of the school. One example includes the school’s 4D Learning system, which makes learning visible for students, parents and teachers. To avoid embarrassment, students actively try to improve their academic outcomes, and, by overcoming their worry and doubt by actively trying to improve themselves, demonstrate diligence.