Marsden Road Public School NSW

Marsden Road Public School is located in Liverpool in Sydney's south west. We are a highly multicultural school, with approximately 90% of our students coming from a language background other than English, representing 57 language groups across the globe. Approximately 20% of students in our school are refugees or have had refugee-like experiences. Many of these students come to us with little or no English, and have had a period of time living in a refugee camp before coming to Australia. Some of our older students, 10-12 years old, have never had any formal schooling before coming to Australia.

Our newly-arrived students often come with very little experience of cooking as we know it in the western world. As the children often learn English much more quickly than their parents, they are frequently used as translators in many and various situations, from every day simple things like shopping in a supermarket, to translating between their parents and health professionals.

As well as newly arrived students, many of our students come from low socio-economic situations. Sometimes, in these situations, parents can develop habits of bad food choices which are passed onto their children. This translates into consequences such as inter-generational obesity.