Pupils from Lomond School in Helensburgh have celebrated Chinese New Year last week – with a meal cooked by two of their classmates.

Students at the school’s boarding house were treated to a traditional Chinese meal of egg fried rice, garlic hoisin beef, Sichuan chicken wings, pak choi and chicken Chow Mein.

Boarders Hugo, from Hong Kong, and Ryan, from Macau, visited Glasgow to source ingredients for their menu, which they prepared with a helping hand from houseparent Kate Griffin.

Chinese New Year is China’s most important festival, and celebrates the first day of the country’s lunar calendar.

S6 student Julian Cheung from Hong Kong, who joined Lomond School in August, attended the celebration, and said: “Celebrating Chinese New Year at school really reminded me of home.

"Most of my friends at school are Scottish and haven’t grown up with the festival, so they had a lot of questions, and teaching them about it was really fun.

“It’s nice to have friends who have very different backgrounds to me, and I take a lot from the Scottish culture at Lomond. I love to play rugby and recently we got to celebrate Burns night, which was new for me.

“I’ve loved my experiences in Scotland, and I’m hoping to study in Glasgow or Edinburgh after I finish school.”

Johanna Urquhart, principal at Lomond School, added: “Lomond places a strong emphasis on sharing cultures from across all the diverse home countries of our pupils.

"We are proud of our international students, who enrich our school community with new traditions while also learning

from our Scottish heritage and history.

“We find opportunities to celebrate and appreciate our cultural similarities and differences both within the curriculum and through events and activities. Events such as Scottish week, which we celebrated last week, and Chinese New Year help us to do this.”

S3 day pupil Tilly Frain-Bell said: “As a Scottish student, I have good friends at Lomond from Germany and Spain.

"We’ve learned more about their lives at home, and to celebrate their culture we’ve enjoyed tapas together and I’m even going to visit one of them in Berlin at Easter.

“Our international students come to the school to experience a Scottish way of life, and we learn from them as well.”