Six Ballarat primary schools took part in a karuta tournament at St Patrick’s Hall on Friday, which is believed to also be the first of its kind in the state. Loreto College language coordinator Yoshie Burrows said the game was like a version of memory but also involved Japanese word recognition, with teams competing to find a word on their card read out by a central “assistant”.

Schools involved included St Alipius, St Thomas More, St Francis Xavier, Emmaus, Our Lady Help of Christians and St Michael’s Springbank. The grade five and six participants wore traditional Japanese dress while the games were judged by year 10 Loreto College students.