HeadStart Weekly Update #17, 18 January 2019
Dates for Your Diary
Upcoming events can be found on the calendar on the website School Life → Calendar but we have outlined upcoming events here for easy reference. For daily updates and news follow the HeadStart Facebook Page
| Date | Time | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19-21 January | All day | DofE Silver G1 Adventurous Journey | Ao Yon beach |
| 22 January | 8:15am | Healthy Living presentation by Mr Rhodes | Secondary Hall |
| 25 January | 1:00-4:00pm | Blood Donations | School Library |
| 26 January | 9:00am | Saturday Thai Culture club | Classrooms |
| 26-28 January | All day | DofE G2 Silver Sailing Adventurous Journey | Ao Yon beach |
| 28-30 January | All day | Math Faculty Week | In school |
| 01 February | 2:30-5:30pm | Friday Market | Atrium |
| 05 February | All day | Chinese New Year Activities & Dress Up | In school |
| 06 February | 3:30pm | Year 11 Parent Teacher Conferences | Sports Hall |
| 08 February | 8:30am | Around the World Foundation-Y2 Performance | Sports Hall |
| 14 February | All day | Foundation (am) Years 1-2 (pm) Sports Day | Sports Facilities |
| 15 February | All day | Year 3-6 (am) Year 7-11 (pm) Sports Day | Sports Facilities |
Announcements
Upcoming U-Prep U-Talks
On Thursday 17th January we launched our U-Prep programme with an introductory talk about university applications. About 80 parents attended found out about key dates, what makes up an application and how HeadStart helps students through the whole process.
The programme continues weekly throughout Term 2. We invite parents to join us for a series of shorter talks that are designed for parents to “pick and choose” to create their own programme by attending the talks most relevant to them. The “menu” of talks is available here in English and Thai, on the school website and in paper format from from the front office.
Next week, Thursday 24th January, the talk will be on “Comparing Different University Systems”: an opportunity to find out about the differences between applying for and studying in countries all around the world. The talk will last 15-20 minutes and there are optional questions afterwards. All parents are invited, and we hope to see lots of interested families there!
Scholastic Book Promotion
At HeadStart we promote reading from a young age. Ms Mai, HeadStart Librarian, has organised for all of the Year 1-6 students to receive a free Scholastic book catalogue that will go home in each child’s school bag. The catalogue promotes a brand new selection of quality children’s books at discounted prices that have been carefully chosen to encourage reading for pleasure and to keep them reading right through their teenage years.
If you would like to make an order please contact our librarian directly in the Library or write to [email protected]
Parent ‘Healthy Living’ Meeting Invitation
Hello! My name is Hayden Rhodes and I am a parent at HeadStart. I have 20 years experience in the health and fitness industry. For the Healthy Living week, I will give a talk about vital fundamentals that have stood the test of time that are required for sustained health as well as physical, mental and emotional well being.
Join me in the Primary Hall on 22nd of January at 8:15am.
Nicholas Carter
My name is Nick Carter and I am from Kent, in the UK. I came to Thailand in 2015, after 6 years of living and teaching P.E. in Stockholm, Sweden (where it snows for six months of the year!). So, it is fair to say that I was ready for a completely different climate change, as well as cultural change. My sporting background is very diverse. I grew up with a passion for playing football but, later, in my teens, I discovered baseball. I made my debut for the Great Britain national baseball squad at the age of 18 and played with the squad for the next 14 years. I also trained as a professional contemporary dancer and toured nationally and internationally for 7 years in numerous dance companies. Although I have many other sporting interests, I want to make it clear that P.E. teachers are not just whistle blowing, basketball bouncing individuals, as I released my first fictional novel (in June, 2015). However, participating in sport, physical activity, and leading a healthy lifestyle are very important to me, and I’ve enjoyed imparting my knowledge in teaching and coaching environments for over 20 years. I am delighted to be HeadStart’s Director of Sport and my fundamental aims are for our students to continue to experience a really diverse range of physical activities, all the while having loads of fun through being active. For example, HeadStart pupils will participate in the following sports activities in either curriculum time or in our fantastic After School Sports programme: Basketball, Netball, Football, Rugby, Athletics, Swimming, Badminton, Table Tennis, Volleyball, Softball, Rounders, Yoga, Dance, and Gymnastic activities (amongst others). If you have any questions, you can email me at – [email protected]
Sports Department News
What’s Coming Up?
Basketball Competition at HeadStart. On January 30th (Boys Competition) and January 31st (Girls Competition) our senior Basketball squads will be competing in an invitational tournament to be hosted at HeadStart. Teams participating will be HeadStart, Phuket Wittaya, Thaihua and Kathu Wittaya. Both competitions will run from 16.00-19.00pm. All welcome.
Healthy Living Week
During our ‘Healthy Living Week’ teachers and staff promoted things such as healthy eating and how to lead active, healthy lifestyles in the 21st Century. The week was action packed and students participated in many events that will hopefully leave a lasting impression and help them to make healthy changes for the better.
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Guest Speaker: Mr Hayden Rhodes gave a very heartfelt and informative talk to secondary school about healthy choices. He will also be delivering a parents talk on Tuesday, 22nd January in the Primary Hall. The talk will last 45 minutes followed by a question and answer session. All parents are welcome! More information about Mr Rhodes here
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House Quizzes all about Health & Fitness
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Healthy snack options: Ms Ellie Leamon (Secondary teacher) put on a ‘how to prepare healthy food’ session in the Atrium. The humus was amazing! Students in Foundation were given a ‘Bring in a Healthy Snack’ challenge.
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P.E. department conducted fitness testing in their classes. This involved circuit training & total body conditioning.
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The House Captains went around the lunch hall on Friday to check to see who knew how to build a ‘healthy plate’. Students were awarded a House point if they ate a balanced, nutritious meal.
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House Activities: Secondary students participated in an event to see which House was the fittest. The students had 20 minutes in their House groups to travel (running / power walking) as far as possible.
Foundation Department News
The Preschool children have had a great week learning all about Jungle and Safari animals. We have done lot of arts, crafts and mark making as well as singing, dancing and role play. We finished our topic by going on our own Safari hunt around the school to see what animals we could find.The children had lots of fun! By Ms Danielle Jones
This week in Early Years we have continued our In the Garden topic. We have been learning all about the parts of plants and flowers, as well as finding out what they need to grow big and strong! We visited the Phuket Botanic Gardens so that we were able to see many different kind of plants. We looked at beautiful flowers, found huge leaves, fed the fish in the lake and were very careful around the spiky cacti! The children’s favourite part was walking behind the big waterfall! By Ms Holly Strawbridge and MS Saki Shibuya
The children in Early Years have been developing their green fingers through the topic ‘In the Garden’! We have talked about the different parts of a flower (the petals, leaf, stem and roots) and discussed what a plant needs to grow (water, sun, warmth and nutrients from the soil). By Ms Saki Shibuya
Reception Blue learnt about 3D shapes in Maths this week and we created our own houses using 3D shapes. We linked this to the houses of the Three Little Pigs and also decorated our 3 houses using the different materials their houses were made from. We also did a lot of phonics work and writing on our own. We used our imagination to think what we would build our house out of if we could chose. We are loving the Fairy tale topic! By Ms Candice Smithie
This week Year 2 students have been learning how to read and spell the “uea” vowel (สระเอือ). By Kru Way
Students in Year 3 are learning how to read and write word with “eu” vowel and make short sentences. By Kru Bo
Secondary Department News
Y10 are coming to the end of their first GCSE project on Natural Forms. The pupils worked through a wide variety of workshop skills and artistic techniques such as drawing, printing, painting and mixed media as well as taking inspiration from famous artists; Georgia O’Keeffe and Paul Cezanne. Their final responses were completed over the Christmas break and have turned out fantastic!! Well done, your efforts have truly paid off! The artists are Angie Fauma, Nicole Teo, Stella Ballini, Rosie Leow. By Ms Gill
University Visit from Les Roches
HeadStart maintains good links with individual universities around the world, which can really benefit our students. This week two of our Year 13 students benefited from a personal consultation with representatives from Les Roches, one of the world’s leading providers of degrees in hospitality management. With both students hoping to attend, this was the perfect opportunity to find out how to craft the perfect application, get first hand information about their different locations, and to impress! The Les Roches representative described both of them as “fantastic” so hopefully this means that they are one step closer to success! By Ms Gemma Caines
This week Miss Leamon’s science class have been very busy experimenting with acids and alkalis. Students have been learning about the differences between acids and alkalis, indicators, pH and neutralisation reactions. They have put this to practice by using neutralisation reactions to make the rainbow, making copper sulphate crystals and comparing different antacid tablets on how effective they are at neutralising stomach acid. In the process the students have learnt how to handle hazzardous chemicals safely.
David Pollicutt
My name is David and I joined HeadStart International School in 2018. I am from the UK and grew up in the large port city of Bristol. I studied English Literature at the University of East Anglia, and trained to teach at The Institute of Education in The University of London. I taught in East London for four years, before moving to teach for eight years as Head of English in Viet Nam and China. I am a firm believer in developing students to be natural enquirers, following the Sir Ken Robinson model of best preparing students to use transferable skills for the shifting landscapes of their futures. I seek to encourage an epistemological approach in my lessons, urging students to evaluate the efficacy of the information they consume and the validity of interpretations. I am passionate about literature and will often be chortling at David Lodge’s tragicomedy or swooning at Ian Mcewan’s literary sleight of hand. Outside of the classroom I am a keen student of Philosophy, Politics and Film. I am a particular fan of the intellect and charisma exuded by Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris and the late and much missed Christopher Hitchens. I have a terminal case of devotion to Tottenham Hostpsur Football Club; it teaches me patience and humility.
English Literature
Last year I wrote to parents about the benefits of studying English at A-Level: about how the subject was the consummate “all-rounder,” encouraging links to other disciplines and promoting transferable intellectual skills.
As if to evidence this connectivity, Year 13 English Literature students exploring Shakespeare’s Richard II have drawn on medieval English monarchical history in order to inform their contextual understanding of the political landscape of the late 14th Century (when the play was set), and the early 17th Century (when it was received with some distaste by Elizabeth I).
English history of that time is complex, arcane and often bizarre. The students were therefore incredibly lucky to have the expert knowledge of their Head of Sixth Form Ms. Caines to guide them through the era in a pair of lectures she gave which demystified the content without reducing its intricacy.
Thanks to Ms Caines for an entertaining journey through The Wars of the Roses. The students will continue to take up the ‘gages’ thrown down by the challenging Richard II, and seek to ‘purge the choler’ of confusion initially presented by its tricky language and abstract concepts.
Notes from an English Teacher
I think it is important for students and the wider school community to see their English teachers write. Telling students how to write but not them doing it themselves is a bit like a tennis instructor explaining a serve, then sitting back with a hamburger while the novice tennis player thrashes wildly. Therefore, I would like to share with you a piece I wrote exploring a poem which I shared with my Year 13 English Literature class this Friday. Click the download to read the full poem and review.
Exploring Shakespeare through Poetry
Year 13 English Literature students reading Shakespeare’s Richard II are getting to grips with the panoply of characters and convoluted plot…
Their next task is to make sense of the play’s language. Written entirely in verse it may have been called “the most beautiful language ever written”, but its beauty is dependent on the audience being able to hear the sounds, align them with what they know about the characters and to visualise vividly the significance of the imagery.
In order to engage with this esoteric skill, we looked first looked inwards. Each student therefore brought into class one poem of their choice; either poems that were important to them or which evoked a particular memory.
The students shared their poems in our small group, reading through the whole poem aloud and listening to one another. As they listened to one another, students selected one line from each poem that stood out to them as a listener. They then attempted to express how and why these particular lines have a special impact. Were there devices or techniques in use in these lines? Was the content particularly striking? Did an image jump out? Was something jarringly incongruous? In order to focus on the highly audible nature of the play, I asked for students to listen out in particular for audible features such as rhyme, alliteration, percussive or explosive sounds and repetition.
To think about the link between sounds and actions in the play, students then worked together to prepare a 30 second dramatisation of their chosen lines, in which they spoke the line and physicalized it at the same time. Each pair performed their lines, and I asked them to explain why they felt it stood out from the rest of the poem. Did the sounds change their movements? Finally, students were invited to reflect on why Shakespeare may have chosen to write this play entirely in verse- what were the effects and advantages of doing so? The answer..?
Well, this is to be revealed in the next stage of the students’ learning journeys.
For your interest and enjoyment, the poems selected by the students are as follows: Elin Lindgren-I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Sasha Miftakhova- A Soldier; Denalyn Kwok- Misunderstood; Maeva Lubrani- They Announced it on Monday; Nikol Smirnovaite- Never Trust a Mirror; Mr. Pollicutt- Wife Hits Moose.
The lines which the students chose to dramatize are as follows. When you look at the pictures, see if you can work out which tableau goes with which line!
1) ‘And then my heart with pleasure fills, And Dances with the daffodils.’
2) ’That lies unflifted, come due, come rust,’
3) ‘Destruction emerges from my enraged emotions’
4) ‘What Demons was she fighting, That we were all too blind to see?’
5) ’And your reflection cannot tell you, Everything you mean to me’
6) ‘Annoyed moose lands on feet and walks away.’
For your interest and enjoyment, the poems selected by the students are available in the download.
House News
Every week students from years 5-13 compete in a House quiz, which this week was on Healthy Living. The quiz provoked many interesting conversations, with many students being shocked at the amount of calories in peanut butter and in particular, how much exercise they should do to stay fit and healthy!
The Weigh Your Waste competition was particularly close this week with Blue Tigers managing to match the Yellow cheetahs with just 4.3kg of waste. The Weigh Your Waste competition has had a significant impact on the amount of food wasted at lunch times and we hope that this trend will continue into 2019.
The Primary House competition this week was Connect 4. The Yellow Cheetahs demonstrated the best strategic thinking skills to be crowed the winners. Here are some photos of them in action.
