Weekly Update 21

Announcements

Dates for Your Diary

Events can be found on the HeadStart calendar on the website School Life → Calendar but we have outlined the main ones here for easy reference:

Maths Faculty Week

Maths faculty week begins Monday the 13th February. The teachers have planned lots of fun games and activities to take place across the school to encourage the students to develop math skills.

Bus Route Survey

We are currently reevaluating the bus routes and are calling on parents who are interested in having a school bus to Karon/Kata to please contact the front office. We will make a final decision once all of the data has been collected.

Introducing New Additions to the HeadStart Teaching Team

We welcome the following new staff to the teaching team!

Mr Richard Lukats Athletics Director. Profile http://headstartphuket.com/people/richard-lukats

Ms Indu Bedi Head of English Faculty. Profile http://headstartphuket.com/people/indu-bedi

Ms Kamilah Bilbé Secondary Art Teacher. Profile http://headstartphuket.com/people/kamilah-bilbe

Timothy Eke Year 6 teacher. Profile http://headstartphuket.com/people/tim-eke

Foundation News

By Ms Fiona Scott, Deputy Head of Foundation

Curiosity – A Fuel for Development

This week I have seen a number of fun activities set up and taking place in the Foundation classrooms. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the children as they laugh, giggle and share with their friends what they have discovered and how they keep going back to do the things they enjoy all over again.

Children are naturally curious and they are born ready to learn. They will happily push a car or truck along a table or down a ramp and watch as it speeds along its path. They will eagerly place their hands in glitter, glue and sand and inspect the patterns their tiny fingers leave behind; and jugs and pots will naturally be filled up when sitting in a bucket of water. With curiosity, children wonder, explore and ask questions and by doing these things they find out and learn about the world around them. A curious child will take risks and not be afraid to take on challenges as they get older. Curiosity leads to discovery, and discovery leads to learning.

As parents with busy lifestyles, the time spent with our children may be limited. We must try and make sure that we don’t reduce and diminish our children’s natural curiosity by not giving them the attention and time they need from us. At times, we are all guilty of saying “Not now, maybe tomorrow”, “I’m too busy, maybe later”, and this can have a negative impact on our children’s interests and motivation. We must try and give our children the time to inspire and explore new things. By following your child’s natural interests and joining in with the activities they enjoy, you can help to teach them how to observe and discover for themselves. By offering encouragement and not just solutions, you can build upon their self-confidence, determination and perseverance skills.

For our young learners it is the small things that can make a big difference. Boxes need to be opened and bubbles need to be blown! By following your child’s lead and enjoying where their imaginations take you, you will capture their attention and eagerness to learn.

Paper bags and socks can become singing and dancing puppets; rolling and cutting play dough can soon become foods in café or wild animals in a forest and cardboard tubes can soon become rockets in space. Try adding some food colouring to water or shaving cream and let them mix it up with bubbles and toys. Allow for messy opportunities, as these will usually be the most fun! These will be made even better when enjoyed and shared with mum and dad!

The more curious a child is, the more they learn. Encouraging your child’s curiosity is one of the most important ways you can help for them to become a lifelong learner. Wishing you all a super, messy weekend!

Preschool made cars and drove them in the ‘snow’. This was so much fun!

Primary News

By Andrew Whittaker, Head of Foundation and primary

Just as in any other professional organisation keeping your employees up-to-date with new concepts and providing them with opportunities to aide their professional development are an essential aspect of a good organisation. Here at HeadStart we try to offer as many professional development opportunities for our teachers as possible, sometimes this can prove harder as we have to find appropriate courses that are easy for our teachers to attend.

That said, last week, Miss Amy from our Reception Yellow class attended a course run by Oxford University Press, which was held in Bangkok, giving training on the use of the excellent Mathematics resources Numicon. We currently use these resources in Foundation and Key Stage 1. Numicon is a multi-sensory approach to teaching Maths developed by experts in the classroom and it is designed to help children understand connections between numbers.

This Wednesday Miss Amy provided a workshop to all of our Foundation and Key Stage 1 teachers feeding back all the great ideas she received last week; all the teachers found the session to be very helpful and informative, so a big thank you goes to Miss Amy! Here are some photographs showing the teachers ‘in action’!

Year 1 Visited the Upside Down House

Year One visited the Upside Down House and Maze as their Literacy/English learning on recounts. the two classes explored the mind bending Upside Down House where the all the furniture was stuck to the roof and even the fish tank and fish inside were upside down! We then worked in teams to find our way out of the twisting maze up into the tree house to help those still stuck in the maze. Back at school we have been using our developing writing skills using time connectives and writing in the past tense to recount and describe our fun trip!

Year 3 students are learning about how to express their emotions in Thai class.

Secondary News

By Ms Elizabeth Mason, Head of Secondary

Another wonderful and busy week here in secondary I am truly blessed to be able to work in such a wonderful school.

Year 11 Mock Exam Results and Meeting

Firstly I would like to thank Year 11 for the hard work in their mock exams. 82% of the students achieved A-C and 32% of the student achieved A/A grades. I wish them all the best in their final examinations and hope for a minimum of a 7 % increase in those results. Fingers crossed. Thank you to Year 11 parents for attending what I hope was a useful and informative evening. I appreciate your support with your children’s progress and learning.

Free Revision Sessions on Offer

Due to the upcoming IGCSE exams we want to be able to support our students as much as possible, therefore the school has organised free revision sessions with the teachers for Year 11 & Sixth Form. The sessions will run from the 17-22nd of April, 2017. Students should sign up with their subject teachers. Full details of the program will follow after the half term break.

Year 9 Options Process and Parent’s Meeting

Next week Year 9 students will begin their options process. A meeting will be held to discuss this with parents on the 15th of February 2017, at 3:15 pm in the Sports Hall. We hope all parents can attend.

Key stage 3 students will be working with teachers on their assessment sheets this week and reports will be issued before half term break.

Creator of Pac Man dies, 91

During Term 1, the students created their own versions of the great classic video game Pac Man using MIT’s Scratch visual computing language. This week we remember the passing of Masaya Nakamura. Masaya Nakamura, the ‘Father of Pac-Man’ who founded the Japanese video game company behind the hit creature-gobbling game, has died at age 91.

Before being awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government, the entertainment pioneer got his start with children’s toys. Namco launched in 1955 as Nakamura Manufacturing, which operated mechanical horses on the roof of a department store in Tokyo. Its beginnings were humble - just two mechanical horses on the rooftop of a department store. By Mr Mason

House News

By Nick Carter, House Coordinator

I am delighted that we continue to improve our ‘Weigh your Waste’ results. This week the House Captains in both Primary and Secondary school stood guard at their House bins to ensure that each student wasted as little food as possible. This resulted in one of the best results ever! As a school we only wasted 19 kgs of food this week. Well done, everyone, but especially our winners, the Red Phoenixes, who only wasted 3.6kg of food! In sporting news, the Green Dragons were our Funky Football champs, beating the Yellow Cheetahs by only one goal!

Sports Department News

Girls Basketball Tri Team Series

HeadStart v KIS Won 14-7 HeadStart v BIS Lost 5-18

“In my opinion, the girls played incredibly well. Ever since I’ve coached the girls, I felt like this tournament was the best in both performance and teamwork. Yes, we’ve lost, but we’ve also won too–and the way I look at it is that it is a step forward that’ll lead to success.

I would like to introduce Nuchanart Bussarakam (Meow) who has an outstanding effort and excellent performance as she was able to score and defend alongside with the other girls. Although, she was injured, she was willing to stay and finish the game with all the team members. I hope Headstart girl’s basketball team will improve better and better in the future. Lastly, I would like to say to the girls that I’m proud to guide and tutor you all.” Coach Ball

Under 10 Football Friendly

Last week the Under 10 Football team played four 10 minute friendly matches with BIS. The result of the match was 0/0. The students played well. Special mention should be made for Sanzio de Lucca who played goalkeeper for the first time and did very well! Coach JR