Weekly Update 24, 9 March, 2018

Dates for Your Diary

Upcoming events can be found on the HeadStart calendar on the website School Life → Calendar but we have outlined upcoming events for the month here for easy reference.

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Inspiring a Love of Reading

By Ms Fiona Scott, Deputy Head of Foundation

Recently some parents have asked me how they can get more involved with reading at home with their children. Some parents are worried that they are becoming too busy at work and too tired at the end of the day and they are concerned that their children are choosing ‘screen’ time over story time. So it’s pleasing to hear that some of our parents want to change this. With children’s school success more dependent on literacy and language skills, its time to swap the screen for story!

There’s nothing easier and more enjoyable than curling up at the end of the day and enjoying a bedtime story together. However, you need to make sure you give yourself time to enjoy and share a story book. A rushed story is never enjoyed and can cause frustration in parents and upset in children. So make sure you are cozy and comfortable with enough time to enjoy it. Make your story telling amusing and entertaining for your child, read with fun, humour and expression in your voice when reading the parts of different characters. Point to the words when you are reading aloud, so children understand the concept of print. Look at the pictures together and tell the story just from what you see. Very often children want to hear the story again, if you have time read the story again, let your child have a go and discuss what your favourite parts were.

If we can ditch our phones and tablets for half an hour each day and read with our children instead, this will have a huge positive impact on you both. Children love sharing stories; books excite and interest children. It’s also a great time to relax, spend some quality time together and get lost in story world. Half an hour at the end of each day will help your child become a happy and confident reader, will generate good reading habits and help us to inspire a true love of reading.

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International Day Details

This popular event will take place on 30 March between 3:30-5:30 pm. This year we want to try something new and host International Day in the air conditioned Sports Hall. Although the hall will be bustling with people, it should be a more comfortable temperature. The Parade of Nations will still take place walking around the running track at approximately 4:30 pm.

Table Booking are Now Open. There are 36 tables in the Sports Hall and 6 tables situated on the walkway towards the football pitch. Bookings will be on a first come, first serve basis. Due to limitations on space, there are 2 tables available per country. If you require more than 2 tables, please let the office staff know and they will do their best to accommodate your request.

Performance Booking: This year we will only accept one performance per country in order to give everyone a chance to perform while there are still people at the event. Please visit the front office to book a performance.

Additional Financing: In an effort to support your contribution to the event, the school has designated a small stipend of money per country. Write to [email protected] and we will organise a transfer to your country leader within a week following the event.

Set Up. You are welcome to set up your table between 9:00-2:30 pm on 30 March. Please do not travel around the school, visit your children or disturb lessons while in school.

Safety. For safety reasons, all food must be pre-cooked at home before the event. We will not allow open fires, deep frying or boiling on the premises.

No High Heels in the Sports Hall as it destroys the top later of the floor.

No ASPs are scheduled on 30 March in order to accommodate this event.

School buses are not scheduled to drop off the students on this day so that the drivers can support the event. Parents please plan to pick up your children from school at 3:20 pm.

Students Oversight. Parents of Foundation and Primary students please plan to pick up your children at 3:20 pm (earlier if they are preparing for a performance) and take responsibility for their oversight during the event. The ‘Late Pick Up’ team/policy will still be in place for the afternoon.

We look forward to an afternoon of lively song, dances, delicious food from around the world and a great time to get to know each other and enjoy the diverse cultures of our HeadStart community.

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Parent Survey 2018

We would like to invite you to complete the Parent Survey for the 2017-2018 academic year. As with last year, we are using an online programme called Survey Monkey. The format is user friendly and can be completed in a short amount of time. The survey can be completed using a PC, tablet or smart phone. Thank you for taking the time to fill in the survey. Your feedback is always useful in addressing the students needs and making improvements where necessary.

Please click on the link below and it will take you directly to the survey.

English Version

Thai Version

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100 years Celebration of Private Schools in Thailand

On Sunday, 4th March 2018, The Ministry of Education hosted an award ceremony to celebrate 100 years of private schools in Thailand. This celebration was held at the Royal Phuket City Hotel in order to recognise all Thai teachers who have been teaching in private schools for over 10 years. Congratulations go to our School Director, Kru Nee (11 years) and our Thai teachers, Kru Sue (15 years) and Kru Pim (22 years) for receiving this prestigious award.

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Secondary Announcements

By Ms Elizabeth Mason, Head of Secondary

We have started ‘book looks’ in both Year 8 and 11 as well as what we call ‘student shadows’. The purpose for both of these is to ensure quality in our teaching and learning across lessons and marking. The shadow is a great experience for staff because we track a student for the day and then talk to them about their experiences: what they really like and what we might do to improve.

Year 9 Parent Teacher Conference

Parents with children in Year 9 are invited to a Parent Teacher Conference on 14 March at 3:30 in the Sports Hall. This is an important meeting as we will be presenting IGCSE options for the upcoming move to Year 10. There will also be a short presentation on the upcoming Outbound Field Trip to Khao Sok.

Outbound Field Trip Info for April 2018

Here are the finalised pick up and drop off times for the Year7-9 students going on the Outbound Field trips to Bangkok and Khao Sok in the beginning of April. Emails with specific details have been sent to the relevant parents. A few minor amendments have been made to the drop off and pick up time for the Year 7 trips so please look closely and make every effort to be on time.

Thank you for your attention to detail. Please communicate any questions or concerns that you have by writing to [email protected].

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Sports Department News

PISAC Athletics Competitions

On Tuesday 20th March @ BISP 2.00 - 6.00pm - we will be taking around 50 Athletes to compete in the Phuket International Schools Secondary Athletics Competition. If you have not signed up for the team yet see Mr. Carter.

Thursday 22nd March @ HeadStart 12.30pm - 3.00pm - we will be hosting the Phuket International Schools Primary (U9 and U11) Athletics Competition. If you have not signed up for the team yet see Mr. Bushell.

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Swimming News

This weekend the Aqua Panthers are back at Thanyapura for our 3rd league meet! We have 56 amazing swimmers geared up and ready to go. The standings so far are:

1st Place: HeadStart 4,469

2nd Place: UWC 3,287

3rd Place: BIS 2,653

The Aqua Panthers are doing a great job and we are all looking forward to having another successful meet filled with fast swims and big time drops! Join us on Saturday at 8:00 am! The meet should finish around 1:00 pm. By Coach Zak Brown

Basketball News

On 12 March a small selection of students will represent HeadStart at a 3v3 Basketball Competition at the British International School. The boys will leave the school at 2.30pm and will be traveling to BISP by school bus. They will be watching a demonstration and then start playing games from 3.45pm until 5.15pm. Parents should collect children from BISP at 5.15pm or from HeadStart at about 5.45pm, when the school bus will return.

Please note this is the first competitive game some of the boys will have played and is in the 3v3 format, which was designed to get maximum participation. If the interest grows in Basketball we will look to have a competitive Basketball team in the near future. But in the mean time this tournament is all about fun.

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Football News

By Coach JR

The HeadStart Panthers U10, U11 and U17 boys Football teams proudly represented HeadStart at the Bangkok Soccer 7s, held at Patana International School last weekend. For the U10 and U11 Boys Teams, this was not a new experience for a number of the players as they have already been on a trip to Bangkok to play in competitions. However for the U17s this was, for some of them their first experience in a residential tournament. All the boys had a fabulous time, but a trying one, as traveling and playing a high number of competitive games in a short time period takes a lot of getting used to and keeping the balance between fun and competing can have its challenges. But on the trip all the boys acquitted themselves well both on and off the pitch and will take away fantastic memories and a deeper understanding of what to expect and how to perform consistently at a tournament like this.

A massive thanks to all those parents who traveled with the teams to Bangkok and cheered us on from the sidelines. Your support made a huge difference to the boys and sometimes it felt like we were playing at home. I would also like to thank my fellow coaches Eric and Mr Bushell for their effort and support over the weekend.

This is how we finished in this very competitive international tournament;

• U10 did exceptionally well finishing third in the plate!

• U11 were runners up in the shield final!

• U17 in their first Bangkok Tournament finished up runner ups in the shield!

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Student News

On Friday the Foundation students and teachers wished Ms Amy best wishes as she goes on maternity leave. Ms Amy has been a wonderful teacher; full of energy and drive. She will be missed in the department, but we all wish her the very best and look forward to meeting Baby Drew in the near future. By Ms Fiona Scott

Congratulations to Namon, Saipor, Tuana, Nawa, Freya and Pokpong in Reception for trying hard and making great progress in all lessons. And in Early Years this week, Elena and Woojin received certificates for a great effort in all lessons. A special well done for Puan as she received two certificates this week - one from her homeroom teacher and one from her Thai teacher. Keep up the hard work everyone. By Ms Fiona Scott

Early Years have had a “yo, ho, ho-ing” good time over the last 2 weeks learning about being pirates. We all dressed up as pirates on dress up day, we learnt about treasure maps, and learnt how to program the Bee-bot to get to the pirate treasure. Unfortunately one day the pirates came and took one of our teddies from the classroom!!! Luckily they left us some clues, which we followed on a treasure hunt around school, and got our teddy back! By Ms Amy, Ms Holly & Ms Erika

In Reception our topic is ‘Growing’. The children have loved learning about how different fruits and vegetables grow and making yummy smoothies! We have been very creative with flower crafts, designing and writing about our own flowers and even growing some plants in the outdoor area. The children are so excited by the world around them and are learning to respect and understand the natural environment.​ By Ms Hannah Kuusik

Here are some photo of Early Years who are starting to work on swimming activities in preparation for their Swimming Gala. All the children are having lots of fun and doing their best. By Ms Fiona Whittaker

The Reception B students were preparing for Swimming Gala on Tuesday, 3rd April. The children learned to prepare for the start of the race (hands up), working as part of a team of 2 and competing in the kick board race on their own. By Ms Fiona Whittaker

Year 1 students enjoyed acting out the verbs they are learning in Thai class. By Kru Sue

Year 1 students do a warm up before they start every P.E. lesson. The children do a variety of muscle stretches and pulse raising games which are fun but also prepare the body for the skills and games to come. By Ms Fiona Whittaker

Year 1 students learned how to read and write words with ‘O’ vowel. By Kru Way

Year 11 Motivational Camp 2018

Last Friday the Year 11 students engaged in a series of activities as part of the Motivational Camp.

What the students Say

• I liked it when we got to play the team building game. By Alexander May

• I like the team-building activity, because it makes me have more conscious of what I’m doing and I learnt that communication is the most important thing to be able to be successful in lifetime. By Natthasit Songsurin

• The session was very enjoyable. I was able to learn a lot about my peers and got see a competitive side to all the students in my year. Overall it was loads of fun! By Julianna Mester

• The most joyful session for me is teamwork session. It helped us to communicate with the large group of people. By Phakteema Rugchoocheep

• I liked how we got to learn how to cook together. I enjoyed the team building session, it was very fun. I learned a lot about how to survive in university and skills I may use in the future. By Serena Payne

• I enjoyed the hog roast and the quiz, it was a good way to end the camp. By Sarah Ngarmseang

• I really enjoyed cooking Thai food and eating it too. It was also very interesting to see the 4th floor being built. I feel so motivated. My enthusiasm peaked. Thank you. By Alexandre Pravin

• It was fun! I really liked when we played the team building game in the sports hall. By HaYeon Song

English and Humanities Faculty Week

Students had an opportunity to stand before a gathered audience and sing, perform and orate poems from melancholic odes on unrequited love to joyful stanzas of nature’s glory, the participants lead our audience in tears of joy and tears of pain and hysterias laughter. By Mr Dixon

Teachers and students from across the school enjoyed dressing up as their favourite book character.

Once again the giant Scrabble board made an appearance and was played by students and staff in their Houses. Everyone had great fun building words together. The Yellow House were the winners of this competition with a few ‘triple words’ clearly showing some talent in this House.

During break times Mr Osbourne lead vocabulary games with Houses competing for House points using their knowledge of the English language. Students were ‘Hot Seated’ and had to guess the word written behind them with the help of their peers who could not use the word itself or actions to describe the word but had to be resourceful in their description to help their peer guess to word!

For Humanities Faculty Week our Year 7 History classes created Ancient Roman army shields and practiced formations used by the legionaries 2000 years ago. This was presented during assembly and students will be able to see them in action in school throughout this week in the Atrium. By Mr Richard Cramp

Our History VAP students battled against British International School over the half term break and qualified for the International History Bee and Bowl Championships in Khao Lak in June. Only two HeadStart teams were entered against 6 BIS teams and they still managed to qualify! A very impressive round by the Middle School team (Key Stage 3 students) against a team older than them (Key Stage 4 students) came down to a dramatic tie breaker, in which Kim Hyunseung in Year 7 grabbed the opportunity and answered the question correctly. Due to their success against an older team, they received automatic qualifying status. Our Junior Varsity team (Key Stage 4 students) came 2nd out of 4 competing teams with a point tally above 500 - a great score that also takes them to the Championships, where they’ll be battling against schools from all over Asia. Let’s wish them luck!

Eco Club News

By Ms Fiona Scott, Eco Warrior

The Primary Eco Club did a little investigation into Waste management at HeadStart. They managed to get an interview with Chef so that they could learn more about this topic. The interview ended with lots of “Wows” and was certainly an eye opener for our children to discover some of the things that go on in the HeadStart kitchen. A big thank you to Chef, from The Primary Eco Club.

This week the Primary Eco Club have been investigating the Waste Management System at school. They have interviewed Chef and followed Housekeeping with their afternoon routines. We have found out that the House Keeping Team spend a long time sorting through our school waste to separate the plastic, paper and general rubbish. We could all help the Housekeeping Team by making sure we throw our card and paper in the recycling bins and general organic waste in the non recycling bin. If you have any cardboard or plastic bottles that you wish to recycle from home but don’t know where to, bring them into school, we have recycling bins in the Foundation department and are happy to take these waste materials. Please help us to reduce our waste and save the world!

House News

Weigh Your Waste: Yellow Cheetahs (wasting only 2.4kg)

Primary Activities: Yellow Cheetahs & Blue Tigers (Jenga)

House Quiz: Red Phoenixes

Also, last week was the English & Humanities Faculty Week. The winners of the word games (all 3 days added together) were the Red House! The winners of Scrabble were the Yellow House!