Weekly Update 6, 29 Sept. 2017

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 here for easy reference.

Parent English Classes Now on Offer

HeadStart is now offering a beginners’ level English class for HeadStart parents every Tuesday afternoon from 3:30 till 4:20 pm for 350 Baht pp. Mr Joel Adams, HeadStart drama teacher, will be teaching the classes which are held in the Secondary language room number 1. If you would like to enrol for the classes, please contact Mr Adams by writing to [email protected].

Upcoming PISAC (Phuket International Schools) Cross Country Competition

We will be taking a team of students to the Phuket International Schools Cross Country Competition on Thursday 5th October 2017, held at the British International School. If your child is selected for the team they will bring a slip home for you to sign. They will need to wear their school PE Kit and bring sun cream, hat and water.

We will be leaving school at about 2:20 pm on Thursday by school bus, the races are due to start from 3:30 pm onwards starting with the youngest children. If you wish to watch or want to collect your child from BIS please do so, if not the buses will return to school at approximately 5:30 pm.

Upcoming Sports Faculty Week

Next Friday we will see the start of this years Sports Week, which will run from the 6th - 12th October, 2017. Students will be involved in a number of fun activities and House competitions, there will also be some gym competitions for parents to have a go at, before and after school during the week. We hope everyone gets active during the week!

PISAC Youth Developmental Football League

HeadStart is delighted to announce that the 2nd Phuket Youth Development Football League is to start on the 7th October 2017, here at HeadStart. Hopefully this means even more young Footballers will take up the opportunity to join in. The 1st PYDFL was a great success and we look forward to this being an even better competition.

If you want to be involved in the League please read through the details in the application letter, fill it in and hand it into Head Coach JR or hand it in directly to Cruzeiro at BIS. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact JR or Mr Lukats.

House News

Weigh Your Waste winners were the Red Phoenixes won for the THIRD week running, wasting 4.2kg of food. This week, as part of our Global Goals initiative at HeadStart we ran the Weigh Your Waste competitions every day. Our target for the week was to waste less than 70kg. Then, Friday’s Weigh Your Waste competition was worth double points! I will give the final result in next weeks update. The House Quiz winners: The Red Phoenixes. Primary lunchtime activity winners were the Blue Tigers.

This week the students also found out where their Houses were placed after the current House Merits were added to their scores. Well done to the Blue Tigers who have now taken the lead over the Yellow Cheetahs. So, there’s much to do for the Dragons and Phoenixes. Come on Dragons! come on Phoenixes!!

Languages Day News

By Ms Ackermann

On the 26 September we held our annual Languages Day. It was great fun as the Languages department organised fun classes, a treasure hunt, and bracelets that the students and teachers could wear on the day. In Secondary activities ranged from writing poems and words from foreign languages translated into English. The students had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the treasure hunt.

Foundation Department News

We are very proud of our hard working Stars of the Week in Reception. Certificates this week go to Emily and Will in Reception Yellow and Liam and Tuana in Reception Blue. Keep up the good work Reception!

Continuing with our mini beast theme in Reception we learnt about the habitats various bugs and insects live in. The children then got into groups to create their own environments for their mini beast painted rocks to live in. By Ms Smithie and Ms Kuusik

Primary Department News

This week Year 1 Yellow were investigating shadows by experimenting how to make them, what they are missing and changing their size using our monster or animal puppets. We discovered that shadows are the absence of light as our puppets block the light, we can not see the colour or features of our puppet and by moving them closer or away from the light they change size. By Mr Millington

This week in mathematics, Year 1 Yellow used their growing addition skills to create addition stories to bring their number bond learning and addition sentence writing to life. By Mr Millington

Year 2 students are learning the Thai vocabulary onthe topic of ‘My family’. By Kru Sue

The Year 3-4 Science ASP students had a great time experimenting with bubbles. By Ms Jones

Students enjoyed making their own bookmarks in the library this week. By Ms Mai, Librarian

Year 4 are making fortune tellers to practice asking permissions politely in Mandarin.By Ms Wei

Year 6 made posters about their daily routines in Mandarin class. By Ms Wei

Students in the Lego club were building their own dream bedrooms By Mr Toribio

Year 6 art work that they have created linked to their English work on the book ‘Eye of the Wolf’. By Ms Webb

Secondary Department News

By Ms Elizabeth Mason, Head of Secondary

This week and next we will begin our quality assurance checks. This will involve lesson observations with our new staff and then Book Looks for 7ears 7 and 10. During the Book Look we focus on a range of students within the cohort and are able to get a good idea of where students are progressing to and if teachers are setting work and marking appropriately. During the week before half term students will begin to complete their in class half termly assessment sheets. This sheet includes teachers and self-assessment sections, as well as a progression marker for KS3 and a grade for KS4 and 5. Students will be given time during lessons for this important and reflective practice.

Wishing you all a super weekend!

Duke of Edinburgh International Award Meeting Notes

By Mr Duncan Peake

Thank you to the parents who could make it to the DoE presentation on the morning of the 28th. For those of you that were unable to attend please find all relevant information from the meeting in the download below.

This video link has some more information regarding the award and has excellent examples of independent learning outside of the classroom. The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation

Students in Thai class were working on a group assignment where they had to make a presentation in Thai about what they did on the weekend. By Kru Tarnya

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