Weekly Update 12

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:

Parent Social Event

Moving abroad, adjusting to a new country and making new friends isn’t always easy. In order to develop links of friendship in the HeadStart community we have organised a social event with a guest speaker who will speak briefly on the topic of ‘Developing Independence and Functional Life Skills’ after which the Chalong Bay Rum team have organised an exciting journey of tasting different flavoured cocktails made with their signature pure sugar cane rum. This evening is not to be missed! Book your ticket at the front office starting on the 22nd of November.

HeadStart’s Got Talent

On Friday the 25th of November we will hold our annual HeadStart’s Got Talent competition. Six acts from Primary and six acts from Secondary will complete against each other. The show will kick off at 1:30. Come and support your House! The event is sponsored by Hard Rock Cafe, Phuket FM Radio, Phuket Wake Park, Splash Jungle and SFX Cinema.

Into the Woods Jr - 8 December 6:30 pm

Come and join us for an evening full of mystical magic when HeadStart’s sports hall will be transformed into scary, yet enticing forest as our CAPA Academy bring these twisted fairy tales to life. Be careful what you wish for as Stephen Sondheim’s and James Lapine’s cockeyed fairytale comes to life in this adaptation of their groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning musical. Into the Woods JR. features all of your favorite characters – Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (and his beanstalk) and the Witch in this lyrically rich retelling of classic Brothers Grimm fables.

The musical centers on a baker and his wife, who wish to have a child; Cinderella, who wishes to attend the King’s festival; and Jack, who wishes his cow would give milk. When the baker and his wife learn that they cannot have a child because of a witch’s curse, the two set off on a journey to break the curse and wind up changed forever.

Workshop with Mr. Alan Yip

We would like to draw the Secondary parent’s attention to the SCORE program that we will be offering to students at HeadStart. As an introduction to this we would like to invite you to attend a workshop hosted by Alan Yip on Wednesday 23rd November at 8:00 am in the Secondary Hall on the topic of ‘7 reasons students do poorly in school’. This looks at the challenges faced by students whilst offering methods to help overcome these. Alan has recently hosted a workshop at HeadStart and this not only proved successful but also very popular.

Recycling at HeadStart–By Ms Scott

HeadStart is in the process of changing the recycling system and simplifying it for all students. Around the school, you may have noticed the two middle bins from our four bin system have been blocked off. To make it easier for the children, we will now only be operating a two bin system. This will involve one bin being used for all recyclable materials and one bin being used for organic waste and packaging that cannot be recycled. At this stage, we want to ensure that children are not just disregarding their rubbish in any of the four bins provided; we want them to think carefully about the correct disposal. Once children are secure with recyclable and non-recyclable waste, we can then open up more bins for different materials.

During the course of the day our Housekeeping team will empty the recycling bins and organize the waste into bigger bins, ready for collection. All of our recyclable waste will be collected up and sold to the nearby recycling factory. Any money we make will go into the Eco Fund where we can start to buy more flowers, plants, seeds and pots.

Additional Insurance

Although HeadStart has procured accident insurance for each student during the school day, the maximum coverage for a school insurance policy will only cover up to 10,000 Baht per incident. Therefore, as a school we highly recommend that each parent purchase additional insurance for your child. Thanks to the Parent Committee’s suggestion we have organised a booth where you can obtain further information and insurance promotions at school in the atrium on the 24th of November between 2:00-3:00 pm.

Lost and Found

Just a reminder to please collect lost items at the Nurse’s room as all items will be given to charity by Monday afternoon.

Hairy HeadStart Movember Fundraiser

Mo Bro Paul Williams, Mo Bro Craig O’Nions, Mo Bro Patrick Brown, Mo Bro Paddy O’Hagan, Mo Bro Carl Osborne have decided to grow their mustaches for charity throughout the month of November. The money our Hairy HeadStart Brothers raise will be passed onto the Movember Foundation in the UK. The Movember Foundation is a charity determined to tackle some of the most significant health issues faced by men and help to raise money for charities fighting prostate cancer, testicular cancer and mental health issues such as depression.

A number of parents have said they would like to contribute to the Movember Foundation. If you would like to make a donation please contact the School Cashier in the front office. You can learn more about the important work Movember is funding and the impact your donation will have here http://uk.movember.com/programs/cause

House News

Congratulations to the Yellow House for winning the Year 10 Football Competition!

The Houses now have new logos! The red House is now the House of the Phoenix thanks to the student’s vote.

Foundation News

By Ms Scott

It has been wonderful to see so many students now eating healthy snacks at break times. Thank you to all the parents who have been making an effort to provide a healthier option for their child as healthy bodies equals healthy minds. Just a reminder that any chocolate, crisps or candy will be put back into the children’s bags and can be taken home at the end of the day.

Preschoolers enjoyed their painting ice activity this week

Magic Water–By Ms Jones

This week in maths Reception have been learning all about capacity. The children used magic water to fill different beakers. They have learnt the new words ‘Full, Half-full and Empty’ and could show this with the magic water.

Primary News

Year 2 Assembly–By Mr Cuesta

We were all very excited to perform in front of everybody last Tuesday. We have been working hard for two weeks to make sure our assembly about the seasons was fun and entertaining and it’s definitely been well worth the effort! I would like to thank particularly Miss Mindaro for her incredible work with most of the costumes. They all looked awesome and the children really have appreciated her hard work. We would also like to thank all the parents who came to see our assembly.

Year 2 Collecting and Interpreting Data–By Mr Williams

Year 2 Blue have been learning about collecting and interpreting data. After learning about different types of charts and graphs and how to interpret them, we decided to carry out our own surveys to find out information about each other. We asked people what their favourite thing was, for example, colour, animal, TV programme etc. We collected our results in a tally chart and then converted our tally chart into a bar graph. We then answered a question about our bar graph.

Year 4 is working on watercolor backgrounds for viking ship paintings

Year 4 team work! Looking at maps and using the Key to answer challenging questions

Year 5 Visits the Mining Museum–By Mr Brady

Year 5 enjoyed their trip to the Mining Museum this week. They found out some interesting facts about the history of Phuket and had the chance to pretend to be a songthaew driver.

Year 6 Beach Clean Up–By Ms Armstrong and Ms Axford

Year 6 visited Nai Harn beach on Thursday as part of our geography topic about coasts. We began the trip by cleaning up the beach (collecting 24 full bags of rubbish!) before making some observations. When we were cleaning the beach at Nai Harn some tourists came and asked if we had extra plastic bags as they wanted to help us clean the beach! I think this is pretty powerful when we can see the impact our students are having on the local community and visitors to Phuket! We looked at the different buildings and their purposes, discussed whether we could see a long shore drift and made some drawings that we could later use in our geography lesson. We were rewarded with snack time!

Secondary News

By Ms Mason

Examination Preparation

On the 21st of November students begin to revise for the upcoming exams. Preparation begins with revision in class using past papers. Students should also begin to revise at home. This will culminate in exam week which starts on the 28th of November. All Examination Scopes and Revision Packs can be found here http://headstartphuket.com/secondary/exam-revision-guides

Year 7, 8 and 9 (Key Stage 3) will be examined in the core subjects of English, Maths and Science after which they will undergo rigorous teacher assessment in the other subject areas. The results will be reported back to parents at the end of term 1 through the reports and the parent conferences which take place in December.

Year 10 will sit examinations in every subject during lesson time. Year 11 will take their ‘Mock Practical’exams between the 28th of November and January 2017.

Students in Year 11 preparing for their Mock Exams should study the complete syllabus as outlined in the Cambridge Website http://www.cie.org.uk/

Duke of Edinburgh–By Craig O’Nions

We are fully in DofE season now with most weekends in November seeing a trip take place. Year 10 group 2 depart on their second expedition this weekend which means that all of year 10 will have completed their training and practice weekends. This leaves only the assessed adventurous journey to Koh Bon! The Silver group in year 12 and 13 have recently taken part in their training weekend for sailing with Mr Lowcock. Students have enjoyed the journey aspect of their DofE and can now start to turn their focus to the other sections in the award; skill, service and physical recreation.

Throughout October and November, many teachers have volunteered to flock to the beaches with DofE students and combine their passion with Trash Hero Phuket in order to clean all of the beaches from Layan to Karon! Trash Hero have recently won a nation-wide award for their efforts and the students at HeadStart should be proud that they have helped contribute to this. With only one organised trip from HeadStart to the beach cleans left, students must make up their own beach cleaning hours independently, though many will continue to contribute to Trash Hero Phuket to do so.

The remaining two sections, skill and physical recreation, will see students participating in exciting activities such as teaching magic, water polo, volunteering at the orphanage and cooking!

Year 11 students who are waiting for their certificates from last year should expect receive these just after Christmas whilst some of their year group finish off their paperwork.

University Fair–By Ms Lucass

On Thursday the 17th of November myself and Mr Mason accompanied the Sixth Form students to British International School to attend a university fair. Students attended talks delivered by universities from the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia. Students also had the opportunity to speak directly to a large number of university representatives during the fair. I was really impressed by the confident and mature manner in which our students engaged in conversation with these universities.

Over the last three weeks I have been holding individual meetings with both year 12 and 13 students to produce an action plan for their further education. I will also shortly be holding a number of careers and higher education workshops with students to support students with personal statements and applications.

Science Week–By Mr Cook

Last week Headstart ran an exciting and engaging programme of events throughout the school with a Mars theme. The week began with a bang… literally! An introductory assembly full of exploding hydrogen balloons, rocket propulsion systems and cool carbon dioxide (dry ice) recreated aspects of the martian atmosphere in the sports hall.

The Primary department had great fun searching the school for clues on the Mars treasure hunt run by Miss Lucass, and enjoyed visiting the secondary labs for some rocket investigations. Mr O’Hagan and Mr Cook visited Foundation and did some fun science demonstrations including alka seltzer rockets and some more bangs!

The Secondary department organized by Mr Brown launched into orbit with water rockets on the secondary pitch with a winner of 30 metres distance! The ‘Mars Habitat’ competition ran all week where students were asked to produce a design for an artificial environment where humans could survive long term and begin to colonise the planet. And there were quizzes across the whole school arranged by Mr Williams.

The week ended with a Mars Lander competition where students had to design and build a contraption to land an egg safely and accurately when dropped from the Secondary floor to the ground.

Thai Department News

Year 2 students and their parents worked together on their Gratong as part of our school’s Loy Gratong celebration.

P.E. Department News

Over 16 Sports Social Event

Parents,friends and students over 16 yrs old are welcome to join a Touch Rugby 10’s & Soccer 7’s event on the 19th of November, 2016 between 4:00-6:00 pm at the HeadStart pitch. There will be Free Hog roast and refreshments laid on for all players afterwards. Teams to be organised on the day. If you would like to play please come along, the more the merrier! No experience or skill required at all. Just fun!

Under 13 Boys PISAC Football Champions!

This week HeadStart hosted the U 13 and over 15 boys 7 aside PISAC football tournaments. Unfortunately the turn out from other PISAC affiliated schools on the island was not as large as last weeks U9 and U11 events we hosted, but nevertheless it was still a fun and competitive event in both ages.

Our U13 boys did fantastically well in what was in effect a PISAC U 13 final against KIS and they came out emphatic winners 8-0. Well done to all the boys who played. Our Over 15 senior boys unfortunately were not as successful on this occasion and having lost 2-0 in their fist game to PIA UWC they were up against it for the rest of the tournament. Nevertheless, a marked improvement in attitude and performance saw them draw 1-1 with BISP in their following game which again proves that when the team are really focused they can play some excellent football. Here’s hoping that with BISP soccer 7’s coming up in 2 weeks time they can learn from this and produce the performances we all know they are capable of. Good luck boys!

Brendon Edouard with Youth Football Home Win Singa Cup 2016

Congratulations to Brendon Edouard who recently joined the Youth Football Home to represent Thailand in the Under 16 category. The Singa cup is Asia’s premier international youth football tournament with many top football teams from around the world in participation. Brendon was a key player in contributing to the overall success of the team with some great individual performances scoring 4 goals making him the second highest scorer in the tournament. Congratulations to Brendon Edouard and all of the Youth Football Home, along with Coach Hannu, for winning the cup! Singa Cup info http://www.singacup.com/2016-u16/

ISB Swimming Results

Shane and Qistina went to an ISB swim meet in Bangkok last weekend (Nov 11th-13th). Congratulations to Qistina who was placed overall 3rd in her age group (11-12) and to Shane won a medal for 200M free relay and an overall 9th for his 100M.

Around the Island

Club Med is now offering a 10% discount on their Christmas camp programmes for HeadStart students. Prices start from 8,500 Baht per week between Monday and Friday. More information here https://www.clubmed.co.th/r/Phuket/y#kids