Weekly Update 6

Announcements

Reporting Systems Meeting Invitation to All Parents by Senior Management

This year, we have made significant changes and improvements to our reporting and assessment systems in both the Primary and Secondary school. These changes will enable you as a parent, to have clear feedback and information on your child’s academic progress and development throughout the year.

We invite you for a presentation on the new reporting and assessment systems by Senior Management in the Secondary Hall from 8 - 9 am on Tuesday October 11th.

เนื่องจากปีการศึกษานี้ ทางโรงเรียนได้มีการปรับปรุงและพัฒนาระบบการประเมินทั้งในระดับชั้นประถมและมัธยมศึกษา ซึ่งในการเปลี่ยนแปลงครั้งนี้ทางโรงเรียนมีความประสงค์ที่จะรายงานผลและขอรับฟังความคิดเห็นจากผู้ปกครอง ทั้งนี้จึงขอเรียนเชิญท่านผู้ปกครองเข้ารับฟังรายละเอียดดังกล่าวจากฝ่ายผู้บริหารโรงเรียน ที่ห้องประชุม Secondary Hall ในวันอังคาร ที่ 11 ตุลาคมนี้ เวลา 8.00 น.- 9.00น.

Mini Vegetarian Festival at HeadStart

On the 6th of October we invite all students, teachers and staff to participate in the Phuket Vegetarian Festival by wearing all white clothing. Chef Pornthep and his team will prepare additional vegetarian options for lunch on this day.

Tournament of Minds - Australasian Pacific Final Update

The students are getting more and more excited about their forthcoming adventure to Australia’s Gold Coast. The preparations have been going very well during our ASP time and the students have bonded well as a team and have been demonstrating excellent collaboration skills.

Their collaboration this week has extended to break and lunchtimes, when they have been working hard to sell raffle tickets for some fantastic prizes which have been most generously donated by a number of Phuket businesses.

The prizes are:

Return flights to Chiang Mai for two people with Thai Airways.

Tamarind Village, Chiang Mai, in the Lanna Room for two people - two night stay, including breakfast and Spa discount

The Kee Resort & Spa, Deluxe Pool View Room and Spa Voucher - two night stay

Patong Merlin Hotel - two night stay

Bangkok Phuket Hospital Voucher

Dibuk Hospital Voucher

The students are selling raffle tickets for 25 THB per ticket or 100 THB for 5 tickets. If you would like to buy a ticket please visit the table which will be in the atrium between 3 and 4, Monday to Thursday next week.

Thank you to Dr Khemawan for donating a new ‘friend’ for the Science department

Please register by October 10th with Fabienne Mester, HeadStart Dance Academy coordinator by email [email protected] Tel: 0835219568

Specials

10% discount for Headstart Student 10% discount for all students interested to do both camps Note that the discount is not cumulative with Headstart students discount.

Phuket Art Competition 2016

On the 24th of September, several students from HeadStart took part in the Phuket Art Competition 2016 at Anuban Phuket school. There were over 40 schools from Phuket competing. Congratulations to ‘Team Modelling Clay’ who won the silver prize and to ‘Team Paper Collage’ who won the bronze prize. Special thanks to Kru Euw, Kru Dia and Kru May for their dedication in training the students.

Team Modelling Clay:

Tete, Song and Angela in Year 1.

Team Paper Collage:

Teeto, Rei and Mook in Year 1.

House News by Ms Erika

Thank you to our Languages Department for arranging some fun activities for the students to take part in which contributed to our already existing activities that students can win House points for. Congratulations to the Yellow House for taking the lead!

House Totals for this week

1st - 136 Points Yellow

2nd - 120 Points Red

3rd - 108 Points Blue

4th - 85 Points Green

Languages Day

On the 26th of September the Language department organised a grand assortment of activities for the students for Languages Day 2016. There was a Secondary quiz, Key Stage 2 treasure hunt, an assembly, the choir sang “hello Around the world”. All students and staff had the chance to wear a sticker where they wrote how many languages they speak. It was impressive to see some grown up’s walking around with up to 6 languages on their sticker!

Foundation News

Little preschoolers had fun painting and making their blue birds!

Reception Visits Bird Park Ms Amy and Ms Danielle

Reception Yellow and Blue had a fantastically flapping time at the bird park. We watched the birds playing and listened to them singing their happy bird songs. Some very brave children, and teachers, fed the birds and even let some birds land on their head!! After some well earned snacks we all watched the bird show where Ms Danielle, and even super brave Ira and Cooper volunteered to help with the show!

Head Teachers Weekly Update on Primary

Mr Andrew Whittaker

We have again seen a very busy week here in Primary. We started the week celebrating our Languages Day on Monday with a whole school assembly, where we were provided with some wonderful international singing allowing us all to hear some of the many languages we speak here at HeadStart. It has been great to see all the Primary pupils dashing about filling in their scavenger hunt question sheets challenging them to find out what languages their teachers can speak and lots of other interesting facts about the different languages we have at HeadStart. This was yet an other example of the international diversity of our wonderful school; English may be the language of choice, however, we are blessed with a plethora of languages throughout our community.

Continuing the languages theme we ran a phonics session in the Thai parent meeting for our Reception and Year 1 parents. They were required to work in groups learning the letter sounds and actions for the first six letters we teach - s, a, t, p, i, n and they were able to blend and segment these letters to decode and make words, a big thank you to Mrs Fallows for leading this workshop.

We are well into our book monitoring process and we have been looking at the fantastic English and Maths books from Years 1 to 6. It is great to see such good work that the children are producing; this is a testament to their hard work and the dedicated and professional teachers we have here at HeadStart who are certainly developing the school’s aim of Inspiring a Love of Learning!

Whatever you are all doing this weekend I wish you and your families a most enjoyable one.

Global Action Week by Kate Thongsen

Last week was the Eco Club’s first project of the year - The World’s Largest Lesson. Teachers were encouraged to teach their classes about one of the Global Goals. Lots of classes got involved and did lots of fun activities. Well done everyone and thank you for your support and enthusiasm!

Mandarin and French class students learned about Climate Action in our language class.

Year 2 Yellow and Blue learned about goal # 3: good health and well-being.They made posters to advise on personal hygiene.

Year 3 Yellow have been learning all about Global Goals # 14 and 15: life under water and on land: endangered animals and what is causing them to go extinct. The children went home and researched facts about their kindred animal and came up with ideas about how we could help. We then all created posters to share our findings and did a gallery walk to see each other’s facts. We then came up with a class pledge to help the endangered animals in any way we could.

Year 4 Yellow did Global Goal # 14: Life Below the Water. Students discussed ideas of how to help reduce the problem of waste going into our water.

In Year 5 Yellow the children drew or wrote about what they would take with them if they had a sudden holiday and then did the same as if they had to leave permanently, as refugees. We discussed the difference and considered what life as a refugees would be like.

Year 5 Science by Stephen Brady

Students carried out an experiment to see if light really does obey the law of reflection. They used a mirror and a torch to look for the incident ray and the reflected ray. They were then ready to measure the angles of incidence and reflection to see if they were equal. We agreed that, whenever light is reflected, it does follow this law.

In science, Year 4 conducted an experimented using eggs to represent teeth enamel.

Thai Department Update

Year 2 ‘Thai as a Foreign Language’ Class by Kru Kan

Our Year 2 students in the Thai as a Foreign Language class were having lots of fun learning how to address their family members in Thai. Their lesson was aptly titled,’Nee Keu Krai’.

Year 2 ‘Thai as a First Language’ Class by Kru Nid

Meanwhile, in our Thai as a First Language class, the students played ball passing games in which those who were lucky enough to have the ball when the music stopped got to answer the questions. Always a good way to pique their interest in the lessons to come.

Head Teachers Weekly Update on Secondary

by Mrs Elizabeth Mason

It has been a very productive week in Secondary. Teachers are having formal lesson observations plus learning walks are happening to ensure consistency and quality in our teaching and learning. We have completed the Book Scrutiny for years 7 and 10 and we flagged up that teachers are setting plenty of challenge and stretch however our less able learners may need more scaffolding to access parts of the curriculum. Teachers and Heads of department will be looking to differentiate in their subject areas and how to improve.

Now that most of the fundamentals are in place for the academic year, this week and next students and teachers will be ensuring display in classrooms and around the school is exciting and relevant. We will also be distributing vocabulary sheets to all students to secure key vocabulary knowledge and we will also have a half termly assessment sheet in every student’s book for every subject to ensure progression.

Reports will be issued on the 14th of October. These are data reports that give parents an overview of how their child is progressing thus far. These reports will make reference to the progression frame work markers. You will be able to see if your child is working towards, meeting or exceeding their age related targets.

I have been reflecting on my two months here on Phuket and working at HeadStart. It has been a most excellent start and I am proud to be part of such a productive and hardworking team. What shines through is that our school really is a family school and it is great to meet with and talk to our very supportive and enthusiastic parent body. I have also been enjoying opportunities to be part of the wider community and this weekend will take part in the Duke of Edinburgh Kamala beach clear this Saturday. Watch this space for Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) and Eco news in the next few weeks.

Student Council 2016 - 2017 by James Barker

Thursday the 29th of September 2016 was the first HeadStart Student Council meeting of the academic year. Two representatives from each homeroom in years 5 to 13 were present. An agenda was agreed prior to the meeting and led by our Head Boy and Girl, Morgan and Belle. Students discussed the agenda points raising issues that they felt were important to the everyday running of the school. Students demonstrated a positive and mature approach and had clearly thought about what they wanted to discuss.

These meetings will be held at the end of each month and points raised will be available on the school website in the near future. A very interesting and enjoyable first meeting.

Student Council on the Website: http://headstartphuket.com/secondary/student-council