Weekly Update 13, 24 Nov. 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.

Important Safety Announcement

Students will no longer be allowed to walk out of the school to buy snacks at the shops behind the school. A member of the security team will be at the exit of the school from 3.30 - 4.30 pm Monday - Friday to ensure students do not walk off the property.

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Appropriate Dress Code When Coming to School

When entering the school campus, please ensure you are dressed appropriately and respectfully. Avoid skimpy gym wear that can be misconstrued as under garments and tee shirts with inappropriate texts. Thank you for your support it this matter.

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Wacky Tacky Dress Up for Charity–Shoe Box Appeal Final News

By Ms Fiona Scott

Two years ago, when we first ran the Shoe Box Christmas Gift Appeal in our new school campus, I felt incredibly proud to be a part of such a generous school community which transported over 300 shoe box gifts to an orphanage situated on the Thai / Burmese border called Children of the Forest. The photographs which followed certainly made it all worth while. Seeing pictures of the children receiving and opening their Christmas gifts meant that we as a school community, had brought a touch of happiness to a number of children in the North of Thailand, a job well done.

Yesterday we marked the end of our 2017 Christmas Shoe Box Charity Appeal and celebrated with a Wacky Tacky Dress Up For Charity Day and what a lot of fun we had in school. Under a lot of energy and an explosion of colour, our shoe box mountains kept on growing. By the end of the day, to see so many Christmas shoe box gifts was particularly overwhelming. Our school community had come together once again and shown a huge amount of support, kindness and generosity; all wrapped up in a whopping amount of presents!

In total we counted up a staggering 591 shoe boxes for the appeal. This amount far exceeded our targets and our expectations. A truly outstanding effort from our families and staff and all of us at HeadStart would like to give an enormous THANK YOU to everyone who brought in gifts for the appeal.

So, each shoe box brought in for the appeal was awarded 5 House points. These totals below will be added to the running totals and the final count for the Term 1 winners will be announced early next month. The results from the Christmas Shoe Box Appeal are as follows;

Green House 136 boxes adding 680 house points to the Green House total.

Yellow House 142 boxes adding 710 house points to the Yellow House total.

Red House 152 boxes adding 765 house points to the Red House total.

Blue House 161 boxes adding 805 house points to the Blue House total.

A fantastic effort all round and well done to the BLUE House for winning this appeal. Once all of the shoe boxes have been wrapped and organised into age groups we will allocate their final destination and keep you updated with this information.

Thank you to the mums who helped organise the shoeboxes!

House News

Last week’s House Quiz winners were the Red Phoenixes. The Primary lunchtime event was Tug of War and the strongest House overall, were the Blue Tigers. Weigh your waste winners, wasting 3.2kg of food were the Blue Tigers. Lastly, the students were told how many House Merits they have received so far this term. There’s only 4 weeks left until the Term 1 House Competition ends, so keep working hard, everyone! The Merits received so far:

Sports Department News

By Mr Richard Lukats, Athletics Director

Football News

Last week saw most of our boys football teams being involved in the Phuket International Schools Football Tournaments, held this year at Thanyapura and hosted by UWCT. All the boys did themselves and HeadStart proud with the manner and style they played in during the tournaments and we came away with a lot of silverware as well!

Congratulations to…

U19 Boys Team were the PISAC Champions! They beat BISP in the final 2-0. They were definitely the stand out team for the whole competition.

U13 Boys Team were the PISAC Champions! They beat BISP in the final 2-0 in a very competitive match

U11 Boys Team were the PISAC runners up to BIS

U9 Boys Team came 4th overall

Soccer 7s at BISP This Weekend

This weekend, Friday 24th - Sunday 26th November 2017, the U9, U11, U13 and Over 15 boys teams will all be involved in the BISP Soccer 7s. This is one of the biggest school competitions in South East Asia, we wish all our players good luck.

Next weekend, Friday 1st - Sunday 3rd December 2017, the U11 boys football team will be debuting at the Bangkok Soccer Schools Tournament, held at Patana International School. We wish the luck on their travels and we hope they have a great time on their residential trip.

Basketball News

The Senior Girls Basketball Team played Satree School on Friday 17th November @ HeadStart. There was a great atmosphere for the game with the HeadStart Cheer-leading Team giving the audience an added thrill with their Bangkok routines during the intervals. Head Coach Khun Ball used the game as an opportunity to get everyone in the team match fit. HeadStart started slowly and Satree raced to a 6, 1 lead early on. Often teams drop their heads and give up when someone takes such a lead, but not our HeadStart Girls, led by our Team Captain Natasha Chaloemtoem, they slowly chipped away at Satree’s lead and through great determination and some killer plays they turned the match around. HeadStart took the lead during the third quarter and extended their lead in the fourth and despite a strong final few minutes from Satree, HeadStart came away with a great win 14 - 12. Look out for the next game and come and support!!!

Wednesday 29th November; Senior Girls Basketball Team will be playing a mini tournament here @ HeadStart against KIS and BISP, Tip Off 3.30pm!!!

Phuket Youth Development League News

There were lots of goals this weekend! We even ended up with a 3 way tie in the U9 age group.

Don’t forget…the PYDL finals are on the 5th of December!

U7–Chelsea 5–7 Ban Jo

U9–Chelsea 5–1 Arsenal

U9–Man U 0–8 Liverpool

U11–Chealsea 10–1 Arsenal

U11–Man U 4–4 Liverpool

U13–Man U 0–5 Chelsea

U13–Liverpool 6–3 Arsenal

Saturday Thai Culture Club

By Kru Nee

This month Early Years to Year 1 students had a lot of fun participating in the Saturday Thai Club. We honored the late king by committing to the sufficiency economy by making piggy banks from recycled items. We planted yellow marigolds plants together as the yellow colour is the royal colour of the late king.

Students in Year 2-6 who joined the Saturday Thai Culture Club studied about the late King Bhumibol through activities such as quizzes and games. We learned about the philosophy behind the ‘sufficiency economy’ and made a pencil box from recycled items.

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Foundation Student News

During our jungle animals topic we went on a hunt around the school to look for any jungle animals. We made binoculars so we could get a closer look and it was very exciting! By Ms Danielle Jones

In P.E. classes Preschool children are using different equipment to improve coordination. By Ms Fiona Whittaker

Primary Student News

By Mr Andrew Whittaker, Head of Primary and Foundation

Exam Week has come to an end, and Primary Teachers are now busy marking exam papers and compiling your child’s End of Term 1 Report. These reports will be shared with you all on Thursday 14th December. I have been really impressed with the maturity all our pupils have shown this week when sitting their exams. Exam Week can be a stressful time for some students, but I am sure that every student will have reason to celebrate the learning they have done this term, and be proud of their achievements and their End of Term 1 Report.

On Wednesday, the whole school ended our Shoe Box Appeal with a very colorful Wacky Tacky Dress Up Day. Despite the intensity of exams this week, it was great to see pupils and teachers being creative and wearing such colorful and amusing clothes.

What an amazing success our Shoe Box Appeal has been! Over 580 shoe boxes have been donated by pupils , parents and teachers. This far exceeded our target of 400 shoe boxes. Our efforts will ensure that over 580 vulnerable children in Phuket will have their Christmases brightened up by receiving a shoe box packed full of lovely ‘goodies’. A big thank you to you all for making your shoe box donations.

I wish you all a happy and peaceful weekend.

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Congratulations to Chutikarn Doowa (Nanki) in Year 5 blue for being such a book worm. She has been awarded a reading award certificate from the school Librarian, Ms Mai.

Year 5 visited the Mining Museum! By Ms Lindsay Williams

Secondary Student News

By Ms Elizabeth Mason, Head of Secondary

Another busy and rewarding week in Secondary has passed. It is unbelievable that there are only three weeks left of the longest term. I appreciate the hard work of parents monitoring and supporting their children to support best results in our school.

Students have been taking examinations this week. Teachers will now mark these and students will receive a report at the end of term with an examination grade and a term grade. The examination grade is just the exam mark and the term grade is how the student is doing overall with all the mini tests in class assessment class and home learning. Often the end of term grade is more accurate reflection of progress than looking at one exam result.

Please ensure that you put the following dates in you diaries:

13 December, 03:35 pm Teacher Parent Conferences (PTC) for Years 9,10,12 and 13 on Secondary floor in classrooms. See directory in hallway upon arrival.

14 December, 3:35 pm Teacher Parent Conferences (PTC) Years 7 & 8 again on Secondary floor in classrooms. See directory in hallway upon arrival.

February 2018 Year 11 Parent Teacher Conferences as it is more timely during to the mock exams that take place in January.

Many thanks for your continued support of the Secondary school.

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Phuket Governor’s Recognition

Nutcha Phaisamran and Aorn Phewngam took part in the Yamaha Thailand Music Festival 2017 with Nutcha winning in the 9-15 year old singing competition and Aorn and her band winning the Under 15 Band Challenge. They were invited to the Governor of Phuket’s office and were given a certificate of appreciation for their accomplishment.

Year 8 did a great job making clocks in their Design and Technology class. By Mr Duncan Peake

Year 10 DoE Group 2 Bronze Level Practice Trip