Weekly Update #25, 3 April 2021

Upcoming events can be found on the website under School Life → Calendar and are outlined here for easy reference.

For daily updates and news follow the HeadStart Facebook Page and You Tube channel.

Secondary Parent Meeting Invitation - ‘Keeping Your Child Safe from Harmful Substances”

We want to invite all Secondary parents to a meeting on the topic of ‘Keeping children safe from harmful substances in school and outside of school’. The meeting will be on Thursday the 8th of April at 8:15 - 9:00 am in the Sports Hall. In the meeting, the Secondary Leadership Team will share their insight into the growing culture among children/young adults globally to use and experiment with various legal and illegal substances. It also addresses their observations and knowledge of the prevalence of substance abuse in Phuket and specifically what HeadStart is doing to keep students safe in school. We look forward to seeing you there. -Richard Lukats, on behalf of the Secondary Leadership Team

After School Programmes (ASPs)

Just a reminder that Friday 2 April is the final day of ASP classes and 9 April is the last day of Tennis, Jiu Jitsu, Dance, LAMDA, Instruments, Football Academy, Swimming Academy. There are no changes to the timings of the classes or to the bus schedules. -Ms Anisa Van Der Laan

School Closure for Songkran Holidays

All staff will be on holidays from April 12th and back to work on April 16th. If you have any visa or admin requests, please be sure to visit the office before or after those dates.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Please be reminded that our Foundation and Primary Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTC) will be taking place next week. Please see the details below regarding dates and timings:

If you are having any difficulties in booking a PTC slot with your child’s homeroom teacher then please contact Khun Aon, Primary secretary, and she will be happy to assist you. Write to [email protected]. Your child’s Primary End of Term 2 report will be released to you electronically via the Parent Portal. If you would like a printed copy of your child’s Primary End of Term 2 report, then please contact my Secretary, Khun Aon, and she will be happy to print the report off for you to collect. -Mr Sam Khan, Head of Foundation and Primary

Songkran Celebrations

We are very excited to share our Songkran Celebration news with you as follows:

Students and teachers are invited to wear a Thai flowery shirt or Thai traditional costume.

New Parent Fitness Class

We have some good news for all of our fitness enthusiasts. Starting on 19 April, every Monday between 8.00-9.00am Ms Mina, dance teacher, will be hosting an ‘dancercize’ session for parents. This will be a fun way of exercising while also improving coordination and having a great time doing it!

A unique aspect of our school is the fantastic community feeling generated from our parent fitness programme. At HeadStart we offer running, Yoga, HIIT, Pilates and Functional Fitness classes, run by professionals in their field from 8.00-9.00 every morning. Click on the link to see what’s on offer: HeadStart Parent Fitness Timetable

What a fantastic night! The HeadStart panthers swam 48,300 meters over the course of 12 hours and managed to raise 54,760 Baht for Scholars of Sustenance SOS Thailand! I am so proud of all the hard work each swimmer has put into their relays as well as raising money for the Scholars of Sustenance. As of right now (before the ‘pay per laps’ funds have been collected) we have raised 54,760! We will smash our goal of 66,000 with no problem. I am so excited to see what we raised as a team! As far as the relays go, the top groups are as follows:

• Kate and Nae Nae: 2,350 meters
• Artem & Ryan: 2,700 meters

Spectacular shoutout to Artem, Matvey, and Ryan who swam the last hour and hit a total of 5,450 meters! -Coach Brown

Football

Our U11 Utd team played in a friendly match on Tuesday against a mixed U11 UWC Thailand team. It was a great game with some really positive football being played. The boys never stopped running and it was that energy that helped them to combine to score some excellent goals. Thank you to UWCT for being fantastic guests! -Coach Frost

Basketball

On Monday we had twelve U11 students who were involved in a 4 on 4 basketball tournament hosted by British International School, Phuket - BISP. We had two squads and both got to play in 3 games each. The students played really hard and did a phenomenal job. We won some and lost some but all in all had a fantastic time. A big thanks to BIS for hosting and creating a space for some fun basketball play! -Coach Garrett

Volleyball

On Monday the HeadStart Senior Volleyball squad hosted the number one ranked team in Phuket, Pluk Punya. The standard of play was fantastic and the HeadStart team narrowly lost 3 games to 2. Well done everyone, we look forward to the rematch! -Kru Nee

This week in Early Years we visited the Aquarium. We saw lots of fish, sharks, jellyfish, stingrays, penguins, snakes, geckos and so much more! The children were so excited, very absorbed and mesmerised by what they saw! Taking learning outside of the classroom and visiting places in children’s communities is a great tool for learning. Children are able to experience real life environments, promotes language development, sparks interest and curiosity promotes independence and is also a great way for children’s understanding of their world and their place within it. -Ms Keeley and Ms Suzi

This week in Early Years, we hosted a stay and play and invited our parents and family into our classrooms for some sensory fun! What a brilliant morning it was, thank you for attending and coming to experience how our children in Early Years learn through play and messy experiences. We made ginormous bubbles, played in bubbles and water, explored our imagination in the sand, made slime, playdough, chocolate gloop, and even made our own ‘snow’. We had a baked bean explosion in the volcano the children made from clay and we pretended it was raining with our rice and coconut mixture. We hope you enjoyed joining us and we look forward to seeing you next time in our next stay and play for lots more fun! -Ms Keeley and Ms Suzi (A big thank you to Nabdao’s father for supplying us with the beautiful album of photos!)

Congratulations to Phupha, Bhumi, Tiger, Leo, James, Alex, another Leo, Arthur and Sophie for their success in achieving ‘Student of the Month’ in Humanities. Well done and keep up the good work!

Thank you Khun Wilaiporn (mother of Jasmin) and Khun Kanitta (mother of Grace) for showing the Year 4 students how to make ‘Khao Tom Mud’ a Thai dessert made from banana wrapped in steamed sticky rice with coconut milk. The students enjoyed making and tasting this delicious Thai snack! -By Kru Pim and Kru Way

We would like to thank Dr Joy, a Dental Health Care professional (mother of Phumi) for coming to speak with the Year 1 ‘Thai First Language’ class about the importance of oral hygiene and dental care. - Kru Poy and Kru Cherry

It is important that revision be dynamic and tailored to the students’ needs. In discussion based subjects such as English Literature, the importance of critical thinking, apposite annotating and careful planning cannot be overstated. Year 13 A Level students thus turned their hand today to a ‘silent debate’, whereby they approached a passage from The Handmaid’s Tale together, poring over the text, annotating it and responding to the comments of their peers. This process then, of course, feeds forward their planning and will assist them in their sixth and final VIMA (timed practice) of the academic year next week. This approach was shown to me by Mr Cramp, the Head of Humanities, and is a great example of pedagogical approaches being shared amongst the faculties at HeadStart. Mr. Pollicutt, Head of English

Special Promotion from Padel Phuket!

From the 10-12th of April, there will be an open house and introduction to Padel Phuket for parents and children from HeadStart! Padel Phuket is located next to Green Man Pub & Restaurant in Chalong. Open daily from 8.00-23.00 with equipment for both rent and sale. Come and join the fun and try out the fastest growing sport in the world! Please register by email before the 9th of April providing your full name, amount of person, email and phone from all visitors.

• The rest of Songkran week we offer free racket rental and balls!
• Bookings are made through Facebook page Padel Phuket, Whatsapp and Messenger. Code is ‘Headstart’ to benefit from this special price. -Phuket Padel Team

KIDS MEALS PHUKET’S Vision and Mission are to create delicious meals and encourage children to have healthy eating habits.

KIDS MEALS PHUKET is the first and only one bespoke company in Phuket offering nutritious, ready-to-go and kid-approved children food from 9+ month up until 7 years. We strive to offer the highest quality of the services to our clients. Our mission is to produce delicious and at the same time exceptionally clean & healthy food for the most important people in this world- our kids. Our desire and goals are to take over the time-consuming cooking process from parents and make daily life easier for all families. We produce kids’ food, compliant with all requirements, regulations and norms concerning healthy children’s nutrition. Our Creative and tasty menus are cooked with NO GMO, NO MSG , NO sugar, NO preservatives, No additives and No coloring - prepared by our professional Le Cordon Bleu Chef Adam Goodman. We deliver food everywhere in Phuket. We think about our plant and want to give good example to all children. Therefore all our meals are packed in Eco-friendly plastic - Environmentally Degradable Plastic (EDP) 100% degradable containers with safety lid that meets all requirements for storage of food. Each food has a customized label with the described nutritional chart content of the respective dish, potential allergen items and the caloric values, and the expiration date. The paper bags we use are biodegradable and easy to recycle or compost.

Review our website and all details here: www.kidsmealsphuket.com

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Attention A-Level and IGCSE Students

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5. Gameplan for effective Revision and time management
6. Exam-smart strategies and advanced test-taking skills
7. How to boost your memory power by 300%

Course Fee - Discounted price for HeadStart students: 9,970 Baht **Dates and Times - ** Sat, April 10, 17, 24; May 8 between 100-5.00 pm

To register or for more information regarding this opportunity, please email Mr Yip. [email protected]