Weekly Update 25

Announcements

Dates for Your Diary

Upcoming 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:

Thank You!

A big thank you to Steffen and Khun Thanyarat who have very kindly donated 4,000 organic mosquito repellent arm bands to the school. The Bugs Leave arm bands will be made available to students, parents and staff. Steffen and K. Thanyarat manage Ocean Line Co., LTD which supplies a range of high quality and environmentally friendly sun protection products. For more information about these products please visit their website http://oceanline.asia

International Day 2017 Announcements

International Day 2017 promises to be a fun family event with 20 countries registered for tables, food, performances and the parade of nations. Thank you to all parents and students who have put in such a great effort.

Important Reminders

• You are welcome to set up your tables and booths starting at 9:00 am and through out the day.

• Parents should pick up their children between 2:30-3:00 pm (or earlier if you are dressing up or preparing a performance). Students in Foundation and Primary who are not picked up will be in the dining room waiting for parents.

• In order to encourage full attendance, and due to the fact that all staff are on duty to help with the logisitics of the event, there are no ASP’s or school buses on Friday the 24th of March.

• School buses will be available to transport parents to and from their cars. They will be driving up and down the main roads. Just flag them down or call 076612876 for Admin assistance.

In preparation for International Day students can find facts about the countries they and their friends come from on the dining room tables. Eat, read and learn!

Congratulations to Mr and Mrs Cramp (History teacher and Head of Creative Arts) on the arrival of their daughter Chloe! The HeadStart community wishes mum and baby good health and happiness.

Year 11, 12, 13 Songkran Booster Sessions

The Year 11, 12, 13 Songkran revision sessions, which are free of charge, are to be held during the second week of the Songkran holiday at HeadStart. Students are signing up to sessions with their class teacher and are encouraged to attend as many as possible. These sessions will provide students with opportunities to ask questions and complete exam papers in preparation for their final examinations. Please support your child during this important pre-exam period.

Gruffalo DVD’s Coming Soon!

A big thank you to all of the hard working students and teachers for the adorable production that they put together for the parents on Thursday morning. The costumes were beautiful and the children sang and danced so well. As Mr Khan, Deputy Head of Primary, expressed in his opening speech; learning spans many different topics and Creative Arts is a very important aspect of a child’s development. Thank you parents for your support during the preparation of the Gruffalo and for coming to the show. A DVD with high quality pictures as well as a full video of the show will be distributed to parents within the next few weeks to celebrate this event as well as to keep as a souvenir.

New Science Teacher

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Ms Jennifer Ly, a highly qualified science teacher from Australia. Please see details in her teacher profile here http://headstartphuket.com/people/jennifer-ly.

Thai Parents Meeting Invitation

We would like to invite Thai parents to a meeting on Wednesday the 22nd of March at 08.15-09.15 in the Secondary Hall. We will welcome a doctor from Bangkok hospital to speak to parents on the topic of ‘How to Keep Your Child Healthy.’ The doctor’s talk will focus on good eating, sleeping and exercise routines for your child. In addition, Bangkok hospital team will also be presenting their ‘Smart Child’ programme adding information regarding adult vaccinations. This is a great opportunity for the Thai parents and we hope to see as many of you there as possible. Kru Nee, School Director

Weekly Eco Tip: Aim for Waste Free Snacks and Lunches!

Recycling items is great, but it’s even better if you can avoid using plastic materials in the first place. Do you pack snacks for your child to bring to school? Rethink the way you package these snacks. Do you really need to wrap things in plastic? Try using Tupperware containers with different compartments to separate foods, or choose snacks that will transport well and don’t need to be packaged, for example bananas or apples. Lets try to reduce how many plastic materials we use!

Fair Trade Week Activity Report

Before you finish eating breakfast, you’ve depended on more than half the world.–Martin Luther King

This week, children across Primary and Secondary have been exploring just what this quote means, as HeadStart acknowledges the global campaign of Fair Trade. In lessons and assemblies, students have been finding out about how their shopping choices can help people in different parts of Thailand and affect the lives of others around the world. To be a part of Fair Trade means that farmers and workers in many different countries, receive a fair price for the crops they grow and have a better way of life than they possibly did before. Our Fair Trade Week at HeadStart is all about raising awareness in our students, allowing them to make connections between the foods they eat and the farmers who grow the food. On Friday afternoon last week we welcomed some local Fair Traders and parents to put their products on sale for the HeadStart community. It was well received and the students enjoyed a visit with a sheep from the Vanich Farm. A big thank you to Ms Fiona Scott for organising such a great event.

House News

By Mr Nick carter, House Coordinator

This is Mr Carter with his inter-House shirt. Mr Carter does a great job of keeping the Houses challenged and winning House points. Thank you Mr Carter!

The Year 9’s competed in their House Gladiator Ball and the top spot was shared by both The Blue Tigers and The Yellow Cheetahs, scoring 23 points each. Please don’t forget that we are still trying to raise funds to purchase some fantastic Mascot costumes. So, please drop any spare pennies (no sadang please) into your respective House box in the atrium!

Also, to help with this fund raiser, the P.E. department have their faculty week next week and there will be House “Beat The Teacher” competitions every lunchtime. We have Beat The Goalie, Beat The Rugby Player, Beat The Golfer, Beat The Swimmers, Beat The Pitcher, and students v staff Gladiator Ball. Each student that chooses to compete in any of these events must contribute 5 baht into their House Mascot penny box (which will be at the venue for each sporting event). So, don’t forget to turn up at lunchtime with your 5 baht, ready to Beat The Teacher!

P.E. Department News

By Mr Richard Lukats, Athletics Director

Next week (Monday 20th – Friday 24th March 2017) will be Sports Week at HeadStart. The theme for the week is have fun and be active, and we certainly hope that all students and staff will do exactly that all next week. The idea behind the week is to highlight the importance of physical activity and to show that you can be active and fun in many ways.

This week students have been busy preparing for next week’s events and for their Sports Days which will be held the week after. Please look at the timetable of events for next week and help support your children/wards involvement in the activities by helping them bring in the right kit for each day e.g. all students will need their swimming kit for the day they have a swimming gala.

Below are some additional points to note:

• Parents are welcome to come to the Swimming Galas but cannot come to the other events as they will be run in normal lessons and lunch times

• All students need to bring their Swimming Kit on the days they have a gala. In the other activities they should bring P.E. Kit (Students should also bring the correct kit for their ASPs, except Friday when all ASPs have been cancelled for International Day celebrations)

• During lunch times for Year 3 – 13 Students there will be a number of activities going on. Students that want to have a go at beat the teacher will be asked to make a 5 Baht contribution to their House Mascot Fund, therefore it would be good if you could ensure they have 5 Baht a day to bring into school each day. Early Years – Year 2 will be doing a range of activities during the week in their lunch times

• During their normal PE class Year 3-11 will compete for their Houses in a game called Speed Kubb. This is an ancient Scandinavian game, and legend has it that the Vikings used to play the game using the skulls and leg bones of their defeated enemies!

• On Friday during Flag raising there will be a whole school exercise session – it will not be to exhausting, however we would like all students, parents and staff to wear trainers/sneakers in the morning. We hope that all members of the HeadStart School Community will have an enjoyable week and end the week feeling fitter and happier as a result.

Foundation News

Holi Festival in Foundation

On Monday Reception class celebrated Holi, the Hindu festival of colour. We’ve been learning about all the exciting festivals in the world as part of our Religious Education lessons. Thank you so much to the parents for sending in messy clothes for the children to join in, we all had a crazily colourful time! Ms Amy Drew

Swim Gala Prep

Reception children have been working hard and getting ready for their Swimming Gala which is on Friday 24th March at 10:00 am. Come along and see how well everybody is now swimming and how competitive they are in the races. Fiona Whittaker

Primary News

By Mr Andrew Whittaker, Head of Primary

This week has been a forest of activity in Foundation and Primary. Around every corner and everywhere I turned there was a plethora of different animals scurrying along the forest floor or flying in the trees. Never before has HeadStart seen so many monkeys, owls, snakes, foxes, squirrels or bees descending upon the school in such large numbers; and of course there was that mouse and the illusive Gruffalo! Yes, it was clearly the cast of the wonderful production of The Gruffalo from all of the pupils and teachers from PreSchool to Year 3, as well as the CAPA department who made the production such a spectacular performance shared by all.

It is wonderful to see the development from the very young in Preschool to those in Year 3, how they are able to perform so calmly in front of such a large audience and with the stage lights shining down upon them. As we all know these types of productions do not just happen. There is a tremendous amount of hard work that has to be done in order for everything to seem so easy and faultless to the viewing audience.

School productions are a very special aspect of a pupils’ education, yes it is a lot of fun for them performing before an audience, especially their family, however, there is so much more that they are able to acquire from this. There is obviously teamwork, working with others in a highly choreographed environment is a real life skill. Confidence - it is amazing to see how all the pupils have grown in confidence through this process. Resilience - if at first you don’t succeed…..try, try again!

To create a quality performance takes time and effort from all, so I would like to say a very big thank you to everybody that has been involved in making this such a wonderful production - one everybody can be quite rightfully very proud of, both at school and at home.

Year 4 Working with Circuits.

Thai Class Fun

Year 5 students have been talking about what sports can we play using scrap papers? They discovered they can play football, basketball, volleyball, ten pins bowling and dodge ball. Kru Sue

Year 6 Art

Year 6 have been learning about Picasso and cubism. “we created 2 portraits and cut them up to create 1 cubism artwork. we were inspired by Picasso’s blue and pink periods to use hot and cold colour schemes” From a Year 6 student

Secondary News

By Ms Elizabeth Mason, Head of Secondary

Teaching and Learning This week all classes have been looking at ‘exit tickets/questions as a learning strategy’ to improve memory of taught content.

Student Shadows Our quality assurance continues with student shadows which have gone ahead this week. The purpose of the shadows is so staff can see the day in the life of a selected student and ensure every lesson is a quality one.

World Scholars Please join me in wishing our World Scholars every success as they partake in the first round of the competition in Bangkok on the 17-18th of March.

Congratulations to these students for their accomplishments in the History Bee and Bowl competition!

French Class Makes Fruit Salad!

In the context of the unit “Healthy life style” Year 9 prepared an energetic breakfast with a huge fruit salad. Here is the recipe for 13 persons written with the students.

Salade de fruits pour 13 personnes

Ingrédients: 4 kiwis, 3 bananes, 4 pommes, 3 ou 4 oranges, 3 ou 4 mangues, du raisin, 2 boîtes de 1 kilo de pêches, 3 boîtes de 500 grammes de litchis.

1.) Préparation: 20 à 30 minutes.

2.) Lavez et épluchez les fruits;

3.) Coupez les fruits frais en morceaux dans un grand saladier;

4.) Ajoutez les boîtes de fruits cuits;

5.) Pressez un jus de citron et versez-le dans la salade de fruits;

6.) Décorez avec des feuilles de menthe;

7.) Servez très frais et dégustez!

Bon appétit!!!

Download the App!

The Maths faculty would like to encourage secondary students to download the “Euclidea” app for their devices. The app presents Geometry problems that progressively get harder as the player progresses through the app. This is highly useful for not only topics in KS3 and KS4 but also to help to deepen knowledge of Geometry and problem solving skills. There is a leaderboard outside the Maths office which will display the top 3 students who have completed the most of the app!

Year 8 Creating Circuits

Last week we used Circuit.io to create circuits using a virtual Breadboard and an Arduino CPU to create our very own tri-coloured moody light. We did a simulation to test if our Moody Lights would work in real life. It proved to be successful and we were all very happy with the end result. Nutcha & Calvin

​​Year 10 have been studying the theory of mechanisms. During the lessons they made working models to demonstrate their understanding.

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