Chaofah Weekly5 years ago

Weekly Update 26, 23 March 2018

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 for the month here for easy reference.

Date	Time	Event	Location
26 March	Afternoon	Student Council Meeting	Secondary Hall
27 March	8:15 am	Thai Parent Meeting	Secondary Hall
30 March	3:30-5:30 pm	International Day 2018	Sports Hall
31 March	9:00-11:00 am	Saturday Thai Culture Club
1-7 April	All week	Secondary Outbound Field Trips	BKK/Khao Sok
2-6 April	In Lessons	Swimming Galas	Swimming Pool
09-20 April	Two weeks	Mid-term break

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Primary Songkran arrangements - Friday 6th April 2018

Dear Parents

This year’s Songkran water play activities will take place on the covered football pitch from 2.45 to 3.15 pm. Your child’s Homeroom teacher will escort all the children to the pitch at 2.45 pm.

If you would like your child to participate in these water activities then please provide a change of clothes and a towel in order for them to change after the event. Any children that do not want to get wet will be able to watch the event at the football pitch.

Parents are asked to collect their child from the football pitch at 3.15pm and they are then free to leave.

Any children not collected by 3.30 pm will be escorted to the Dining Hall for collection. Please ensure that your child has been collected from the Dining Hall by 4.00 pm at the latest.

All ASPs and Academy classes will be cancelled on this day. The school bus service will run as usual, leaving at 3.30 pm.

HeadStart is proud to be one of the three schools in Phuket to receive a top tier Food Sanitation award. Congratulations to Chef and his team for their efforts to keep a clean kitchen.

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Final Announcements for International Day

A big thank you to all of the families who have been working so hard to participate in International Day 2018! This coming Friday promises to be full of good food, beautiful costumes and fantastic performances.

Important reminders:

Be sure to flag the school buses down if you are in need of assistance with getting from your parking spot to the school entrance. If you cannot see the school bus, call the office and request assistance by calling 076-612876.
Pick up your child at 3:20 pm sharp as teachers and staff are involved in the event and need to prepare. If you are preparing a performance you can pick up your child before then.
There are no ASPs or school bus running on this day.
Parents are welcome to start setting up in the Sports Hall by 9:00 am on Friday. Please do not roam the school and interrupt lessons.
No boiling or deep frying at school. Everything must be precooked.
Please make arrangements to oversee your child and do not let your child roam the school.

Performances:

By Wednesday, a performance programme will be sent to all ‘countries’ who are performing. Please check the programme and communicate with Miki by writing to [email protected] if you need to make an adjustment. Please be waiting on standby during the song before your performance so that there are no delays.

Parent Survey

If you have not done so already, please complete the Parents Survey that was emailed out to all parents just a couple of weeks ago. Your comments and feedback are a valuable source of data for the the school and help us to grow and develop as a department.

Parent Committee Meeting Notes

On 1 March, 2018, the Parent committee got together to discuss points that have been brought up by the parents. Please see the download for the full agenda and conclusions by management.

Parent Committee Notes English .docx, 25.2 KB

Parent Committee Notes Thai .docx, 31.7 KB

No Foam Campaign

We would like to encourage everyone to join the HeadStart ‘no foam’ campaign and help reduce our carbon footprint. Here are soem facts about foam that will hopefully encourage you to stop using foam permanently.

Taken from 1 Million Say No to Foam

Polystyrene is actually just another type of plastic. It can be expanded into the foam material that we all know as “Styrofoam” by expanding it with 95% air. It is often used for packaging fragile products, or insulating hot food and beverages. Styrofoam is a big part of the plastic problem in our oceans. Being 95% air, its buoyancy allows it to float down waterways, eventually making it to the ocean where it gets broken down into smaller pieces and ingested by marine life.

Lightweight Styrofoam is easily carried away by wind and often ends up in places other than the landfill. Unfortunately, rogue Styrofoam ends up littering streets and beaches, clogging storm pipes, and harming animals. In order to protect wildlife, Antarctica has prohibited polystyrene. The Department of Sanitation concluded that expanded polystyrene cannot be recycled, despite the fact that many of the containers display the recycling symbol. Plus, Styrofoam sitting in the landfill releases methane gases that have over 20 times the ozone destroying potency as CO2. Still not convinced?

10 Mile Run

Congratulations to Mr Edwin Dixon (English and Humanities Faculty) and Nadine Brelstaff (P.E. department) for winning first place in the male and female categories in the ‘International Run 2018’ at Thanyapura last week. A shout out to our Admin team along with Tennis Coach Dear who completed the 10 mile run. Keep up the good work!

Sports Department News

Upcoming Football Events

Date 28 March, 2018

Time bus leaves school at 2:30 pm

Ages Under 13 and Under 18

Location Kajonkiet International School Kathu

Under 13 Kick-off time 3.30 pm and finish 4.30 am

Under 18 Kick-off time 4.30 pm and finish: 5.30 pm

Eco Week

By Ms Fiona Scott

A lot of excitement and enthusiasm was generated across Primary last week as the Eco Club got involved in delivering activities for Eco Week. Each day we reminded all teachers and staff to turn off the air con and lights when leaving their classrooms and this was monitored by a patrol of Eco Warriors during lunch and break times. On Friday morning we encouraged the whole school to take part in Earth Hour, where most of the electricity was turned off for one hour in support of our commitment to saving the planet. A big Thank You to all the teachers, students and HeadStart team for delivering lessons and continuing with their day to day tasks whilst saving energy and raising awareness!

As well as teaching about the importance of energy efficiency, our Eco Team got their fingers dirty and got planting in the garden. Each lunch time, we set up a potting station and showed interested parties how to make planting pots out of recycled paper, how to take care of seeds and the importance of watering our plants. We planted vegetables and flowers and it is very exciting to see they have started sprouting and growing! Whilst the weather remains dry, we hope to get a great variety of plants growing in the garden. If any parents would like to donate plants, cuttings, seeds or garden equipment, please let me know as our student interest in gardening is certainly growing!

Foundation Department Update

By Ms Fiona Scott, Deputy Head of Foundation

It has certainly been a fantastic week in Foundation this week; although coming towards the end of term, our little ones bounce into school with smiles on their faces each day. With so much eagerness and enthusiasm, it shows our Foundation team really are inspiring a love of learning, play and happiness!

Reception House Event

Our first Reception House Challenge was a huge success on Monday morning. The children worked incredibly well as part of a team and enjoyed a fantastic selection of bat and ball games. A very big Thank You to Ms Fiona W and the PE team for organising another successful PE event.

International Story Telling

As part of our run up to International Day, we will be inviting parents in to read International Stories with the classes. Any parents, who are available and interested in reading an international story, or a story in their own language to any of the classes, please contact myself or the homeroom teacher directly.

Security Reminder: Signing In and Out

Just a gentle reminder to all parents to please sign your children in and out of school. It is school policy and only takes a minute in the morning to sign you name and time in the class book. Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Security Reminder: Collecting Someone Else’s Child

Please be reminded that in Foundation we will not let your child be collected by another parent unless we have had prior notification from you. Our staff work hard to ensure all children are safe and looked after when they are in our care. At times, parents can get angry and upset with our team when we do not hand over children for collection if we have not been informed. To save any last minute confirmation phone calls and upset parents, please let the school office and the homeroom teacher know as soon as possible if another parent will be collecting your child. If another member of the family or someone unknown to the school will be collecting your child, you MUST inform the office, Homeroom teacher and send in a copy of their ID, such as Thai ID card, copy of passport or driving license.

Foundation Stars of the Week

Each week our Homeroom teachers and Thai teachers give an award to children who have demonstrated outstanding behaviour and effort in all their lessons. Awards are given to those who put in extra effort and try their hardest in everything that they do. With hard work and effort comes very pleasing results and we are so very proud of your children’s efforts and how hard they try each and every day.

Our Stars of the Week awards in Reception this week go to; Chaewon, Luang, Namon, Andy, Din and Jiwoo. A super effort from these children this week, a very big well done to you all. In Early Years a big congratulations to Lillia, Emelie, Raegan and Tee for all their hard work this week.

These Primary girls did a fantastic job selling homemade cookies, lemonade and candies at the Friday Market. They raised over 3,000 Baht which they will donate to the Soi Dog Foundation. Great job girls! We are very proud of your hard work and for taking initiative to organise this fundraiser. By MS Fiona Scott

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Miss Candice’s phonics group are learning the “ai” sounds. The children went on a word hunt to find all the words with the “ai” sound in them and write them onto their pages. They had so much fun and are beginning to identify this sound on their own.

Here is selection of just a few of the super creative projects the Year 5 and 6 Art club have been doing after school. The children have shown great creativity and imagination and have produced some really lovely work! By Ms Hannah Kuusik

Early Years seen here Showering at the end of their swimming lesson. This is good for them to feel happy with water on their head and in their faces and it looks fun also. By Ms Fiona Whittaker

Year 1 Practice in preparation for their Swimming Gala. I am looking forward to seeing some very close and competitive races. By Ms Fiona Whittaker

Year 1 Blue using cubes to regroup tens to solve column addition. The students also made creative fish to understand about cold blooded animals with gills, during our living things topic in Science. By Ms Nicola Fallows

Year 4 were researching areas on our planet in their Geography lessons. By Ms Katherine Dickie

PISAC Athletics Meet

HeadStart once again hosted the PISAC U9 and U11 Athletics Competition on Thursday 22nd March, 2018. This year KIS, BISP, UWCT and HeadStart all competed in a series of individual track and field events and some team relays at the end of the event. It was a fantastic afternoon of personal bests, personal firsts, individual endeavor and fabulous team spirit. The students from all schools were so supportive of each other, cheering all those who competed whether they came first or last in a race. Apart from the numerous individual placings by our students in many of the events, the team as a whole excelled and were runners up on the day, with BISP just pipping us in the overall team standings.

Well done to all those who took part and helped out (Year 10 IGCSE Students and Teachers) on the day!

1st place BISP
2nd place HeadStart
3rd place KIS
4th place UWCT

Thank You Year 10

The Year 10 IGCSE P.E. Students did a fantastic job today in helping out with the PISAC U9 & U11 Athletics Competition. It was a hot, long afternoon but the Year 10s never wavered in their enthusiasm or diligence in supporting the staff and students at the event. They were a credit to the Secondary School and proved to be great ambassadors for HeadStart, with many visiting parents and staff from other schools complementing them. The students were; Mateo Chatenet (Y10 Yellow), Vince Edouard (Y10 Yellow), Patrick Kim (Y10 Blue), Evan Lee (Y10 Yellow), Jaran MacDougall (Y10 Blue), Lucy Mester (Y10 Yellow), Joe Miller (Y10 Blue) Thomas Nuetzel (Y10 Blue), Jeremie Perthuis (Y10 Yellow), Irakli Shervashidze (Y10 Blue), Lika Shervashidze (Y10 Yellow), Moh Takwan (Y10 Blue), Nazar Zakharov (Y10 Blue).

World Scholars Trip to BKK

By Ms Hayley Milner and Mr Peter Mason

Congratulations to all three teams that attended the regional round of The World Scholar’s Cup at Brighton College Bangkok last weekend. Our scholars studied endlessly for months learning how to debate and learn an entire syllabus on diplomacy and human relationships. They debated motions such as Social media makes us smarter and All countries should use the same currency. This year was Bangkok’s largest ever round with over 300 scholars and even more competitive.

All three teams qualified for one of the three global rounds in Kuala Lumpur, Barcelona, and Melbourne. Our teams achieved amazing results receiving a trophy for 3rd place in Collaborative Writing. Other results included placing in the top ten for debating, history, art and literature. Overall our teams placed 12th and 13th in the entire regional round with our third team placing in the top 25.

Within the World Scholars’ Cup competition HeadStart is gaining a strong reputation of being the small school with big results. Coaches from other schools recognised our school name and the Head of WSC (Alpaca-in-Chief) mentioned us and Phuket many times on stage when addressing the audience. Further to this we were the only school to have almost half of its students perform in the Talent Show! Nutcha sang beautifully, ‘Part of That World’ from The Little Mermaid and Alicia, Aneeta and Vitalina combined forces to sing, play the piano and dance to ‘When I was Your Man’ by Bruno Marz, both linking to the theme of human relationships and wanting to be part of a community. We are so proud of our students who embodied the spirit of the WSC.