Weekly Update 29, 27 April 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.

Receive daily updates and news by following the HeadStart Facebook Page

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Parenting Tips of the Week

Don’t let your child stay off school because they haven’t finished their homework, or because they are tired or (unless completely unavoidable) because a sibling is off school. If you allow absences for petty reasons getting your child to school can become a daily negotiation.

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Show up. Even if your child is only competing in the egg and spoon race, try to get to school sports day. If they are merely a sheep in the school drama, make sure you are in the audience. Demonstrate that their contribution -however small- gives you pleasure and makes you proud.

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Don’t wait for Parent Teacher Conferences (PTC). If there is something you are worried about, make an appointment to see your child’s teacher. If you have a criticism, tread gently and try to put yourself in the teacher’s shoes before you say something you may regret. Try to maintain a constructive and balanced dialogue while sorting out any problems.

HeadStart Photographer of the Year Competition Now Open!

By Ms Kamilah Bilbe, Head of Faculty for Creative Arts

Enter today for a chance to be named the 2018 HeadStart Photographer of the Year. The competition is open to all students, staff and parents of the HeadStart community and there will be prizes for both Students and Adults! Submit a maximum of two of your best photos under the categories: Urban Structures and/ or Nature. Each entry receives 5 house points!

When emailing your entries to [email protected] include the following information:

• Specify if you are an Adult/Student

• Include your full name

• The title of the photograph you are entering

Our judges are looking for photographs that explore interesting composition and lighting that will inspire others to discover their love of photography.

The deadline to enter is Friday 4:00 pm May 4th 2018

An exhibition of the competition finalists will be on show in the Atrium on the 8-9th May.

Winners will be announced 3:30 pm Wednesday 9th May in the atrium. Good Luck!

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Summer Camp 2018

Are you looking for something to occupy your children while in Phuket over the Summer Holidays? HeadStart will be hosting a 2 week summer activity camp again this year. Students age 4 to 14 years old are welcome to apply. The camp will run from the 9th to the 20th of July, 2018.

This English-based activity camp promises to be an exciting mix of active learning, sports, swimming, cooking, creative arts and fun field trips packed into 2 weeks of non-stop learning and enjoyment! Parents can relax (or go to work) knowing their children will be in the safe hands of fully trained and experienced teachers.

More details regarding the Summer Camp 2017 can be found by clicking on this link: http://headstartphuket.com/football-camp

If you are interested in applying, please fill in a Summer Camp application form available in the front office. For further inquiries regarding age groups and prices please contact our Admin staff at [email protected]

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Donation for Life Home Project Foundation

This week we were very happy to meet Mr. Friedrich Fauma, Director for the Life Home Project Foundation situated on Koh Sirey. Mr Fauma joined us at HeadStart to receive the 110,000 Baht recently raised to start the roof repairs urgently required at the center, hopefully just before the heavy rains arrive. Once again, a big thank to all of our academy swimmers who took part in this monumental fundraising campaign to raise such an outstanding amount of money.

By Ms Fiona Scott

Checkpoint Examinations Complete

The Year 6 and 9 teachers would like to give all the students a HUGE WELL DONE for all their efforts during Checkpoint. They have stayed positive all week and have worked so hard this year towards these examinations. The results will be announced to parents in June.

QSI Cooking Competition Winners

Congratulations to the Headstart cooking team who won 1st place in the QSI cooking competition before the term break. John Hatt explains that his father, who is a chef, trained the team which helped them win the competition! Thank you Mr Hatt for you assistance. The students cooked ‘Earth, Surf & Turf’ chicken breast with Chorizo in Saltimbocca wrapping. Seafood and mushroom risotto with roasted vegetables. Seafood croquettes with salad and Hollandaise sauce.

Merit Making and Thai New Year

As a way of marking the Thai New Year at the end of last term, the Thai department organised a myriad of activities for the HeadStart community with the aim of giving everyone the opportunity to embrace Thai culture. In the morning families made merit by offering donations to Buddhist monks and asking for their blessing. There was a lovely all school assembly at which the Thai dancers entertained us with a tricky bamboo and traditional dance. Coach Brown and Ms Webb looked fabulous in their Thai costumes and did a fun presentation for the students about the origins of Songkran. Our Housekeeping team, security and kitchen departments added a fun flavour to the event with their drum and dance parade. The day ended with a great big water fight on the football pitches.

Thank you to Khun Som, Thai parent, for taking such lovely photos!

Foundation Departments News

By Ms Fiona Scott, Deputy Head of Foundation

A warm welcome back to term 3. The children have made a very positive return to school and have certainly come back to school ready to learn and work hard for their teachers.

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Catch Me Reading

A big Thank You to all the parents who have been sending in photos for the Catch - Me - Reading Competition. Some parents have asked to get their photos in this weekend, so we are happy to extend the competition until next Friday. All entries can be emailed directly to the Homeroom teacher and myself and we will have the results for you by the end of next week.

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Reading Caterpillar

Our Reading caterpillar is slowly growing. Thank you to all the parents who have been sending in the body parts to help make our caterpillar grow! Please keep the templates coming into school and help us to inspire a love of books and reading in our children.

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Reception Fun House Challenge

A lot of fun was had today with reception class as we celebrated the end of the month with our Fun Friday House Challenge. Children enjoyed space hopper races, balloon and hula hoop challenges and earnt a number of House Points for their teams. Good job Reception!

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Foundation Students of the Month

Last week Foundation celebrated a number of awards in the monthly All - Subject Awards Assembly.

A big well done to Napat, Puan, Marat, Woojin, Lucy, Emelie, Polina, Anthony, Gail, Jagger and Liza in Early Years for their outstanding effort in all lessons.

Congratulations to Will, Emily, Namon, Saipor, Aaron, Dai dai, Eva, Nawa, Jiwoo, Benny, Yasya, and Luke Nai in Reception for all of their hard work and super listening in class.

Reception blue extinguished the tricky words on the fires and raced to read them while they put out the fire. We learnt how to stop, drop and roll and had fun showing our friends how it’s done. We also wrote thank you letters to the firefighters for all their hard work. We are having a wonderful time learning about the people who help us.

By Ms Candice Smithie

In Reception our topic is ‘People Who Help Us’ and the children have really enjoyed learning about the important role of the police this week. They have been so enthusiastic in their writing and creative work and were brilliant at getting into character during role play activities.

By Ms Hannah Kuusik

These are simple activities which you and your child can do at home to help improve their hand-eye coordination and concentration.

• Batting a ball in a stationary position

• Balancing a ball on a flat surface

• Balancing and running at the same time

By Ms Fiona Whittaker

Year 1 created and posed questions to a space character as part of their fantasy fiction learning.

By Ms Nicola Fallows

Year 1 Blue students solving repeated addition calculations as part of their learning of multiplication in Maths.

By Ms Nicola Fallows

This Tuesday, the Year 10 IGCSE Drama and Year 9 future IGCSE students watched UK Theatre Company, Splendid Production’s adaptation of Franz Kafka’s novella ‘Metamorphosis’. They then participated in a workshop on physical story telling with drama students from UWC and BIS.

By Ms Hayley Milner

House News

By Mr Nick Carter, House Coordinator

Winners of the Weigh Your Waste competition: The Yellow Cheetahs (2.8kg)

Winners of the Primary Tug of War: The Blue Tigers

Winners of the House Quiz: The Yellow Cheetahs

Primary also competed in the Swim Galas, and the overall winners were The Blue Tigers.

Also, next years fantastic House Captains were announced during Monday mornings flag raising. They are: