Dates for Your Diary

Upcoming events can be found on the calendar on the website School Life → Calendar but we have outlined upcoming events here for easy reference. For daily updates and news follow the HeadStart Facebook Page

U-Prep Talk Information

Last week we had a good turn out for the U-Prep talk presented by Ms Gemma Caines. If you missed it, click on the downloads presented below for English and Thai versions. As always, we encourage you to make an appointment to meet with Ms Gemma Caines if you would like to discuss the topic of University applications or have any other questions.

The next U-Prep Talk will be held on Thursday, 14 March at 8:15am in the Secondary Hall on the 4th floor. The topic will be ‘Applying to American and Canadian Universities’. We welcome any parents who are interested in this topic to come and listen.

Year 6 & 9 Mock Checkpoint Exams

Next week the Year 6 and 9 students will be taking their mock Checkpoint exams in preparation for the actual exams in April. Below you find the timetable we will be using for the Checkpoint mock exams next week (12th - 14th March), as well as the real Checkpoint exams next term (24th - 26th April). Primary exams are coloured red, while secondary are blue.

Kindly note that students taking English as a Second Language write their exams together with all of the other students, except for the addition of a listening paper. Many thanks for your support in ensuring all students are punctual and prepared for their exams.

Fundraising Day Friday 29 March

‘Shine like a Rainbow’ is our theme for this term’s charity fundraiser which will take place on Friday 29th March. This term, all proceeds will go towards supporting The Good Shepherd School in Phuket Town to help them upgrade their clean drinking water stations and drainage systems. Our target to reach is 120,000 baht and this can be achieved with all the fun games and activities that will be implemented throughout the day on Friday 29 March, as well as our annual all night Swim-a-thon. In order to show your support for this good cause, we are asking for a donation of 50 baht for the dress up day and all of our games, which will be led by the Student Council and student representatives, will cost 20 baht per game. We are asking for families to allow children to raid their purses and piggy banks, bring in spare change or additional donations up to the value of 300 baht and support the students in what promises to be a fun filled fundraising day. Any families wishing to make an additional donation are welcome to do so and can leave donations with the school office or myself which will be added to the final totals, including money raised from the HeadStart Swim-a- thon. We are very much looking forward to this very colourful event on Friday 29th March.

Secondary Bake Sale and Mini Market

Also in support of The Good Sheherd, the Secondary students will be hosting a school bake sale during their morning break and a mini market at the end of the day. In order to support the charity bake sale, we are asking for donations of cakes and cookies to be sold on that day. We are asking all students in Secondary to help and support the Bake Sale by making, baking, buying and donating on Friday 29th March. All items can be taken straight to the main dining hall on the morning of the fundraiser. Thank you for all your biscuits, cakes, cookies and continued support.

Earth Hour: join the campaign!

We would like to inspire everyone reading to to get involved with Earth Hour. “This is a good opportunity to show our resolve to change: turning out the lights and turning up the pressure for a healthy planet’–.António Guterres, UN Secretary General. To mark the end of Eco-week on 22 March, we at school will be turning off all of our electricity for 1 hour during the first period. What will you do to promote Earth Hour?

Student News

Congratulations to Anthony Meng in Year 1 Yellow for receiving a ‘Good Reader’ award and to Ethan Huovila in Year 5 White for receiving a ‘Great Library Monitor’ award! Keep up the good work boys.

Foundation & Primary Department News

Photo Shoot - Most photos have now been taken for this years Year Book, any child who missed their slot this week will have a final opportunity on Monday.

After School Use of the Foundation Playground

Just a friendly reminder to help us to keep our playground tidy by ensuring you encourage your child to put away all bikes and scooters before leaving at the end of the day. Sadly, this week we have seen a number of our toys and equipment broken and damaged, which has been very upsetting for our little ones. Thank you for your help in this matter.

Stars of the Week

A big well done to Sugar and Melissa who are our Stars of the Week In Early Years. They have earned their awards for trying their best and making super progress. Congratulations to Xiao, Jacob, Liz and Yugeon for a huge effort in all lessons and a super, hard working week in Reception.

Eco Week

The Primary Eco Club has been planning some recycling art activities and need your help. They need junk materials such as cardboard tubes, scraps of coloured or old wrapping paper and plastic lids of various sizes for some simple break time activities during the week 18th - 22nd March. Please can you bag up any clean junk materials for our Eco projects and drop them into the bins provided in the Atrium next week. The Primary Eco Club hope to raise recycling and waste awareness through art and media and the week will end with a one hour electricity shut off to coincide with the global energy incentive Earth Hour. If you want to find out more and get involved in this year’s Earth Hour, it will take place on Saturday 30th March at 8.30 - 9.30pm.

Student News

Children in EAL (English as an Additional Language) were learning colour names and body parts in Year 1. They followed instructions to create wonderful monsters! By Ms Charlotte Myers

Last week we started a new topic in Reception. The children have loved learning about ‘The Jungle!’ We have been on a scavenger hunt for mystery creatures in the natural environment; learning to read and write the names of the different animals. We have shared stories set in the jungle and the children used their phonics to write sentences describing their favourite jungle animal. In Maths the children have been exploring addition and using practical resources to solve problems. We have also made lots of lovely crafts such as handprint paintings of tigers and giraffes, 3D elephants, fork painting lions and jungle colouring. The children have been so enthusiastic this week and they are really good at getting into character as the different animals! We have had a roaring time! By Ms Hannah Kuusik and Ms Candice Smithie

Children in Year 1 Yellow are getting creative with their addition and using Lego and Dominoes to create their own maths problems. By Ms Charlotte Myers

Year 1 students are learning to count in 10s in their Thai class. We practised this rigorously through a range of objects and most of the students made a great effort and did well.By Kru Sue

Every week the Reception children bring a toy or something they would like to show their friends and talk about. Show and tell helps boost their confidence and speaking in English. Last week Marat brought his bunny rabbit to school. We spoke about how to look after animals and what certain animals eat. This bunny was fed a lot of carrots but he didn’t like them as much as we thought. He must have been too excited to meet all his new friends. By Ms Candice Smithie

On International Women’s Day, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The Russian students made cards for their mums. By Ms Alina Plaktova

Students in Year 4 have fun learning homograph words through fun activities in Thai class. By Kru Pim

Year 5 have been learning vocabulary having to do with houses or ‘Baan’ in Thai. They walked around the school and interviewed many of the Thai staff to practice using the words and sentences they have learned. By Kru Yui

This week in Year 6 White Science we learned about the solar system. We had lots of different fruits of different size and we had to put them in order. Each fruit represented a planet for example a water melon was Jupiter and a cherry tomato was Earth. By Mr Karl Long

Year 6 have been introduced to algebra this week in maths. They have been been using Numicon, bucket balances and secret envelopes to create and solve algebraic problems for each other to solve. They loved the practical aspect of the lesson and have a solid understanding of balancing equations. By Ms Sophie Webb

Year 6 have been revising light and shadows in preparation for their upcoming Primary Checkpoint examinations.They made shadow puppets and had to solve different problems including how to make the best puppet and how to change the size of their puppet’s shadow. By Ms Sophie Webb

Khun Kiranee Narabal, a professional host, national news reporter and MC, visited our school and spoke to our Year 7 Thai class about how to be good at public speaking in Thai. Students learned some tips about speaking in front of crowds and learned how to introduce themselves properly in front of the class. By Kru Pim

Myself and 3 kids went to the Ride 4 Kids Charity touch rugby tournament last weekend. Students were put in a mixed team and played their first ever games. Students are: Samuel Wainwright (Sam) in Y5 Yellow, Giacomo Solaroli (Giacomo) Y9 Blue and Roy Caspi Y9 Blue. By Ms Alicia Neimand

Last half term year 8 completed a unit on Jazz and Blues, which culminated in a short performance of the main theme from Glen Miller’s ‘In the Mood’ This consisted of 3 parts on the keyboard: the swing melody, the chords and the bassline. My year 8 classes worked really hard to put these performances together, building their reading and keyboard skills and learning to play different parts in time with each other. They should be proud of what they achieved. By Ms Alex holmes