High School: Crazy about kaizen

It was great to see so many parents of students in Years10, 11, 12 and 13 at last week’s final Parents' Information Evenings.

At each of the Parents’ Information Evenings, I talked about Kaizen, a Japanese term for continuous improvement, and the kaizen has continued in the Canteen over the last few days. Observant parents will have already noticed the new lighting in the photo of the Canteen below.

All parents should have received an e-mail from Mr Keith on Friday, announcing that the canteen payment system in the High School is now linked to Moodle, where parents can both check the balance of and topup, using a credit card, their son/daughter’s accounts. There was a big queue of students whose parents have not yet topped up their account at lunchtime today - please can all parents check their balance and topup their son/daughter’s account as soon as possible. Please remember that many accounts have a 1000 baht “overdraft” from the beginning of term that will need to be cleared.

The next step in the continuous improvement will be to enable parents to also view past transactions, including a summary of what was purchased each day. Students can already see the cost of their lunch each day and their remaining balance on the new information screens at every serving station (shown below).

After the Canteen, one of the most popular questions from parents at these Information Evenings was about the University Destinations of our Graduating Class of 2017. We now have the complete list, with last year’s Year 13 students now attending the following universities around the world:

Australia: Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School, The University of Melbourne, Monash University and University of Technology Sydney

Canada: University of British Columbia, McGill University, Ryerson University, Simon Fraser University, University of Toronto and Western University

Hong Kong: Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Ireland: Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork

Netherlands: Hotelschool The Hague and Stenden Hogeschool

Spain: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Thailand: Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University

United Kingdom:  Birkbeck (University of London), University of Birmingham, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, City University of London, Coventry University, Imperial College London, King's College London, Kingston University, University of Leeds, Queen Mary University of London, The University of Manchester, The University of Nottingham, University of St Andrews, University of Sussex, University of the Arts London, University of Westminster and York St John University

United States: California Institute of Technology, DigiPen Institute of Technology, Drexel University, Loyola University Chicago, Oregon State University, Pennsylvania State University, Santa Rosa Junior College and University of California, Davis.

Any parent with any questions about universities should e-mail Mr Bevin, our Careers and Higher Education Counselor, to arrange an appointment - bevin.cl@standrews.ac.th.

Another popular question has been about Work Experience, and I am very pleased to announce that we are planning a week of Work Experience for all Year 10 students later this year. Mr Bevin will be e-mailing all parents in the next few weeks to start to collate a list of possible Work Experience placements for our Year 10 students.

Please remember that the school is closed for students on Monday 25th September, with teachers involved in a wide variety of In-Service Training, known in the UK as INSET.

Roo Stenning

Head of High School

The High School, Whole-School event and PE Calendars are also available on the school’s website.