Primary School Sport: Athletes thrill at NAE Games

Another weekend and another international sports trip for our Primary children. It has been an excellent trip away with our awesome children who have been training hard together since August. The NAE Games tournament in Cambodia this year has grown from 5 schools to 8 and will continue to grow over the next few years. Our children were brilliant and represented STA with great attitude, determination and resilience. Please read below to find out how our teams got on.

Also, we had more Gymnastics & Basketball at the TISAC end of season tournament and our young tennis stars were in action this weekend.

On Friday we have the FOBISIA Games trial for the Year 5&6 children. FOBISIA is a multi-sports tournament, across 3 days of competition, from the 10-15 June. All children must do a minimum 2 athletics events, 1 swim event and take part in all Teeball games. Football is not compulsory.

Please remember this is not an easy decision and all coaches and teachers will be taking time to select the children we feel are best suited to the Games. Emails about selection will go out before the break. The FOBISIA training day will be every Friday (starting second week back) starting on Teeball @ Soccer Pro.

NAE Games, Phnom Pehn

Gymnastics

Our second of three competitions over 3 weeks, saw our younger gymnasts compete for the first time at the Bambi Games. Our gymnastics programme goes from strength to strength with so many opportunities for our young gymnasts.

Our young Flames were brilliant over the day of competition and Miss Bogi is very happy with their progress.

Tennis

Congratulations to all Mini Flames tennis players who participated in the U8 Red Ball tournament hosted at ISB on Saturday morning. Our players were fantastic! They played a lot of excellent matches, many long rallies were made during the games. It was so much fun to watch them play on court. We are extremely happy to see our players enjoyed their games and keen to keep improving their skills.

Big congrats to Faith and Olivia who finished 4th and 5th place of the tournament. Hard work pays off! Now we are looking forward to a great season next year. Thank you to all coaches involved and parents for their continued support!

Please sign up on Moodle for ECA tennis. We have lots of options across several days, so we hope to involve as many children as possible in this great sport!

Basketball

Our U11 boys Blaze team went to the end of season TISAC Basketball Tournament on Friday 30th. This year we continue to strive to give all children that want to represent STA the chance to do so. The boys played brilliantly and enjoyed the whole day tournament. They were eventually knocked out in the QF by just one point but proved what real depth we have in basketball teams.

Football

After the success the BISP Soccer 7s in Phuket our Primary teams have a busy schedule come January. For our Blaze teams we have the TISAC season which will involve league games and also a tournament. This is a great opportunity for all the children in our football squads to represent STA again.

In January we have the HIS International tournament that falls on the same weekend as the FOBISIA for gymnastics, so some girls will have a tough job to decide which they would like to do. For this tournament we would like to take two U9 boys/girls teams and then our U11 boys/girls Flames. Unfortunately, at this current time there is no space for any U11 Blaze teams.

In February we have the BISAC end of season football tournament where we will take our U11 Flames teams and then in March we have the new NAE football tournament (only for U11) in Vietnam which will be similar to the BISP football tournament going away for 4 days, but 2 days of football.

Also, in March we have the Patana U9 tournament where we will look to take both U9 girls teams and 2 or 3 boys teams.

So much on offer for our children that enjoy football.

Dance

Our STA Dance team will perform their routine that won them 1st place at the TISAC Dance Competition during the Christmas Concert on 12 December.

STA Biathlon

On Saturday 8 December, we’re hosting our first ever Biathlon event and we’re excited that 200 students and parents have signed up!

There will be several races on the day through and round the High School campus and pool. Please think about getting involved - it’ll be a fun way to encourage your child to be fit and active.

Healthy Holidays

We’re planning for two camps over the holidays before Christmas: our Multi-Sport Camp and our Basketball camp. More details will follow by email soon.

Sporting Conferences

We appreciate that you are often hearing different acronyms - TISAC, BISAC, FOBISIA - that we are involved in but may not know much about them. We hope that the following overview will therefore be useful.

We are currently members of four conferences or organisations:

TISAC: Thailand International Schools Activities Conference

We have been members for many years. This has 16 schools involved which vary in size from small to very large. Currently, we mostly enter Blaze teams in TISAC. There are leagues and tournaments in several sports from U9-U19 and next year, TISAC will also start its own multi-sport Games for Primary children.

BISAC: Bangkok International Schools Athletic Conference

This is our first year in BISAC. The 12-school membership includes the largest international schools in Bangkok in leagues and tournaments across many sports, from U9-U19, split into four seasons through the year. BISAC schools also run invitational tournaments.

FOBISIA: Federation of British International Schools in Asia

This has three major multi-sport Games per year (Primary, U13 and U15) that take place in Phuket against other schools across Asia. There are also single-sport events in Tennis, Golf, Swimming and more, which take place across Asia and provide some amazing travel opportunities.

NAE: Nord Anglia Education

We are part of the South East Asia division and meet for a U11 multi-sport Games once a year. Our schools take it in turn to host the NAE Games.

In addition, we are part of the wider circuit regionally which means we are invited to a whole range of other events across Thailand.

Currently we are able to offer STA students opportunities through these conferences in Football, Basketball, Swimming, Tennis, Badminton, Golf, Teeball, Track and Field, Triathlon, Cross Country.

If you have any questions about these conferences, please don’t hesitate to contact Mr. Ollie (HS - ollie.fa@standrews.ac.th) or Mr. Damon (PS - damon.se@standrews.ac.th).

Squad Sessions

With a very busy period of tournaments and competition coming up, this list below highlights our last seasons for different sports. Also, a reminder that all squads, including lunch times squads (not boys development that has changed to Friday after school), will start again from the 14 January on the same days and times as Term 1. FOBISIA training is only on Fridays this year due to all the other extra commitments our child have.

Football last session

• Boys U11/U9 - 26 November

• Girls U11/U9 - 27 November

• Boys U7 - 28 November

• Boys U11/U9 Development Squad - 28 November

• Girls Development Squad - 27 November

Basketball last session

• Girls U11 Flames - 26 November

• Boys U11 Flames - 29 November

• Girls and Boys U11 Blaze - 23 November

• Girls and Boys U9 - 29 November

Gymnastics Squad

• Year 1/2 - 4 December

• Year 3-6 - 6 December

Dance

• Cheerleading - 26 November

• Dance Squad - 28 November

All lunchtime Dance squads finish on Friday 30 November unless Miss Cherry needs you to come to rehearse for a performance.

Term 2 Sports

There are some new developments for Term 2 ECA sport. We are always trying to offer even more sporting opportunities for our children and hopefully our new Sports Programme for Term 2 will not disappoint. These will all start from the 14 January.

Monday:

• Rock Climbing will continue at the Racquet Club, Thonglor

Tuesday:

• Open badminton will continue (2 slots: 2.45 - 3.45 p.m. and then 3.45 - 4.45 p.m.) - Sports Hall

• Due to the large number of U9 girls who want to play football, the STA Girls’ football @ Soccer Pro will be split into a Flames and Blaze teams with another BSS coach to work alongside Mr Stuart.

Wednesday:

• STA Badminton/open badminton (more badminton for our children and a chance for children who want to play more and also for children playing for STA in Term 2 competitions) - Pridi Soi 41 - 2.45 - 4.15 p.m.

• An email will be sent to invite children to be part of the STA badminton going over to Pridi Soi 41.

• Cricket and striking games on the field - 2.45 - 3.45 p.m.

• Athletics @ track TBC - 2.45-4.15pm

Thursday:

• Touch Rugby @ Arsenal Pridi Soi 21, 3.00 - 4.00 p.m. (We now have 2 teachers to coach Touch Rugby so we can offer this to Years 3-6, 40 plus places available).

Dates for your diary

We have some major sports competitions coming up this term. Please keep the following in your diary.

• Friday 7 December - FOBISIA trial for Year 5&6, 2.45-4pm

• 8 December - Gymnastics Junior ISB

Term 2 (just some of the events next year)

• 11-13 January - Swimming FOBISIA

• 19-20 January - Gymnastics FOBISIA

• 18-19 January, Harrow International Football 7s, U9 Girls & Boys Flames and Blaze, U11 Boys Flames, U11 Girls Flames

• 2/3 February - TISAC Primary Games

• 2 February - BISAC Girls and Boys U11 Football Tournament

• 7 February - U9 Invitational Tennis Vs Bangkok Patana

• 9 February - U11 STA Invitational Tennis

• 2/3 March - Marlin Mayhem

• 16/17 March - BISAC Swim Champs

• 23 March - BISAC Athletics U11

• 30 March - Gymnastics Moose Games

• 30 - March, U11 NAE SEA Football Tournament

• 27/28 April - BISAC Gymnastics

• 3-5 May - BISP Flying Fish Swimming

• 4-5 May - BISAC U11 Tennis

• 11 May - Harrow Football Festival

• 18 May - NIST Gymnastics

• 25 May - Mini Marlin Mayhem

• 30 May - U9 Invitational Tennis Vs Bangkok Patana

• 10- 15 June - Primary FOBISIA Games

• 8 June - U9 Orange Ball Tennis Tournament

Here is a small selection of fun videos from last year for you to enjoy and remember what a fantastic year of sport we had:

• Primary School Week in Review video.

• KS2 Dance Performance video.

• NAE Games video.

• FOBISIA Primary Games video.

If you any questions about Primary Sport you can either email Mr Damon (damon.se@standrews.ac.th) our Head of Primary PE or book an appointment to speak to him about the opportunities your child’s/children’s will have at STA.