Key Stage 2: Celebrating books and brainpower before the Thai New Year

Book Week 2018

Last week was a fun-packed book extravaganza in KS2. Throughout the week the students were able to take part in a range of competitions and activities based around books and a love of reading. Through the week, the KS2 students were able to work with David Bedford, our visiting author, who hosted a number of workshops and presentations for the children, hopefully inspiring them to become better writers. The week was rounded off with our Book Week Parade with everyone turned out in their amazing book character costumes. Another highlight on Friday was the Great St Andrews Bake Off final.  It was extremely difficult judging so many amazing cakes, not least because our bellies were bursting by the end of it. In the end, our KS2 winners were Pearie and Anvir.

You can find out who the winners of the other competitions were on this Google Slides presentation.

I would like to say a huge thank you and well done to Mrs Leanne, our Literacy Coordinator, who pulled everything together and made this another fantastic Book Week.

Tournament of Minds

On Sunday 25th March, two creative and eager Primary teams, comprising of pupils from Year 3 - Year 6, entered the Asia ‘Tournament of Minds’ competition hosted at Bangkok Prep.  Over the last two terms the teams have met during ECA and lunchtimes to develop their problem solving skills – developing analytical, interpretation and presentation skills; they have learnt to discuss, compromise and collaborate together to create solutions to a variety of tasks.

On Sunday, they had to perform their interpretations of the problems to an unknown panel of judges. While we didn’t have any winners, the children had an amazing day out and got to challenge themselves in new ways. The judges were impressed by the participation of all members of the team, and the home-made costumes, props and scenery which were used to enhance their presentations.  The teams also had to respond to an unseen ‘spontaneous’ task which they only had a short time scale to prepare and present with no adult support.

The tournament provides the children with a number of challenges, such as combining two countries and coming up with a new flag and a new national dance, and using the characters from one story and combining it with the plot of a different story. This abstract thinking includes many elements of STEAM, which will be introduced across the Primary school next year. If you think your child/ren would benefit from these challenges, keep an eye out for more STEAM opportunities coming soon to St Andrews.

Thank you to Ms Miri and Ms Sarah for providing this opportunity for the students.

Parent Consultations

This term’s parent consultations start tomorrow, Tuesday 27 March and continue next Tuesday, 3 April. Teachers are also available to meet with parents on alternative days before or after school. If you haven’t already done so, you can still sign up for a consultation using the links below. Before requesting an appointment, you can check the confirmed appointments with each teacher to identify available times. You can check the confirmed appointment times by clicking on this link.

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

Songkran Celebration

Next Thursday, 5t April, is our annual Songkran Celebration. For those of you who may not know, Songkran is the Thai New Year celebration. At St Andrews International School Bangkok, we celebrate Songkran in school by giving alms to the monks who visit school to offer their blessings, taking part in a cultural assembly and playing traditional games, including the very popular (and wet!) water play.

Families new to Thailand will see that flowery Songkran shirts are starting to appear in the shops and markets. These shirts, or similar bright colours are the “school uniform” for Thursday 5 April - our Songkran celebration and last day of term, so please make sure your child has something suitable to wear.

Please remember

• Small food parcels for three monks maximum (optional)

• Songkran shirt or dress

• A complete change of clothes (including underwear) for after the water play

• A towel

• Swimsuit (optional)

• Water shoes if you have any, or shoes you don’t mind getting wet

• Goggles or face mask (optional)

• NO WATER GUNS - we will provide water pots for the children to use

Coming Soon