Head’s Lines: Our connections and collaborations

In last week’s Newsletter, I wrote about the different organisations our school is a member of and how these external accreditations enhance the quality of education and other services we offer to our school community.

Our school is also a part of several other organisations creating for our school community a wealth of extra-curricular opportunities. We were one of the founding schools creating the TISAC (Thailand International School Activities Conference) organisation in 2004. There are now 15 Bangkok international schools actively involved in TISAC with a fantastic selection of artistic, musical and sporting activities on offer each year. TISAC has a comprehensive sporting programme for girls and boys catering to the full age range of students from primary 'Under 9' teams through to our senior 'Under 18' teams.  There are art days hosted at different schools each year along with a combined High School Orchestra and Primary Choral days featuring concerts for parents to enjoy. Last year there was a very successful drama festival, as well as several really fun TISAC performing arts events such as the Primary and High School “Battle of the Bands” competition and the “So You Think You Can Dance” contest.

The TISAC leaders meet once a term to discuss the management of all the different activities and competitions, while also addressing any issues that have emerged. There is now a growing waiting list of international schools eager to join this unique conference.

Another sporting opportunity for our older students is our membership in BISAC. This is a different collection of schools to the TISAC organisation which specialises in offering a wide programme of high school sports. Our participation in this conference provides even more opportunities for our students to be involved in competitive matchups against other schools in Bangkok.

St Andrews is also a member of FOBISIA (Federation of British International School in Asia). This prestigious organisation includes all the top British international schools in Asia and allows our school community to participate in a plethora of international tournaments, festivals and competitions. There are maths competitions, music festivals, and other games alongside online opportunities in creative writing and computer coding, all of which resulting in a calendar bursting at the seams with offerings for international connections and travel.

Another great development three years ago was the creation of the NAE South-East Asia and the Middle East (SEAME) region. This league entices even more students with the opportunity to travel internationally with friends, teachers and coaches and attend a wide range of events and activities such as Model United Nations, STEM workshops, music festivals, NAE Games and a host of other staff training and student leadership conferences.

Furthermore, being a part of the NAE family has given us wonderful collaborations with some of the world's leading organisations. As a single school, our school community would have never had these amazing opportunities. The Juilliard collaboration with music, dance and drama has simply been fantastic. They have provided a rich selection of curriculum support materials and ideas to really make our performing arts become even better. The specialist music and dance teachers who are all Juilliard alumni are fantastic resources for our whole school community. They have made frequent visits to St Andrews and worked with children and parents school-wide. These fantastic individuals really showcase a higher stratosphere of talent and skill which can further inspire our community, both young and young at heart, to participate and excel in the creative arts.

Through NAE’s collaboration with UNICEF, our students join their peers from NAE schools from across the globe to raise awareness of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a collection of 17 goals set by the United Nations regarding social and economic development issues. Each year St Andrews students work on projects focusing on two of the SDGs examining ways that they can leverage the unique resources within Bangkok and Thailand to attain these societal goals. Each year, the capstone event with UNICEF is when students from Years 10-12 visit New York for the NAE-UNICEF Student Summit to present projects from their respective schools. This link provides some nice bite-size videos summarising students’ participation in this extraordinary event.

The support work and training our teachers have received from MIT again has been brilliant.  It has really made the STEAM curriculum across the school fly with fantastic problem based learning in very practical settings. Some of our young people have already been to MIT and several of our key teachers have had some inspiring training at the STEAM Centre in MIT.  This partnership will continue to develop this area of the curriculum with forward-thinking ideas and real-life problem solving. You can find out more about this amazing partnership by watching the video below.

As a school, we will continue to look to improve each of these memberships and collaborations, while also getting even more involved with other external providers and organisations to enhance the huge range of opportunities available for our school community.

No Parking in Soi 20

Here is another reminder to refrain from parking and idling in Soi 20. Several residents in this area are understandably fed up with the inconveniences caused by people parking across their driveways, thereby restricting access to their properties. There are lots of signs and cones which clearly indicate that there is no parking, so please adhere to these prohibitions. If we cannot maintain this area as a no-parking zone, the police and the local authorities may permanently remove access to the school through the gates on Soi 20. This would obviously be a considerable inconvenience to our whole community.

Thank you for your help and vigilance with this important issue.

School Calendar 2019/2020

The updated school calendar for the 2019-2020 is available here.

For parents with enquiries about Primary School, please contact officeps@standrews.ac.th or Tel: +66 2 381-2387-8

For parents with enquiries about High School, please contact officehs@standrews.ac.th or Tel: +66 2 056-9555.