More information on the Loy Krathong school celebrations and keeping the St Andrews community healthy and safe.

On Friday 30th October we shall be celebrating the Loy Krathong festival in school. For those new to Thailand, Loy Krathong is a wonderful family celebration to give thanks to the end of the rainy season and make offerings to the water spirits for a positive and happy year ahead. Traditionally, families make kratongs out of a banana tree’s trunk and leaves, decorating them with flowers, candles and joss sticks. These are set sail on a river or lake in the light of the full moon in the hope that the family’s prayers and wishes for the future will be realised.

If you wish to find out more about this very special festival, please read “Loy Kratong: Water is Life” written by our School Director Khru Noke and the Thai Department.

Loy Krathong at Primary School

We ask everyone on campus to come dressed in traditional Thai clothing or costumes for the assemblies in the Primary School. These assemblies will be held on Friday morning at three separate times for different age groups to enjoy. These will take place in the Primary Sports Hall at following times:

• Year 1 and 2 - 8.15 to 8.45
• Year 3 and 4 - 9.15 to 9.45
• Year 5 and 6 - 10.30 to 11.00

Parents are invited to attend the assembly that their child will be participating in. Similar to International Day Assemblies, there will be some limited seating available for parents who would like to see the assemblies.

Loy Krathong at High School

In High School there will be two assemblies, each taking place in the Theatre. These will accommodate one year group with the rest of the students from each key stage watching through a live stream to their classrooms.

During morning break time, Y12 student Famous will be performing Thai songs near the Atrium as a busking activity to raise funds  for the Handicapped Animals Foundation. You can find further information about this organisation at this link. During lunch time students and teachers will be encouraged to make their own Krathongs in the shared area of the Languages Floor (3^rd floor of the Gold building).

Health and Travel Declaration Form Update

With the recent half term and this last long weekend holiday, it's likely that many  families in our community were able to get away for at least a few days outside of Bangkok, making the most what Thailand has to offer. In order to have the most up to date information regarding everyone's health and travel, we request that  everyone takes a moment to update the Health and Travel Declaration Form found on your parent Moodle page.

This information will only be used by the Ministry of Public Health should an outbreak of Coronavirus occur within our school community. The details of where individual families may have travelled will help the MoPH screen, track and trace transmission of COVID-19  to ensure it is fully controlled and isolated.

While Thailand's coronavirus cases remain low it is essential that we as a community stay vigilant. Everyone who comes onto the school sites must wear an appropriate face mask or face shield. Temperature screening will continue to take place at the entries to both of our school campuses, and anyone presenting with a high temperature will be taken to School Nurse for further observation before going home. Please do not let your children come to school if they have fever, coughs or colds.

Everyone should be able to swim and take part in all school activities unless they have a doctor’s certificate stating clear and precise reasons why this should not be the case.

Daily Dairies

One of the activities that the MOE and MoPH have asked schools to maintain is a daily diary for the children from Year 3 upwards. This is a simple document which would serve as a reminder for children and their families to track where they went each evening. For many children, this would be just to go home, but on other evenings when families visit outside places, children will be encouraged to write about all the places they went.

This information is only accessible by senior members of staff within our school. It is not given to any ministry and is just in case there's an outbreak of coronavirus within our school community. Once again, it is hoped that this will help with the tracking and tracing of the infected individuals to bring the outbreak quickly under control.

Should parents not want their children providing this information at school, please contact the head of your child’s year groups and alternative arrangements will be made, with the parents themselves asked to keep this diary instead.

School Calendar

Our school will follow the recently updated school calendar that has been shared with our school community and is available on our school website. We realise the Government has recently brought in some additional holidays in November and altered holiday dates in December. However, St Andrews will not be adding any additional holidays or making any further changes to the calendar.

For your convenience, you can find the updated school calendar for 2020-2021 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.