Head's lines: Yearbooks Incoming! The Yearbook will help us reminisce about the fantastic times our school community has experienced this year. We will miss the opportunity to say goodbyes in person, but this has not stopped us from planning a fun, virtual end to the school year. This week we celebrate the final graduations for our Class of 2021.

The Yearbook will help us reminisce about the fantastic times our school community has experienced this year. We will miss the opportunity to say goodbyes in person, but this has not stopped us from planning a fun, virtual end to the school year. This week we celebrate the final graduations for our Class of 2021.  

We had all hoped that we would be able to finish this term with students on our physical campus. Unfortunately, since Bangkok remains a dark red COVID-19 infection zone, we received confirmation from government authorities that our school will not be able to re-open its facilities this term. As a result, we will remain teaching through the Virtual School Experience (VSE) until Thursday 24th June.

We all feel disappointed that friends and colleagues will miss the opportunity to say their goodbyes in person, but this has not stopped us from planning a fun, virtual end to the school year at both the Primary School and the High School. The judging for our annual House Music Competitions has begun with some fantastic performance submissions from so many students. In addition, the PE staff have been reviewing all the sporting events, tournaments and standout performances across the year for the annual Primary and High School Sports Awards beginning next week.

The Primary School intends to reveal next year's classes and class teachers later this week, and new year groups will meet up virtually to prepare for the start of the next academic year. Year 6’s waning days as student leaders in Primary School will include some great transition activities in anticipation of their move to High School, but this won’t be the time for goodbyes. For at the start of the new term, Year 6 students will come back to school early to meet their Year 6 teachers one more time before heading off to High School for an onsite orientation.

High School will finish their last week with an awards assembly celebrating the wide ranging achievements of many individual students during this very challenging year.

Graduation

We will welcome the second and final group of graduating students and tier clause families to school on Tuesday 15th June. Just as earlier in the month, holding small graduation ceremonies for different groups of graduates will allow for a really nice way to celebrate the graduation of this year's Class of 2021.

Yearbook 2020-21
The yearbooks for 2020-21 will arrive in school on Wednesday 23rd June. We will be in touch next week with details on how your family can pick up a physical copy from either the Primary campus or the High School. Alternatively, these can be collected at the start of the new school year in August. We hope that you and your family enjoy reminiscing about all the fantastic times our school community has experienced this year.

Any families who are leaving St Andrews will need to make plans to come into school so that their children can collect personal items from their lockers or cubby holes and return any school equipment such as musical instruments and library books. Please book an appointment to do this by filling in the online form emailed earlier, which will alert appropriate staff about your planned visit, so that they are sufficiently prepared to help you access the relevant areas on campus. Completing the online form also ensures that staff are available to accept the returned items. Prior to your visit, please be sure to complete an updated Health & Travel Declaration Form.

Along with the Virtual House Music Competitions, other House events (including the final points reveal), the Sports Awards and many more end of year activities will take place online. So, we still have lots to look forward to and get excited about before we end this academic year on Thursday 24th June. We will send further details about the timings and arrangements for these events next week.

Vaccinations against COVID-19
The school is working very hard with the MOE, OPEC and the BMA to get dates for all our staff - both administration and academic - to have their first vaccination. Last Sunday, all of our Thai staff team, both academic and administration, traveled to Bangsue Station, which functioned as a massive vaccination centre. They all received their first vaccination shots - a significant step forward in the fight against COVID in Thailand. 

We hope this week to get a date for all our foreign teaching staff to receive their first vaccination, and we are prepared to take them all to the designated vaccination centre to allow this to happen.

It is great to see so much information and activity finally coming into play so that everyone in our school community who wishes to be vaccinated will be able to do so over the coming months. Let us all hope that through a successful vaccination rollout that the COVID 19 pandemic can be finally brought properly under control in Thailand. We look forward with great anticipation to everyone returning to a more normal way of life that will allow our school community to once again benefit socially, emotionally and economically from living in Thailand.

“STAr Jump for Klong Toey” Challenge
Well done to everyone involved in the appeal for Klong Toey. Some fantastic hard work has gone into making this challenge and appeal for funds so successful. Our collection now stands at 550,900 Baht. However, it’s still not too late to get involved! Any funds raised will help this community receive meal provisions and additional family support through these especially challenging times.

Reminder about changes to Academic Calendar 2021-22

I know everyone has been following the global pandemic news closely. We all hope that the vaccine roll out across the world will finally bring this crisis to an end. However, travel restrictions remain in place, making it difficult and expensive for us to plan holiday visits back to our home countries. With the vaccination programme in Thailand not yet fully underway, we know that many people are debating whether returning to their home country is even going to be a viable option at all this year.

In response to comments from parents and staff, we have re-examined our school calendar for the next academic year. By reorganising a number of single-day holidays on the calendar, we have been able to allow for a four-week Christmas holiday at the end of Term 1. This extended break would give families a second, longer opportunity to return to their home country to be with their families. Hopefully, by December the global vaccination programme will be much further along and travel restrictions will be eased. Rearranging these holidays in the calendar ensures that no teaching time would be lost. Parents can click here to review this revised Academic Calendar 2021-22 which has Term 1 set to finish on Friday 10th December 2021 and has Term 2 scheduled to start on Monday 10th January 2022.

Please click here to see upcoming dates and holidays in the updated school calendar for the current 2020-2021 academic year.

For parents with enquiries, please contact support@standrews.ac.th. You can also call the Primary School directly at +66 2 381-2387-8 or the High School at +66 2 056-9555.