A busy week where STA looked at ways to be sustainable, learnt about an Elephant Sanctuary, built Rocket Ships, and the Teachers had an INSET Day.
Ecobeasts is the name given to our team of young, eager environmentalists seeking to learn more about how to look after our planet. We've had an exciting time recently. After spending a few weeks exploring fruit and seeds during our ECA time, we have started learning about compost.
On Thursday, the Year 3 and 4 Ecobeasts received an extra special visitor, Khun Nita from Pakdone, a local company aiming to support people in Bangkok with composting their food waste and improving the quality of the soil. The children were extremely interested in the process of turning food scraps into soil and asked a wide variety of questions. We created our own food waste by snacking on bananas and saving the peels.
It was then time to unveil our new 'Punpuii' composting system in the secret garden. We added our banana skins to the terracotta pots and will keep them topped up in the weeks to come. The next challenge is to wait patiently for the new soil to form. The Year 5 and 6 Ecobeasts will learn about our new composting pots on Wednesday.
Check out this cool video to find out more about the 'Punpuii' pots themselves. Parents interested in trying Pakdone's 'Punpuii' composting system can contact Khun Nita via her website.
All classes in Primary and Foundation Stage have enjoyed a Virtual Elephant tour with Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation. The Foundation, based at the Anantara Resort in Chiang Rai, teaches people about the life of these beautiful animals and why they need protection. The sanctuary's goal is to protect and look after elephants used in the tourist industry.
Khun Ou and Mr John led the Virtual tour, showing the elephants enjoying themselves in the beautiful Chiang Rai countryside. There were some excellent questions by the students, and many facts were learnt. The school has had this link with the foundation for over a year now, and it is great to go back to see how the elephants are getting on.
This GTAEF link will connect you to the foundation's website where you can find more information.
The Year 5 students have been having an incredible time finding out about space travel and rockets as part of their Space topic. After meeting Virgin Galactic and learning about how rockets are designed, the students have been designing their own rockets! There were several amazing designs, but a lucky winner was finally chosen from each class, and their designs were printed off using a 3D printer. The finished rockets look fantastic! A massive thank you to Mr Jeremy Young for printing these off for us!
Last Friday saw the school enjoy an INSET Day. These days are an opportunity for teachers to get together and reflect on teaching and learning in the school, plan for the future and also be involved in their own professional development.
There were many different opportunities on offer on Friday. One of the most pleasing aspects of staff development was the involvement of many of our admin staff. Our office, estates and transport staff joined PE, music and swimming staff to learn about a scheme called the ‘ELKLAN Communication System’. This system teaches staff ways to communicate with students in the school. The ‘Stop, Listen, Respond’ approach to having conversations with students reminds staff to give students the opportunity to think of a response before responding immediately to a teacher or staff member.
The training was led by two members of staff that have been trained to deliver the scheme to staff, Miss Pepa and Mr Greg. For the sessions with the Transport and Estates staff we also used Khun Paepay, who works in the admissions department, to translate the content into Thai.
As well as the admin teams being trained, the class teachers and teaching assistants will be having 5 ELKLAN sessions throughout this year. By training all staff over the next few months, we hope to become a ‘Communication Friendly Setting,’ here at STA. This means we will have reached a higher level of understanding across the school community which in turn supports our communication with ALL students in our care.
Another highlight of the day was the training of class teachers by our Julliard Drama Support Teacher, Aurea Tomeski. Ms Aurea, based in New York at the Juilliard School of Performing arts, worked with our teachers on designing lessons that could be used in our Primary classrooms to develop the students’ Drama skills. These sessions were separated into Foundation Stage/Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 to focus on what could be achieved by the students at those age ranges. Now the teachers have had an opportunity to work with an expert, the students will benefit by being able to use these skills in the drama lessons.
There was also an opportunity for staff to join a Phonics training session led by Mr Phil, our head of EAL learning. This session was an introduction to teaching phonics and helped teachers develop skills to teach these phonic sounds to our students throughout the Primary School and Foundation Stage.
Mr Steve
Deputy Head of Foundation Stage and Primary School
STA Primary (Year 2-6) we will be taking part in a friendly competition involving schools from around the world from Monday 21st March 2022 to Wednesday 23rd March 2022. It’s all done online via play.ttrockstars.com.
For every correct answer to a multiplication or division question, your child will earn their class a point.
The Times Tables Rock Stars platform will calculate the class average (the number of correct answers per pupil in the class who play during the competition hours). Winning classes in the school and in the competition as a whole will be the ones with the highest average.
All game modes (Gig, Garage, Studio, etc.) will count, but only from games played between 12AM UK time on Monday 21st March and 11:59PM UK time on Wednesday 23rd March.
There is a daily time limit of 60 minutes per player per day to support player well-being.
In other words, each player can earn competition points for up to 60 minutes on each day of the competition. Once the player goes beyond 60 minutes of play on that day, they will still earn coins but will no longer earn points towards the competition.
Please encourage and support them. We suggest a limit of half an hour a day outside school hours – some will play more, some will play less.
Ms Tracey
Primary Maths Coordinator
Over time the COVID-19 response on what to do when your child is +positive has changed. Please see below for an updated COVID-19 response for our community.
We would like to thank you all for your understanding and support in keeping our community safe and healthy this term.
As Mr Paul wrote to all parents two weeks ago, we would like all parents to complete our twice-weekly ATK tests between 4 and 7pm each Sunday and Tuesday evening, to enable us to make timely decisions and to communicate these with the relevant groups within the school community. Thank you very much to those of you who are doing this each week.
Positive ATK Test Results
Over the last few weeks, we have made the switch to automating our response when we are notified of a positive ATK. The aim is to simplify things and to notify parents of affected Classes/Tutor Groups as quickly as possible.
The automation is all based on the ATK results that are recorded in our Health App. Below is an overview of the steps for moving Classes/Tutor Groups to the VSE and the communication to parents.
What happens when a child gets a Positive (+ve) ATK?
1) A positive ATK result is recorded in the Health App. This could be either a parent recording this directly or a teacher recording it after being notified by a parent of a positive ATK result.
The most important thing is that positive ATK results need to be recorded on the Health App as quickly as possible.
2) Once the positive result is recorded, an email is sent to key people - your son/daughter’s Class Teacher/Tutor, Year Leader/Head of Year, Head of Phase, etc. This lets these people know that a positive result has been recorded, and by who and starts a 20-minute countdown.
3) After 20 mins, if the positive result has not been changed, the parents of the child’s Class/Tutor Group are sent a personalised email and an SMS telling them to check their email. This includes their Class/Tutor Group and their child's name and lets them know that the Class/Tutor Group are moving to the VSE until further notice. Please note that we never disclose the name of the child who has tested positive.
4) ID cards or bag tags are automatically blocked for the children in that class and their siblings.
5) Siblings, however, are still allowed to come into school, under the following conditions:
6) Once we get confirmation of the PCR result from the family, we will contact the Class/Tutor Group again to outline the timeline for returning to school.
What happens when my child gets a Positive (+ve) ATK?
What happens when my child is High-Risk?
Please contact your son/daughter's Year Leader/Head of Year and Head of Phase if you have any questions about any of the above.
At the bottom of this newsletter, please be sure to check out our Book Week Video showing many highlights of our wonderful book week in Primary and Foundation Stage. It really captures some great memories and costumes from the day. Enjoy! click here
With the goal of providing meaningful help to the flood victims in the northern regions of Thailand, our entire community at St Andrews Bangkok came together to raise funds and donations for the affected families. In the span of a few short weeks, added to donations of food and clothing, we managed to raise an astounding total of 386,676.50 THB in donation funds. To all students, teachers, parents, and staff who participated in our efforts and contributed to this cause—thank you!
Last Friday, the STA Primary campus was transformed into a celebration of all things maths! The day was packed with engaging, hands-on activities across all year groups, making maths truly come alive for our students.
