New Campus Update: The Srivikorn Third Place

We need your good ideas as we envision the shared spaces at our new High School campus.

In his book The Great, Good Place, sociologist Ray Oldenburg described “third places” (“after home, first, and workplace, second”) and argued that “nothing contributes as much to one’s sense of belonging to a community as much as ‘membership’ in a third place”. This idea has been a very important part of the growth of Starbucks worldwide and in the rise in the number of co-working spaces and, more recently at Central Embassy, a “Co-Thinking Space”.

One of the things that we are most looking forward to about the St. Andrews International School Bangkok High School Campus is the number of places available for students to work independently, either during lessons, before and after school or during breaks and lunchtimes. Those who visited the recent IB Visual Arts Exhibition will have seen one of the shared spaces, with spaces like this available outside clusters of classrooms around the campus.

There will also be a very large space which will combine aspects of both F23 – the ICT lab that students currently use independently at any time of the school day – and the Library, where students can both work independently and access our collection of over 2000 fiction books.

We are really excited about having our own “third place”, where students will be able to work independently, developing themselves as “enquiring, risk-taking, independent learners, who can think creatively, critically and reflectively*” or in small groups, developing “their abilities of communication and collaboration*”, on our new campus (*from our What makes a Great St Andrew's lesson? document).

Now we need help from our Great St Andrews Community:

• We would like to employ someone to work with Khun Nuch, our librarian to oversee this space. Are you, or do you know, someone who would love to work with our students to support their independent learning, or someone who loves to keep up with contemporary teenage fiction who would love to encourage them to read?

• Can you think of a great name for this space, which really captures what it will be?

If you have any ideas, please get in touch!

Mr Roo

Head of High School