High School: “We are world citizens and members of the global community”

It’s October, with a new monthly theme building up towards next week’s High School International Day.

Into Week 8, the penultimate week of this first half-term, and it is now not long to go until this year’s High School International Day, taking place on Friday 19th October, and then half-term.

Our October Monthly Theme reflects this, and we are all looking forward to this year’s Flag Parades, with two separate High School International Day Assemblies taking place this year.

After two years with students working in House groups across Year Groups, this year we are doing something different, with each Year Group working together and focusing their activities for the day on a different continent.

Year 7 have the theme of Africa and have been been able to choose from nine different activities including African instrument design and performance, making Ghanaian masks, African dance and much more.  The whole of Year 7 will also perform a musical piece during break.

Year 8 will be focusing on Europe, with activities based on different European countries, including an English penalty shoot-out, Italian pasta architecture, a Greek mini-Olympics and Latin dance from Spain and Portugal.

Year 9 have adopted South America and will be learning about street art in the favelas, Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, Carnival masks, hunting in the Amazon Rainforest, and the cuisine, music and dance, and sporting pedigree of South America.

Year 10 are based closer to home in Asia, learning more about the many diverse cultures, crafts, games and music that illuminate this beautiful continent through activities such as Origami, Thai Dancing, Calligraphy, Kabbadi, Mahjong, Chinese Chess and Rangoli pattern making.

Year 11 are celebrating the countries and cultures of Oceania, with a wide range of different activities, including Aussie Rules football, Aboriginal Art, the Haka, didgeridoos and rain sticks, a wide variety of traditional clothing, creating a wildlife documentary or tourism video and debates about big issues confronting the Oceania region.

Years 12 and 13 get two continents - North America and Antarctica - with students choosing to plan a  Mexico City to Anchorage road trip, contribute to a North American cookbook, take part in a Model United Nations (MUN) debate on the exploitation of Antarctica’s resources or take part in a 48-hour Antarctica Film Festival.

As well as all of that, we will have our traditional, amazing, International lunch (Thank you to all those parents who are already planning this) and two High School International Day Assemblies, so that all those parents who have been involved can join in the festivities at the end of the day. These Assemblies will include this year’s Flag Parades, the finals of the International Fashion Awards, with students choosing to dress either to represent their own country or their Year Groups, and the winners of our “We are world citizens and members of the global community” photography and poetry competitions. It is going to be a great last day of this half-term.

Air Quality Update

As the morning temperatures decrease, Bangkok’s air quality is deteriorating, even with the heavy rain that we have been having recently. Many of you will remember the discussions about air quality from January and February this year, but we have many new parents this year, and some significant updates, so it is worth including some background.

As we do with temperature and humidity (the Heat Index), we continually monitor the air quality at the school and adjust students’ activities accordingly. While we began last year using data from nearby monitoring stations, we then ordered three AirVisual Pros, so that we can now measure our own local and live data. Since April, one of our AirVisual Pros has been “broadcasting” hourly updates, so that all High School parents can see our data, both on the AirVisual app and on the Air Visual website.

Once we have our local and live data, we then apply our policy about how we adjust students’ activities when the air quality deteriorates. We updated and re-published our Air Quality Policy in the Parents’ Handbook on Moodle in February, basing our revised policy closely on US Government recommendations:

• US Government's Air Quality Index (AQI) Basics
• US Government's Air Quality and Outdoor Activity Guidance for Schools

Since the beginning of this academic year, we have two further developments to report. All of our air conditioners, in both the High School and the Primary School, have now been fitted with 3M Filtrete Air Filters, designed to capture smaller particles than the standard filters, and we now also have another three AirVisual Pros measuring air quality inside classrooms and shared areas around the High School. When the air quality deteriorates outside, we want to ensure that the air inside classrooms is still as high a quality as possible.

This afternoon, students in my Student Journalists ECA took two of these AirVisual Pros to a range of different locations around the school, and I continued with this after the end of the ECA. As you can see, though the air quality outside was low this afternoon, the air in the Sports Hall, in classrooms, in the Dance Studio and in the Music Technology Room was much better.

Homework Survey

For the next four school weeks, two before and two after half-term, each time a student submits a homework on Moodle they will be asked to report how long they spent on it. Please talk to your son/daughter and encourage them to answer this question as honestly as they can, as this will then help teachers, Departments/Faculties and Year Teams to see how long students in different Years are spending on their homework each week, compared to the Guidelines contained in our Homework in the High School document.

Roo Stenning
Head of High School

High School Calendar: Term 1

The school’s Google Calendars are on Moodle, via the very easy to remember http://calendar.standrews.ac.th/.