Term 2 draws to a close with our traditional Songkran alms offerings, assemblies and water play. We look back at another fantastic Book Week and parents are reminded that the Raffle Draw, postponed from Fun Day, takes place this Friday.
What another great week with so much going on in school.
Congratulations to everyone in the Primary School who really raised the bar with a fantastic Book Week with so to enjoy each day. There were many highlights throughout the week but, as always, I did enjoy the Book Character Parade on Friday.
Lots of prizes were on offer for the hard work that the children put into the many different reading, writing and art activities that took place throughout Book Week.
Special thanks go to our author, Karin Littlewood. She really enjoyed the special atmosphere and the wonderful enthusiasm of all the different age groups she worked with throughout the week and the children really enjoyed seeing how her illustrations brought her stories to life.
Last Thursday there were some fantastic individual performances from our Year 12 Theatre Arts students in the auditorium at High School. They had each studied a different style of performer and used the work they had studied as a stimulus for the work they interpreted. There were some extremely thought-provoking interpretations and the audience was asked to shared their experiences during each piece to help the actors understand how their work had affected them. It was a very enjoyable experience.
Also on Thursday, before the Year 7 Parents’ Evening, Year 7 students performed three pieces of music in the Atrium that they had been working on this year. Since virtually everyone in Year 7 plays one of a wide range of musical instruments, it was an impressive sight and an excellent performance for such a large orchestra.
Songkran Festival is one of the fun Thai national holidays. It is known as the water festival and marks the beginning of the Thai New Year. It is celebrated between 13 and 16 April during the hottest season when schools in Thailand are closed. Just as the traditional Thai New Year is recognised and celebrated throughout the country, St Andrews will have its celebration on Friday 5th April just before we break for the end of term holiday.
We ask that all children come to school wearing a Songkran shirt on this day. These brightly coloured, flowery shirts are currently available in all supermarkets and local markets. We would also encourage staff and parents to wear flowery, colourful shirts which can be bought from local markets nearby the school. For example, you may find many inexpensive Songkran shirts at Tesco Lotus and other supermarkets.
The day will start by offering alms to monks. Students not taking part in the almsgiving may remain with their year group. This will be followed by a Songkran assembly. In the afternoon, the students may take part in some water play on the field. Please note that water guns are not allowed for water play. Instead, we will provide a small cup for the students to use. All the students should bring a towel to dry off with a complete set of clothes to change into on Friday for the water play.
Before school all Foundation Stage and Y1-Y3 students should leave their offerings on the marked table. Please label all bags clearly. Y4-Y6 students should take their offerings to their classrooms.
Please find the schedule of Songkran celebration below.
The day will be organised slightly differently to previous years so please read the following schedule carefully if you plan to join us for the ceremony.
|
8:00 - 8:30 |
Alms Offering to Monks, FS 1 – 3 and Years 1 - 3 |
Football Field |
|
8:45 – 9:15 |
Songkran Assembly for Years 1 - 3 |
Sports Hall |
|
8:45 – 9:15 |
Alms Offering to Monks, Years 4 - 6 |
Football Field |
|
9:30 – 10:00 |
Songkran Assembly for Years 4 - 6 |
Sports Hall |
|
10:30 |
Water Play timings for FS1 & FS2 |
Football Field |
|
12:30 |
Water Play timings for FS 3 |
|
|
13:10 |
Water Play timings for Years 1 - 2 |
|
|
13:35 |
Water Play timings for Years 3 - 4 |
|
|
14:00 |
Water Play timings for Years 5 - 6 |
|
8:30 - 9:00 |
Alms Offering to Monks |
Atrium |
|
11:00 - 11:30 |
Key Stage 3 Songkran Assembly |
Sports Hall |
|
13:30 - 14:00 |
Key Stage 4/5 Songkran Assembly |
Sports Hall |
|
13:50 - 14:00 |
Key Stage 3 Songkran Water Play |
Football Pitch |
|
14:15 - 14:25 |
Key Stage 4/5 Songkran Water Play |
Football Pitch |
Our cancelled Fun Day was to have a raffle for some great prizes which the PTG had already provided. Therefore we shall continue to run this activity this term, pulling the winning tickets on the last day of term at our Songkran assembly celebrations. Raffle tickets are on sale across the school and I hope you will want to get involved in this bit of fun for the end of term. The top 5 prizes are and iPhone X; Dell laptop (High School standard); a Garmin activity watch; a flight simulator experience @ Gateway and Apple Air Pods.
All proceeds from the raffle go to the PTG, which supports various student projects throughout the year. In the past they have provided funding for Prom (both Y12 and Y6), carnival game gifts for school or charity events, and the drinks sold by students as part of their fundraising activities for Tanzania. They have offered the use of their chocolate fountain and now have two popcorn machines. They are sponsoring sustainable water bottles for an upcoming Model United Nations event held at STA. They present a gift to each member of the graduating class and organize the Summer Party. This is why they are asking for your help for this year’s raffle in particular. They have lost their main source of funding for this year – Fun Day – so the raffle is their only way of raising money to support student activities and community-building events.
Your support is much appreciated.
Please write your child’s name and tutor group on the tickets. The numbers of the remaining prizes (plenty of vouchers) will be posted in writing at both school offices and in the first Newsletter of Term 3.
Good luck.
Thank you to everyone who has already completed the Leavers Survey that was sent out. Thanks to this information, work is already underway to ensure that classes for next year are balanced so that every student can be afforded the best possible learning experience. However, if you have not yet completed this survey, we would appreciate you completing this Google Survey as soon as possible, as it is also very important for our Admissions Team to have an idea of the number of new families we can welcome into our community next academic year.
The school calendar showing our term dates and holidays throughout the year is available on the school website at this link.
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.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.
Senior student at St Andrews Bangkok, Pun (Year 13), devises an innovative solution for effective waste management. Recently, he completed an ambitious project: an AI-powered waste sorting system. After much research and testing, he got the system to work and put the model to use in one of our rooms at school!
Physics students from St Andrews Bangkok made quite an impression at the Beamline for Schools (BL4S) competition and won the Best Outreach Award for their brilliant work. BL4S is a prestigious global physics contest organised by CERN (the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland) and DESY (the German Electron Synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany), inviting High School students worldwide to propose detailed experiments to be conducted at a particle accelerator beamline. While our students did not win the main prize of conducting their experiment in Geneva, they still stood out and were recognised from an entry of over 400 teams.
