Last week, I was in the UK with Mr Paul to conduct three days of interviews at our annual Nord Anglia Education recruitment fair to find the best teachers to come and join our team in Primary for next academic year. As well as this, I was fortunate to attend the prestigious ISC Research International Schools Awards. We were nominated for the Environmental Initiative award for our hard work in raising the profile of sustainability across the school. The Ecobeasts, originally led by Ms Helen and now being guided by Mr Ewen and Mrs Susan were at the fore of these developments, helping us build a network of community partners.
I was honoured to be able to collect this award on the evening and was even more delighted to find out that we had also been awarded International School of the Year. This incredible award goes to recognise the hard work of everyone at STA.
With a recent bout of influenza at the Primary Campus and the Wuhan coronavirus hitting the headlines we want to take this opportunity to remind you all about our well child policy. This is designed to protect everyone in school and prevent the spread of illness.
You will also be receiving an email from Mr Paul with further information about preventing the spread of illness.
In order to prevent illness spreading we ask that if ill, you must keep your child at home until they are well again. To avoid any confusion here is the definition of a well child:
A well child is not reliant on Calpol, Tempra or other cold/flu medicine
A well child is well enough to participate in school activities
A well child has a normal appetite
A well child is happy and sociable
A well child does not require greater staff ratio
A well child has normal bowel function
Please inform school or email the teacher directly if your child is sick.
Since I last wrote about the fantastic job that our air purifiers have been doing in the classrooms, our new large purifiers have arrived for our bigger spaces - the Sports Hall and the Red Room. Along with the addition of these purifiers, we have also taken steps to keep the good air in. Signs have been put up reminding people to keep the doors closed at all times and the windows have been sealed to prevent the outside air coming in.
On a daily basis, we monitor the air quality on campus using air visual monitors and make decisions on outdoor activity using these readings along with our Air Quality Policy.
We recently replaced our air visual monitor to ensure our data is reliable. Data from this is viewable on Moodle, along with the data from High School. Please note that air visual themselves haven't updated our device on their system so please check Moodle for accurate readings.
ECAs are not generally cancelled if the AQI is under 200, as we would need to make this decision by 1 pm in order to inform providers and rearrange buses. Often the conditions will improve in between 1 pm and 2.30 pm. If the AQI is in the Red Zone, where we cannot find large indoor spaces for sports activities, all providers will make activities less intensive and take more breaks. If the AQI spikes to 200 at 2:30 pm we will inform parents that the ECAs are cancelled.
Before the holidays, you should have all received the link to this year’s NAE, St Andrews International School Bangkok Parent Satisfaction Survey. Your feedback is important as helps us to provide the best possible experiences for your children.
Please note that parents need to complete the survey once. The survey is designed to capture feedback on a per-family basis, but if both parents take the survey this is also fine.
The closing date is Friday 31st January 2020.
Year 3 Residential - iCamp - Wednesday 5th - Friday 7th February
Last day of the half-term - Friday 7th February
First day of T1.2 - Monday 17th February
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!
