Life is quickly starting to feel more “normal” again in our third week back in school. With so many students in school, lessons are much more normal too. Lunchtimes are buzzing with energy again as students are back playing Football, Basketball, and Volleyball.
A long, long time ago, in August 2020, the Bangkok Post had an infographic on their front page that outlined the ways in which Bangkok was “approaching ‘normalcy’” after what we now know was the first wave of COVID-19 in Thailand.
The phrase stuck with me, and I remembered it as I walked around the High School today. In our third week back in school, things are very quickly starting to feel more “normal” again.
With over 900 students in school today, greeting the students as they arrived in school this morning felt very normal, both because since last Wednesday we are back to our usual 7:45 Registration time for all Year Groups and because so few students had not entered their ATK test results on Moodle - this is becoming something “normal”.
With so many students in school, lessons are much more normal too, with only one or two students in most classes not in school. While we still have physically-distanced seating plans for all High School classes, the students are getting more used to being back in school, and class discussions are becoming more like they were in Terms 1 and 2 last year.
As I wrote last week, the Canteen is getting back to normal too, with a full choice of Western, Asian and Vegetarian main and side dishes each day. Today we reopened the Coffee Shop for takeaway service for Senior Studies students.
At Lunchtime today, we also reopened the Library for students in Years 10-13, for these students to be able to work independently.
And finally, at Lunchtime today students were able to play football and basketball, as well as volleyball, in managed small-sided games.
We now have less than 100 students in the High School who are continuing to learn through the Virtual School, with lesson details for every lesson shared via Moodle and students also involved in lessons, via Google Meet etc., as much as possible, and hope that more of these students will be joining us back in school soon. Please can any parents of these students who would like their son or daughter to return to school contact their Head of Year.
Please remember that all the school's live Google Calendars can be seen via Moodle: calendar.standrews.ac.th.
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!
