We’re into the last three weeks of the school year, and the end of year events are coming fast.
Next week we have the Finale Performance of our High School Production: Broadway Mashup and our High School Sports Celebrations and then in the last week of term each Year Group will celebrate their achievements this year together in the Atrium in our annual Awards Assemblies.
These are always great occasions and, as with the recent Graduation Dinner, we are really looking forward to getting whole Year Groups together for the first time for a long time…
Last week Years 10 and 12 sat their End of Year Exams - a chance for them, their teachers and their parents to see their progress on their (I)GCSE and IBDP courses this year - grades for these exams will be included on Year 10 and 12’s Term 3 Grade Reports which will be published, alongside Year 7-9’s, on Friday 17th June
At the end of the year it is important to reflect on the year that is ending, and this is a very important part of the Senior Studies students’ CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) programmes.
As an example, this is Beatrice’s (Sr) reflection, written both for her upcoming CAS interview and as part of the Press Pack Activity, for students who are interested in developing their journalistic skills.
“CAS engages students in a variety of activities in the form of physical activity, service and creativity, in addition to their academic studies.
The Activity aspect of CAS allows students to maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle throughout the two-year diploma course. The IB prides itself in producing well-rounded students and the Activity element in the Diploma is a true testament to that. I take boxing as my main activity and I do it weekly as a sense of escape from the IB workload. When thinking about the type of activities you want to do throughout the IB course you have to look at it from a holistic perspective. The IB can be time-consuming, so it is a good idea to engage in an activity you will enjoy but that does not demand too much of your time
Service is also an important component of CAS, requiring you to get involved in helping local or distant communities through charity and awareness. Lately, I have been involved in a group called Art Relief Crew. The group works by organising yearly art auctions selling donated art from IB students and donating the funds to a charity. Members of this group come from several IB schools in Bangkok, and my role as one of the St Andrews members was to organise for the schools to work together in planning the auction. For instance, I encouraged St Andrews students to donate art and helped run the event on the day of the auction. All in all, the event was a success and we made a substantial donation to the charity.
In addition, I’ve been involved in volunteering at Paws, a cat shelter. As a volunteer, I attend the group weekly and perform tasks to help around the shelter. This includes feeding the cats, cleaning their toys and building cat houses. My most current Service project is organising a charity event for the service group Mixed Up. Mixed Up is a Service initiative to raise funds for the protection of the endangered species the Slow Loris through a concert. The concert brings together bands from international schools in Bangkok to perform together at NIST International schools. So far, I have helped the group by finding bands in St Andrews to participate in the concert, and I will soon start organising and setting up the venue for the upcoming concert.
As a key component of CAS, Creativity requires you to engage in experiences which challenge your creative thinking skills. Perhaps the most loved component of this programme, Creativity is often used by students to integrate the experiences they love the most into their IB programme. Creative activities most enjoyed by students include developing their skills in visual, auditory, or performative arts, or perhaps learning new skills in areas such as cooking or writing. As an IB student, I have engaged in both the former and latter of these aspects of Creativity. I have developed my piano-playing skills through learning a new piece of music every day and recording my progress through weekly videos, and I have learned how to knit and crochet and made useful products which I have donated to charity organisations. The creative activity I have enjoyed the most has perhaps been cooking, through which I learned and adapted recipes from various members of my family and friends. All of these activities helped me develop new skills which I will take with me in all areas of life: whether it is by challenging my collaboration skills or broadening my awareness of global perspectives, this CAS component has pushed me to better myself.”
Beatrice Urari - Sr
On Friday 27th May, the Maths department welcomed Dr Jamie Frost to St Andrews.
Dr Frost, previously a PhD student at Oxford University and founder of Dr Frost Maths, is currently on a tour of South-East Asian schools. His website, https://www.drfrostmaths.com/, reached new levels of engagement during the pandemic resulting in Dr Frost being awarded the Covid Hero Award at the Global Teacher Prize Awards Ceremony, in special recognition of "someone who has gone above and beyond to keep young people learning during the COVID-19 pandemic". St Andrews has taken full advantage of this online platform with our engagement ranking us at the highest possible level, Exceptional, having had 75,226 questions answered by our students.
Dr Frost was very excited to meet our students and was able to give an assembly to Year 9 during their Wellbeing lesson. He explored career routes, shared his daily use of mathematics and gave some advice to our students going forward in both their studies and future careers.
In addition, Dr Frost taught an exclusive lesson to one of our Year 8 classes. During this lesson they studied robot routes in order to explore the concept of probability.
The excitement was reciprocated by our students with Dr Frost signing a significant number of calculators; it was great to see so many students excited to meet the creator of the website they use so frequently.
In the afternoon, St Andrews welcomed Maths teachers from other International Schools in Bangkok and Pattaya and Bangkok, when we were able to share our experiences using the platform so that going forward we continue to utilise it to its maximum potential. Additionally, Dr Frost shared the new upgrade ‘Dr Frost 5.0’ that our students will experience next year.
Mr Lewis C
There are still a few spaces available on Tuesday’s Parents' Workshop with Coach B: Life Skills 101
As each student graduated in our recent Graduation Ceremonies, Ms Alyssa and Mr Rob, our Careers and Higher Education Counsellors, shared their current plans for next year. For most students, these plans are to attend universities around the world.
This week we would also like to congratulate Diya on her offers from a number of Canadian and US universities.
"I am excited to be able to study the subjects that I am most passionate about at university - Visual Arts and Computer Science."
Canada
University of British Columbia - Bachelor of Arts
University of Victoria - Visual Arts and Computer Science Combined Major
University of Waterloo - Honours Geomatics
York University - Computer Science
United States
University of Oregon - Product Design
Diya plans to accept the offer from the University of Victoria to study both Visual Arts and Computer Science in a Combined Major.
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.
