High School: The Theatre is back!

The Performance Exchange Theatre Company performance of The Return of Sherlock Holmes attracted overwhelmingly positive reviews from both students and staff. Later in the day, the actors led workshops for Year 9 classes that briefly introduced students to some of the important aspects of staging, and acting, Shakespeare.

At the end of last term, we celebrated live theatre being back in our High School Production: Broadway Mashup.

Last week and today, we had two different visiting Theatre groups performing in the Theatre and leading workshops for our students.

Last week, we were visited by BYTE, the BackYard Theatre Ensemble, who performed Hedda, Nora, Julie and Me (shown above), as well as leading workshops with our Year 13 IB Theatre Arts students, helping them to prepare for this week’s Collaborative Performance. 

Last month this show was performed at the Fringe of the Edinburgh Festival.

You can read more about BYTE’s visit in the High School Drama section below.

We were visited by the Performance Exchange Theatre Company, who performed to, and then led workshops with, Year 9. 

Year 9 students will study Sherlock Holmes: The Speckled Band after half-term and A Midsummer Night’s Dream next term, so the performance and the workshop were both closely linked to the English curriculum and will prove invaluable to students in understanding the setting and atmosphere of the short story and the performance aspect of the play.

It is great to have visitors returning to the High School, and we are already looking forward to the return of our Juilliard Dance, Drama and Music Specialists later in the year.

BTEC Work Experience

Our Year 13 International Level 3 BTEC in Travel and Tourism students recently successfully completed their first work experience placement. They all approached the experience with confidence and professionalism, representing the school to an excellent standard.

As part of their BTEC course, the students must participate in experiences that challenge them and support the development of their subject knowledge, and work experience is an essential part of their learning. With the support of the Marriott Hotel group each of our students completed a 40 hour work placement in a key functional area of the hotel. 

Priti (Si) spent the week shadowing the Marketing Director and supporting the Social Media team at the Sheraton Grande, learning about social media marketing and how it is used in the hotel industry:

“On my first day I was tasked with creating content for the hotel; two articles about the guest bedrooms and suites and two articles about the Café. I have also been learning about social media and conducting searches for references to the hotel and hotel events, for example researching Pinterest for the photoshoot of a jazz band performing at the Sheraton, creating content for the jazz band that will be posted on FaceBook and learning about the TA Ranking report.”

Siraj’s experience took him to the fitness and health sector, working in the hotel gym for three days followed by two days as a concierge at the Westin Grande:

”In my work experience at Marriott Westin Soi 19, I felt very honoured to represent them, wearing their uniform, as their staff in their hotel. I learnt some new skills in both the gym and the concierge and this has made me think about how they are improving everyday and the kindness of talking to customers. It was a different kind of environment, you learn about the life of work.”

Lorenzo and Luc experienced working in Events and Banqueting at the Sukhumvit Park Executive Suites and Marriott 57 respectively. They found the experience really enjoyable, learnt a lot about the hotel industry and are looking forward to more opportunities in the future to gain work experience.

All of our students had a busy week, learning about the world of work and seeing the world of Travel and Tourism in practice. 

We launched our International BTEC programmes in Travel and Tourism and Entrepreneurship in 2021, providing opportunities for our students to Graduation. 

BTECS are work related programmes for “learners who wish to explore a work-related qualification or specific industry area”. It offers the students both industry knowledge and transferable skills, helping students to develop the behaviours required to continue into either higher education or their chosen career.

KS3 Halloween Party

On Friday 28th October, another St Andrews tradition returns with our Halloween Party. As always, this event is organised by our Year 12 students, with any remaining funds supporting one of our Service partners, The Foundation for the Better Life of Children, which provides education and opportunities to underprivileged children.

Tickets are on sale now to Key Stage 3 (Years 7-9) students, and are selling fast, with more than half the available tickets already sold.

Please can parents of those students attending the Halloween Party ensure both that their son/daughter leaves school between the end of school and the beginning of the Halloween Party at 6pm, and that they are collected promptly at 9pm.

International Day Update

International Day is always one of the highlights of the School year, and a fantastic celebration of our global community. This year’s High School International Day is taking place on Friday 21st October.

Thank you very much to the PTG and the 32 Country Reps who are already working hard to plan the International Buffet Lunch. The current list of countries is shown below:

Last week we emailed all High School parents from the 32 countries listed above their Country Rep’s contact details. Please contact your Country Rep or the PTG - ptgevents@standrews.ac.th - if you would still like to get involved.

Masks Update

As Mr Paul wrote yesterday, from today masks are optional at St Andrews, both outside and inside our school buildings.

We understand that the transition to optional masks may be difficult for some of our students and we will of course be sensitive to this. We have already seen, during the last seven weeks, how respectful our students are of each other and each other’s choices.

Please continue monitoring the health of your children, not sending them to school if they have either symptoms or a positive ATK test result and recording any ATK test results in our Health App so we can continue to monitor the health of our community.

You can view all the School's live Google Calendars, and add our calendars to your personal Google Calendar, via Moodle.

Mr Roo
Head of High School