Secondary School Update (1/2017-2018)

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Mother’s Day Ceremony

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hai Mother’s Day celebrations come around every 12th of August in Thailand. It coincides with the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit, who is lovingly regarded as the mother of all Thai people.

The celebrations for the Queen Sirikit and for mother are being held every year without cease since 1976.

On August 11 2017,very special occasion Concordian International School celebrated Her Majesty Queen Sirikit birthday and wish Her Majesty good health happiness and long life.

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Long Live Her Majesty Queen Sirikit!

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Class of 2017

Graduating

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ondordian’s eighth graduating class held their Farewell Celebration on May 26th in the Grand theater, attended by students, friends and families. Faces filled with joy were in abundance that day. We miss them all and are very proud of them as they take this next big step in life. They have done not just a good job, but a great one!

This event was followed by the official Valedictory Ceremony, on May 27th, where our graduates received their Concordian diplomas (and of course, tossed their graduation caps).

High school is over dear Concordian students Class of 2017; it’s time to meet head-on the next set of challenges that await you. Life’s journey never ends; keep on learning!

Congratulations Dragons!!

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IB Retreat

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uring the 3 days and 2 nights of the IB retreat trip, we the inexperienced members of diploma program, were given the chance to be introduced to the IB program. The first and foremost activities done along the trip up to Khaoyai was visiting the Rangsit Baby Home. At the Rangsit Baby Home, we gave them donations, helped prepare snacks and played with the children at the age of 1 to 2 years old. The children are incredibly shy but cute. When we danced with them, most would be too nervous to dance along.

However, after the dance when I gave each of them a high-five, astonishing myself, one of them leaped toward me and gave me a heartfelt hug. Time spent with the children was certainly tiring and at the same time enjoyable. After we were done with the activities planned for the Rangsit Baby Home, we departed straight to the hotel. The hotel we stayed in was gorgeous. Each floor of the hotel has different themes, the first floor was decorated with sheep and the second floor where my room was had the rabbit theme.

Rabbit statues, paintings, and storybooks were decorated along the walls throughout the entire floor.

There was even a rabbit shaped pillow for us in our rooms. Then on the next day is the day where we spent most of our time in the function room, concentrating on the introductions toward CAS, EE, time management and TOK. Lastly, to demonstrate our learning and understanding of what we learned that day, we were separated into groups of 5-6 people, and our task was to perform a play concerning what one topic among CAS, EE, time management and TOK is about. This trip was very helpful trip for me as a G11 student, it really helped us to know more about our responsibilities for this year .

By: First

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uring the 19th of August, we Grade 11s got the privilege to meet one of the most beautiful groups of kids at the Rangsit Babies’ Home Orphanage.

Seeing the big curves on their faces, their bright exciting eyes filled with hope and love, and their small delicate hands that curled onto our fingers so tightly yet so gently lifted our hearts. We got to tour the place, helped prepare meals for the kids and played with them. We helped the caretakers organize the food, a piece of donut for each of them with milk and water. Then we placed them on the tables of their canteen. When the kids came in, one by one in a straight line, they all gave us a big warm smile and talked to us like siblings would. After the kids ate the snacks, they had a dance session where we also joined in. We clapped, jumped, laughed, screamed and had the most fun we’ve ever had. Seeing the kids dance made us realize how bad we were at dancing, but we tried, and it was funny. Then, we got to play with the babies.

Personally, I never had to carry a baby before, but now we all got to. They were all about 1 year old and were all very adorable but never said a single word. They just pointed at toys and places they wanted to go. We were chasing after them from place to place, watching their small chubby feet dance around grabbing those animal toys and bright colored balls. We only had some hours to play with them and then they had to be back to their caretakers. We carried them one by one back to the place in our arms. This touched all of our hearts, but eventually they left our arms, back to their home. That was a very special moment for all of us. We were honored to be a short part of their happiness and for them to be a short, yet meaningful, part of our happiness.

By: Mint C.

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By: Bacon

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he IB retreat this year was truly a great experience, when I first arrived at the hotel I had no idea what it was going to be like. As the introductory sessions of the IB were held I slowly began to understand the main cores of the IB and how important it was for us to complete these cores (CAS, EE, TOK). Other than that, we were able to use the hotel facilities and enjoy our time there at Khao Yai as well. I enjoyed staying 37 there over the weekend and look forward to having a great experience in the IB Diploma Program.

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his year we are all now in grade 11, this marks the first year of us being in the IB diploma program.

In order to prepare us for the year that will follow, the teachers thought that it would be in our best interest to give us an entire day dedicated to educating us about “the ways of IB”, a day to digest all the information, and also provide us with some free CAS points, possibly as an encouragement. On the first day of the “IB retreat” we visited an orphanage called the “Rangsit baby home”. During our visit there we set up some snacks and milk for the children. We even danced with them, although they did put our lackluster dancing to shame with their fiery moves, they seemed like tiny backup dancers at a concert. I suppose the dancing was to tire out the children after their snack so that they would sleep well for their after snack naps, but it is quite a fun experience. After dancing with the children, we were invited to play with the small babies of around age 1 to 2. The babies are not quite as talkative as the older children, but they are very vocal. They never really said anything to me. They were 2 years old, but they were very satisfied with pointing and laughing at things that amused them. It was a very interesting experience trying to interpret what they mean by “ gurgle…, gurgle… * Drooling*, burp”, do you want the ball or the teddy bear child? After several hours of feeble attempts to entertain the infants, it was already time to go. It was a very precious and special experience to us all. When the soft and cuddly portion of the IB retreat was over, it was time to dive into the more complex portion of the retreat, explaining the components of the IB such as Grade boundaries, TOK, EE and CAS. Dr. James spent the first hour of the day explaining to us how the grade boundaries were being changed and how it was going to make it easier on the students and the teachers. Mr. Michael spent a good several hours explaining to us all what TOK was (“How do we know that we know” being the catch phrase), the “ Prime Directive” of CAS experience and how to complete CAS A, B and C. Ms. Baertschy explained to us what the Extended Essays are and how we were to complete them. After all the presentations were over it left me with quite the impression of IB being quite a rigorous course, and I am anxious but also eager to experience the full scope of the IB education. I wish good luck to you all reading this in your IB studies.

By: Ploy P.

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he IB Retreat was overall an interesting and captivating event for me. I was able to experience a new activity service which I never thought I would ever come across. The whole grade 11 and I first went to the Rangsit Babies Home Orphanage which was very thought-provoking and compelling because we, as privileged students, get to see how underprivileged children live. We got to understand how the Rangsit Babies Home Orphanage operated and as we saw from the video they‘ve been doing an admirable job. After seeing how the organization functioned, we students helped to donate supplies to the organization and then we were able to make a direct service to the children by working in pairs to play with the kids and consistently trying to make their day better. Afterwards, we went to U Khao Yai hotel which we stayed for the whole trip. The hotel was exquisite and had numerous features for us to enjoy. At the hotel, although it was an enjoyable time, we were also there to learn more about our future in the DP. Teachers and counselors were there to make sure that we knew what was coming up in the DP and made sure we fully understood the task at hand. Most of the trip we were learning about the DP and it was not a waste of time because how important it is for us to understand the concepts. Additionally, we were also able to spend more time with each other, bonding and relaxing on the weekend. Overall the trip was an interesting bit of my brand-new DP life. It taught us how our lives were going to change over the next year and how this experience will forever touch our lives.

By: Jay