Spotlight on Primary
St. Andrews International School Green Valley
Dec 2018
Looking Back at Term 1 As we approach the Christmas holidays, it’s great to be able to look back at some of the fantastic things that have taken place in the primary school this term. However, what I love most about this newsletter is that it captures what is most important to all of us: that our children are happy being at school and make great progress in all areas as a result. This newsletter also highlights that our children are always ready to get involved in the activities and experiences that are offered to them. They are willing to try new things, challenge themselves, help others and reflect on how they can improve in various areas. They can do all of this because we all work together to continually build a supportive and caring school community where our children can grow and succeed. Thank you for your help and support throughout the term. We really are a great team! Best wishes for the holiday season. Michelle Taylor– Head of Primary
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Amazing Attainment in Primary Many of our students excel in a particular area and we would like to recognise their talent, but also the hard work that goes into ensuring that they continue to improve in these areas and challenge themselves. Below are some of our students who are achieving high results and work very hard to achieve this.
Coco – KG
Sandi - Reception
Coco shown great understanding in Maths this term and is always asking for more problems to solve!
Sandi has achieved consistently high standards in both her reading and writing this term.
Pun - Year 2
Niels – Year 3
Jeff has been working incredibly hard this term and is above Y1 expectations in his reading.
Pun has been making Ms. Laura work extremely hard on finding Maths work that is challenging enough for him.
Niels has been working hard in our multiplication and division unit. He is able to explain his thinking and develop his reasoning skills.
Paula – Year 4
Phat – Year 5
Lenny - Year 6
Paula performs consistently high in all subject areas, completes challenge work in all areas and can see the links of our unit in all subject areas
Phat has achieved the highest maths grades out of all the Year 5 students this term. Well Done!
Lenny has consistent high attainment in all areas and his knowledge in the units we have covered which he loves sharing with the class.
Jeff – Year 1
Progress in Primary At St. Andrews we are committed to ensuring that all of our students make progress in all areas. Teachers have regular pupil progress meetings where they discuss and document which students may need further support or challenge in certain areas as well as the students who may need to work harder and require further motivation to reach their potential. Teachers then discuss targets for improvement with students and these targets are reviewed regularly. Below are those students who have made outstanding progress in a particular subject or area and have
Trim - Nursery
Tin Tin - KG
Annie - Rec
He has made great progress with his physical development. He is very confident climbing and using the slides in the playground showing great gross motor skills.
Tin Tin has learnt English at an incredible rate this term. This has enabled him to make lots of new friends and take part in fun activities in class.
Annie start this term with very little English and is now reading at age group expected reading levels!
Emma - Year 1
Ellie - Year 2
Kathy - Year 3
Emma has been working hard, doing her best and progressing in all areas this term
Ellie has made fantastic progress in her written English work this term. Well done Ellie!
Kathy has made fantastic progress in her English language. Her writing and Maths skills have excelled and she is a passionate learner.
Matilda – Year 4
Emilie - Year 5
Poppy - Year 6
Matilda is growing in confidence in Maths by applying a Growth Mindset and getting involved in discussions to explain her reasoning.
Emilie has made outstanding progress in written and spoken English. Well done Emilie
Poppy has worked hard in both Maths and English - she has moved up from MA to HA within the first term.
The Primary Drama Department Presents: The Lion King Our primary production of the Lion King was truly a fantastic performance. The students showed commitment, confidence and obvious enjoyment. As always, events like this are just down to the students! Thank you to all the parents who have helped, as well as Ms. Nikki, Ms. Lily, Ms. Ginny, Ms. Cat, Mr. Mat and Mr. Ben for all their hard work.
Loy Krathong and Thai Cultural Activities The Early Years prepared for Loy Krathong celebrations by making Loy Krathongs with their teachers. Then on Friday 23rd November, the whole school was involved in various Thai cultural activities that had been organised by the Thai department and Thai Tani. Many thanks to our Thai staff for organising such a lovely day and sharing Thai culture with our community.
Halloween Party 2018! School was brought to life for Halloween with plenty of scary faces and outfits to make us scream. It was an action-packed night with a terrifying haunted house, scary movies, ghoulish face-painting, tarot card reading, ghost painting competition, disco, delicious food and much, much more. Thanks to all the students, teachers, parents and support staff for their contribution to this successful event.
School Fair Each year the Secondary students host a School Fair which our primary children look forward to with anticipation. From the dunk tank, to ‘egging’ teachers or browsing stands for things to buy, it is yet another wonderful example of how St. Andrews comes together as a community. The students raised almost 100,000THB, which will go towards our 4 Island Community charities.
Wai Kru Day Wai Kru is always a special time at St. Andrews where our students take part in the Thai tradition of thanking their teachers. We thank our Thai staff for sharing this celebration with us.
International Day—Activities International mindedness is an important part of our culture within the St. Andrews community. We celebrate each year on International Day with a parade and sharing an impressive lunch! However, International Day would not be as special if it weren’t for our parents who run activities with the children, sharing their culture through play, food, music, arts and more. Thank you to all our parents who helped make this such a special day.
GV Sport At SAVG we are proud to be able to offer our students so many opportunities to have fun with and compete in sport. These are just a few of the highlights from this term.
Early Years Cross Country
ESAC Primary Swim Gala
GV Sports U9s are the BISP Phuket Soccer 7’s CUP CHAMPIONS coming back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 against St. Andrews 71! What a terrific result!
BISP Phuket Soccer 7’s
Congratulations to all of our teams who played at the BISP Phuket Soccer 7’s - we are so proud of you all. And a big thank you to our amazing parents who went to support them and the coaches for all of their hard work!
ISE Biathlon At the Biathlon (swimming and running) event, hosted by ISE, our students put in a sterling effort. We had a great turnout from #TeamGV and took home medals across the age groups. Congratulations to all the students who took part and we are looking forward to competing again next year.
Thailand Kids’ Lit Quiz Students from Year 6 joined with some Year 7 and 8 students to attend the first ever Thailand Kid’s Lit Quiz. The Lit quiz is a world wide competition held each year where teams compete to answer questions based on children’s literature. The standard was exceptionally high and the three teams from Green Valley fared very well in a highly competitive environment. Our St Andrews Green Valley team came 3rd, a fantastic achievement! They each won a 300 baht voucher (to be spent on books, obviously…)
Book Corner Challenge Green Valley took part in a Book Corner competition between the four Thailand St. Andrews schools. Our amazing KG won the overall Early years category for their fab safari book corner!
Mangahigh Maths and Bebras Challenges
Our Year 5 and 6 students also took part in the international BEBRAS challenge, which promotes problem-solving skills and computational thinking. Students have to use logic to solve a variety of tasks with different difficulty. Results will be available soon!
All our students have taken part in the Mangahigh Maths challenge again this year. Students have been excited and working hard to get as many points as possible, something we have done a brilliant job with. Well done to all those who participated. Students will receive their results later in the year...good luck!
Science Sizzles in Primary This year, our Secondary Science teachers have been really involved in our Primary science lessons and Units of Inquiry, from Ms Kinsella making a mess in the Reception classes to Mr. Thorp making fireworks with Y2s and working with Y6s to look at the properties of chocolate!
Cooking Up a Storm! Can you believe we’ve only had our kitchen for a year? It’s fantastic to see it being used so often, by teachers and students to support class learning, in activities and even having parents come in to share their skills.
Engaging Learning At St. Andrews we look for as many different ways we can engage students in learning, from in school experiences, sharing learning across age groups as well as field trips. Here are a few of the highlights from the term:
KG & Reception Visiting Ban Chang
Year 4 Sharing their learning with Year 2
Nursery Swimming lessons
Year 1 Field trip to Thai Tani
Exciting Opportunities Year 3 Camp out
Year 2 Celebrating Halloween!
Year 5 Zoo Field Trip
Year 6 Visiting the Chocolate Factory
Amazing Activities Part of what makes St. Andrews such a special place to be is our commitment to developing the ’whole child’. One of the ways we do this is through our Activities Programme which allows students to try something new, focus on an interest and be challenged in a different way. Some of our activities include arts and crafts, cooking, gardening, STEAM, design and technology and drama.
New Activities for Term 2 The sign up for term two activities is now live. Please use the following link to our firefly page for a full description of all the activities and the sign up form: https://goo.gl/forms/er8idJrXBBqtHVju1
Community Service Action @GV St. Andrews is committed to Community Service and we actively encourage students to take meaningful action in their local community. This year, each Island Community has identified a charity or community to support. The students have discussed the different ways they can help and have been promoting their action around school.
Chang Ban Chak Mak School
Phuket Baan Kru Boonch
Our aim is to raise money and donate resources to Ban Chak Mak. Khun BC has spoken to the school and they need the early years building painted! They also would like to have some jigsaws or games donated for the younger children. A box will be available in the corridor of TB1 and TB2 for donations such as toys and jigsaws.
The Baan Kru Boonch organisation needs help with donations: 1.Special care products (shampoo toothpaste toothbrush soap etc) 2. Seasoning (pepper, salt, chili powder soy sauce, cooking oil etc) 3. Garbage bags 4. UHT milk A box to donate items and money will be available in primary.
Samui Breaking Barriers
Samet
The plan is to create a scheduled transport service for persons with disabilities of all ages. They would like to purchase a used van and modify the van for wheelchair access. They need money for Registration and insurance for the van and Hire a full- time driver. Cookies are available on Mondays to buy as a fundraiser.
We can help by donating any clothes that you don’t need any more or other items like books for the children. There is also a ‘ Rice Drive’ where we are collecting bags of rice to give to people in need.
Hand to Hand There are donation boxes around the school.
100K Challenge Keeping Fit and Helping Others
This year, the Island Community that has the highest km count will receive a further 20,000THB to go towards their chosen charity. The students have been involved by walking, running, cycling and swimming as much as they can through the month of November.
Parents Corner Parents Corner is a page containing hints, tips, strategies and local reviews that may be of interest to you. We would love parent contributions so please send any to Laura Kerr lkerr@standrews-schools.com or pop in and see me. Intelligent Disobedience Miss Laura has been reading a lot about ‘Intelligent Disobedience’ which is essentially ‘doing right when what you’re told to do is wrong’. Service dogs are first taught how to obey commands, and then for the next part of their training are taught how to disobey dangerous commands in order to keep their team safe. This is intelligent disobedience. The terminology is regularly used in aviation and big business, but it is an important topic to discuss with our children too. We spend many years modelling good, polite behavior to our children however, sometimes they will need the confidence, skills and language to stand up and disobey when being asked to do something they know is not right. This may be in situation with a friend, a group, a coach, a stranger or anybody at all. Ira Chaleff, the author suggests using 4 simple words to teach the concept of intelligent disobedience to children. BLINK. THINK. CHOICE. VOICE. We will be exploring this concept with the children as the year goes on. Watch a short video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch? time_continue=115&v=ZjP67XORHK8 Or visit the website to learn more here https://www.blinkthinkchoicevoice.com/resources-tips/
We are hiring! Do you know a native Thai person who has very good English and Maths, and is super with children? We are hiring for some LSA/ TA roles starting in January. Speak to Miss Laura for more information.
E Safety Parent Workshop Miss Mustovic and Mr Greener will be running an E Safety workshop on 23rd January. Some of Miss Laura’s KS3 PSHE students will be coming along to teach you all the secrets, tips and tricks of apps like Snapchat and Instagram to help you keep your children safe.
Parent help and support @GV At St. Andrews we are very lucky to have parents who are willing to give up their time to help in the primary school. The way that our parents help include: listening to children read, helping with a primary activity, helping in the library and buying all the ingredients every week for our cooking activities. Below are our upcoming PYP Units of Inquiry. We are looking for parents and/or community members who may be able to help support these units by sharing their expertise. Even if your child isn’t in the year group, if you think you could offer something, please let us know! You can either talk to the class teachers direct or speak to Rachel Mustovic, our PYP Coordinator (email: rmustovic@standrews-schools.com).
Year Nursery
Kindergarten
Reception
Central Idea Express Yourself
Machines can be used to make work easier.
The Earth's natural cycles influence the things people do.
Year 1
Ideas are expressed through stories and tales all around the world.
Year 2
Communities have changed over time.
Year 3
The arts are used as a form of expression to communicate and entertain.
Year 4
People’s values and beliefs can inspire them to create different forms of art.
Year 5
Exploration may lead to discoveries, new perspectives and change in the way humans share resources
Year 6
Media can influence people's perceptions
Information for Parents We now have several different ways of keeping parents updated with our latest news and events:
Seesaw Gives you regular updates and samples of work from the classroom. Contact your child’s teacher for information on how to link to your child’s account.
Firefly Online Learning Platform This not only provides parents with curriculum and general school information but also has Class Pages with weekly updates and news.
Facebook Follow us /StAndrewsGV
Twitter Follow us @primarygv
LINE Stay in touch by joining GV School News or GV Parent Sport
Upcoming Events December 3-4
Year 4 trip to Khao Chamao
December 5
HM King Rama IX Birthday– school closed
December 6
Early Years Xmas Concert
December 10
Early Years trip to Banchang Bookshop
December 12
Carols by Candlelight
December 14
Last day of Term 1
December 15– January 6
END OF TERM 1 HOLIDAY
January 7
First day of Term 2
January 11-13
FOBISIA Swimming Gala @ Bangkok Prep
January 19
One Day, One Goal charity football competition
January 23-25
Official School Photos
January 31
St. Andrews Science Fair
February 17-25
HALF TERM BREAK