Term 1 - 28 October
Matters of Principal
Whole School News
THAILAND NATIONAL SHORT COURSE SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Over the past weekend, Lilly (Year 6) and Victoria (D Block) swam in the Thailand National Short Course Championships at Assumption University in Bangkok.
Lilly qualified to participate in the 50m Breaststroke and 100m Breaststroke events, and Victoria qualified to participate in the 100m Backstroke event. Their results are as follows:
- 50m Breaststroke (age category 10-11): Lilly - 4th place (fastest 10 Year-old female in Thailand)
- 100m Breaststroke (age category 10-11): Lilly - 5th place (fastest 10 Year-old female in Thailand)
- 100m Backstroke (age category 15-16): Victoria - 3rd
Congratulations to these talented swimmers!
LOY KRATHONG FESTIVAL
On Tuesday 8th November, we will be celebrating Loy Krathong in the School. We will learn about the festival and will make an “Eco-Krathong” using recycled and eco-friendly materials. Events will include some dancing and singing, the story of Loy Krathong and krathong making and floating. Please find information about the event below.
SCHOLARS' SOCIAL EVENT
Our inaugural Scholars' Social was an excellent opportunity for students from across the Prep and Senior School to get together and collaborate. They were awarded a tie-bar from Mr Grindlay in recognition of their scholarship achievement, then they utilised their communication, teamwork and leadership skills to go head-to-head in a quiz.
It was fantastic to see such great collaboration from our students as they worked out the answers to some very tough questions. We are excited for more of these events as we continue to develop our scholarship provision.
RICE DONATIONS
Thank you to all our families for your generous support. We will announce the winners of the challenge next week, but here is a sneak peek of your incredible donations from across the School:
Whole School Reminders
FAMILY BIKE RIDE: 29th OCTOBER
Families are invited to go along to Hand to Hand Foundation (11 Soi Suk Som Boon 5/4) to join them on their 6.1km loop bike ride course.
The Hand to Hand riders will ride this loop until they reach their goal of either 400 or 800km. RST families and friends are welcome to join the riders from 8:00am to do the 6.1km loop as many times as they want. This day will be exclusive for RST families, feel free to wear an RST t-shirt or PE kit to show how big our community is!
Your entry to this event is your rice donation, but if you wish to donate money, please use the link: www.handtohandpattaya.com/get-involved/donate-2/
SOCS SPORTS WEBSITE
Visit our RST SOCS sports website to see upcoming fixtures and results from across the School, all in one place.
Senior News
Announcements & Reminders
UKMT SENIOR MATHS CHALLENGE 2022
On 4th October, 57 students from E block to XX took part in the senior maths challenge. The results have just been released, with 19 students achieving the Bronze award, 14 achieving the Silver award and 7 achieving the Gold award.
Special mentions go to gold award recipients:
Maria, who earnt the title of ‘Best in XX’,
Puk who earnt ‘Best in LXX’,
Prem, who earnt ‘Best in D Block’ and
Pat, who earnt ‘Best in E Block’ and ‘Best in School’.
Well done to everyone who took part!
Students in F, E and D Block can look forward to the ‘Intermediate Maths Challenge’ coming up in February 2023.
CAREER SPOTLIGHT: LAW
On Tuesday, 1st November, Baker Mckenzie law firm will provide insight into Law as a career - please register your interest here.
HIGHER EDUCATION SUBMISSIONS
Our University Councellor, Ms Claire Cecil, has been working with XX students on their university applications. Students have been working with their tutors and teachers to develop their personal statements. We have now submitted our first set of UCAS applications to universities in the UK, and submitted our first applications to universities in America, Canada, and Thailand. It is an exciting and busy time for XX students as they prepare for their A Level examinations and plan for life after School.
CAMBRIDGE LEARNER AWARDS
Two of our students have been awarded the prestigious ‘Cambridge Outstanding Learner Awards’. Albert was awarded a ‘high achievement award’ for his result in AS Physical Education and Irina was awarded ‘Top in Thailand’ for her IGCSE French result.
Congratulations to both students.
IMMERSE EDUCATION ESSAY COMPETITION
Over the summer, School House boarder Jiew (E) entered the 2022 Immerse Education Essay Competition, writing a response to the title: 'Which functions are needed to make a business run and why?'
From thousands of entries by students attending leading schools all over the world, Jiew's essay was selected for a scholarship towards a summer camp, as his work was recognised as being 'one of the highest calibre of entries this year'. They also commented on the impressive quality and originality of entries and the significant effort that had gone into his research and writing. We are very proud of Jiew for this achievement.
Dates for Your Diary
31st OCTOBER: HALLOWEEN DRESS-UP DAY
Please come to School in fancy dress or non-uniform and contribute 100THB for RST Make A Difference (MAD)
1st NOVEMBER: CAREER SPOTLIGHT – LAW
Baker Mckenzie law firm will provide insight into Law as a career - please register your interest here
1st NOVEMBER: F BLOCK PARENTS' COFFEE MORNING
8am- 9am in the Senior Dining Hall
1st NOVEMBER: SPANISH FILM EVENING
Dia de la muertos
House Music Event
This year’s House Music event took place on 12th October, with each House preparing a House Song and mixed bands and ensembles. The Whole School Performed their entries to Year 8 and Parents. The results are as follows:
1st place: Southfield
2nd place: Sheriff
3rd place: Rupert Brooke
Best Ensemble: Southfield
Best House Song: Rupert Brooke
The Year 8 Audience Vote: School House
The event was hosted by Pun and Scarlet with judges Khun Pook and Mr. Burkhill. Video Highlights available soon.
House Table Tennis
Over the last month, we’ve had our first-ever House table tennis tournament. Each House had 4 doubles teams who competed in a round-robin format, followed by a knockout phase. F and E Block individual champions were Town House B and Tudor A.
D Block, LX and XX Champions were School House D and Rupert Brooke A. When all the combined points were added up, the overall House champions were Town House for the boys and joint winners for the girls were Rupert Brooke and Tudor.
Learning
ART
E Block GCSE students have learned that impasto is a painting technique, using acrylic paint and is the technique of laying on paint or pigment. This is done thickly so that it stands out from the surface. Students copied an artist's landscape and used a palette knife as their application tool. They explored different ways of applying paint to achieve raised textures.
Prep News
Announcements & Reminders
RICE DONATIONS
Thank you so much for your rice donations. We have collected approximately 1,100kg of rice for Hand to Hand Charity – an incredible amount of rice which will feed a significant number of families for a week!
On Saturday, 29th October (tomorrow) Hand to Hand have arranged a family bike ride fun day. RST families have been invited to take part in the event which starts at the Hand to Hand Centre from 8am. This event is to support the Hand to Hand riders who are doing an 800 and 400km bike ride around a 6.1km scenic route to raise funds for the charity; however you can ride as much or as little as you wish.
We hope you can join us - please feel free to wear an RST T-shirt or PE kit to show how supportive our community is!
YEAR 3 PARENT/TEACHER MEETINGS
On Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th November, we will be holding the Year 3 Parents Meetings. This year, we are offering online and in-person meetings to give our families the flexibility they need. Please book your appointment via https://Rugbyschoolthailand.schoolcloud.co.uk/ before 16:00 on 2nd November.
More information has been shared via email. If you have questions, please contact Mrs Dewhurst mdewhurst@rugbyschool.ac.th
READING AT RST: HELPING YOUR CHILD AT HOME
We are pleased to announce that we are enhancing our reading programme in Years 3 & 4 with the addition of a Reading Record booklet and the Reading Eggs app. Both resources are designed to link home and School learning by consolidating and celebrating explicit reading skills and supporting time for practice. If you would like more information about how to use these at home, details are explained from the 13:00 minute mark of the information session recording.
If you have any questions, please reach out to your child’s teacher or Margo Donaldson who heads Reading in the Prep School.
NEW STAFF WELCOME
We would like to welcome two members of staff to the Prep School. Firstly, Khun Pixie has joined the School as the PA to the Head of Prep. She has been with us for a few weeks already and hopefully many of you have seen her at drop-off and pick-up. You can contact Khun Pixie via wimaipawn@rugbyschool.ac.th
Khun Em left us at half term to head to Australia, where he has been offered two scholarships to study. We are very proud of his achievements and wish him all the luck for the future. We are, however, delighted to welcome Khun Poon to our Thai department. Khun Poon is passionate about learning languages and is keen to develop students' critical thinking skills to support them in becoming good communicators. She has lots of experience in leading Thai cultural events and contributing to other events and activities across the School. Please do welcome her to RST.
PIANO COMPETITION IN JAPAN
Before half term, Venice in Year 4 travelled all the way to Japan for a piano competition at the Abeno Kumin Hall in Osaka. You can view her amazing performance below; as you will see, she performed exceptionally well and we are very proud of her achievements!
LUNCHTIME CONCERT
A reminder that we have lots of lunchtime concerts and recitals this half term. Please check the poster for dates and times.
Note that Thursday, 3rd November has been postponed.
Dates for your Diary
29th OCTOBER
Harrow Cup Tournament - teams contacted directly
Saturday Enrichment Programme - sessions should have been selected on SOCS already
31st OCTOBER
Prep Students may come to School dressed in Halloween costume. They should bring a donation of 100THB, which will go to the charity Hand to Hand.
5th NOVEMBER - SENIOR SCHOOL OPEN MORNING
We would like to invite parents from Year 8 to tour the Senior School and meet the Heads of Year and Heads of Department. Please fill out this form if you would like to attend.
5th NOVEMBER (08:15-12:30)
Year 6 Production Rehearsal in the Veraphan Theatre. Students should bring their water bottle but a snack will be provided.
7th NOVEMBER 15:50-16:40 (online) OR 16:40-18:00 (in-person)
Year 3 Parent/Teacher Meetings
8th NOVEMBER 15:10-16:40 (online) OR 16:40-18:00 (in-person)
Year 3 Parent/Teacher Meetings
8th NOVEMBER - LOY KRATONG
Students may come into School in traditional Thai costume. Please also bring in PE/swimming kit as normal.
Beauclerc Times
Below is the very first edition of the 'Beauclerc Times', which has been put together by student members of Beauclerc. Enjoy!
4F
4F had a fantastic first half of term. We solved problems, constructed sentences, wrote poetry, and so much more. We are looking forward to the second half of Term 1!
Dyslexia Awareness
October is Dyslexia Awareness month and Nessy is offering a parent course, which is available (and free) until the end of October. Please click here if you are interested.
Lunchtime Concert
On Thursday, we held our first lunchtime concert of this half of term. The standard of performance was incredibly high and it was so lovely seeing students across the year groups showing off their talents.
We have many more concerts coming up, so please do check the dates and come along to support our musicians.
Reading
Before the half-term break Years 3 and 4 parents were invited to an information session focusing on reading. You can watch a recording of the session below:
Cross Country
Our students enjoyed the recent Inter-House Cross Country competition. Here are some photos of them in action:
Pre-Prep News
Announcements and Reminders
PARENTS' ASSOCIATION
This week, we met with members of the Parents’ Association to discuss ways that we can work together more. We discussed lots of ideas including opening the Library for shared parent and child reading, parents reading to our children in their native language, and year group coffee mornings.
Each year group rep raised your questions and issues were discussed. We hope we can continue to build on these meetings each half-term to answer your questions and also to develop further parental involvement.
Do remember though that you may also speak to members of SMT at any time.
YEAR GROUP COFFEE MORNINGS
We are introducing Year group coffee mornings each half term, where parents can come and have an informal gathering and meet members of the Pre-Prep SMT (Senior Management Team) and the Head of Year to ask any questions you may have and to share any ideas. This will also be an opportunity to meet parents within the year group.
The dates are in November as follows:
Monday, 7th November: Year 1
Friday, 11th November: Reception
Wednesday, 16th November: Nursery
Thursday, 24th November: Year 2
Monday, 28th November: Pre-N
RICE CHALLENGE
The Rice Challenge has been an amazing collection across the whole School. Pre-Prep collections have been proudly growing throughout October, with each year groups’ pile getting bigger and bigger. Thank you to everyone who has donated bags of rice!
LOY KRATONG
We are celebrating Loy Krathong on Tuesday, 8th November. We are keeping the celebrations to just the children this year, but allowing a small window of time for the treasured photographs. Please see the letter below for more details:
Dates for Your Diary
2nd NOVEMBER – COME AND SEE SESSION (08:00 – 09:00)
On Wednesday, 2nd November, we have our ‘COME and SEE session’ from 8:00 to 9:00am. This is where parents may come to the classrooms with their children and look at their work and their books, and spend time on an activity with them. Early Years parents bring your trainers as you will be joining in with our Wake and Shake!
We look forward to seeing you!
7th NOVEMBER – YEAR 1 COFFEE MORNING
8:30am (Room next to Soft Play)
8th NOVEMBER – LOY KRATHONG CELEBRATIONS
11th NOVEMBER – RECEPTION COFFEE MORNING
8:30am (Room next to Soft Play)
STEM week: Reception
To celebrate STEM day this Friday, the Reception classes have made it into a STEM week.
All of our STEM activities have been based on the story 'Dear Zoo' by Rod Campbell. We have been busy making houses for zoo animals in the playdough with straws, sticks and cardboard, thinking carefully about the size of the house needed for the size of the animal, and we have been making fences for animal enclosures in the tuff tray using sticks and pegs.
We have been tracing shadows of animals using the sunlight and torches. We have been using pipettes to drop coloured water onto paper towels to observe how the water is able to spread and we have been using the ipads to see different animals in our classroom using AR.
We have been having lots of fun and can't wait for the next STEM day in Term 2.
Thai
Reception students learnt about the letters ข and ช. They learnt the difference between both letters and they can point to ข and ช.
Non-native Thai speakers in Year 2 learnt about colours and clothes this week. They practised naming the clothes with the relevant colour and they drew the clothes after reading the captions.
Makaton Signing
This week we have been learning the signs for the Year 2 class animal names: Chimpanzee, Rhino, Dolphin and Hedgehog. Can you practise the signs at home too?
Nursery Bears
This week, the children in Bear Class have very much been enjoying their new Garden Centre role-play in our outside space. They have been busy planting, digging, watering and buying flowers from our shop. Whilst having such fun, the children haven't even realised how much they have been practising important skills such as ‘communication and language’, ‘physical development’ and ‘understanding the world’.
Year 2
Year 2 had a busy week, starting off with a Rangoli pattern painting to celebrate Diwali. We started a new maths topic of money, where we identified UK coins and learnt about adding and subtracting money. We started off our new writing unit on poems, where we were real Teamwork Tigers, helping to find and piece together an alliteration poem about Tim the Terrifying Tiger. And in topic, we started off our habitats by looking at our class isopods and creating questions for our Wonder Wall.
Useful Links
Enrichment & Sport
COOKING CLUB
Before the half-term break, students kneaded their cold fermented pizza dough into a flat dough, ready to bake. After preparing their mise en place and measuring the sauce and cheese, these pizzas were baked until the cheese was bubbly and the dough was cooked. Everyone had fun and took home a part of their group's pizza.
PREP ENRICHMENT PROGRAMME:
Our Prep students continue to enjoy a whole host of activities after School:
Boarding Life
Rupert Brooke and School House Boarding Prefects continued their leadership training this week, with a session on identifying and responding to bullying:
A Halloween-themed scavenger hunt around Prep was a highlight for the Marshall House boarders this week:
Some of our Marshall House boarders elect to do additional basketball practice in the Webb Ellis Centre during activity time. Here are some photos of them in action this week:
Get your scariest costumes ready... Our Boarding Social Committee have planned a Halloween Disco. This student-led event will take place for students in Rupert Brooke and School House on Thursday 3rd November. We can't wait!
Music Scholar and School House boarder, Rute, has had some fantastic achievements recently. He was awarded Gold Prize Winner in the Voice, Class B category at the '2nd Sugree Chareonsook International Music Competition: edition 2022' and also Bronze Prize Winner in the Young Artist Class at the “3rd Inzai International Music Competition”.
Congratulations, Rute!
School House boarders celebrated winning the 'People's Choice' award at House Music. They worked so hard to prepare for this competition - congratulations, boys!
RSTeam Spotlight
Get to know the people who make RST great by learning more about them and their roles.
This week's spotlight is on Loretta Duncan - Head of Music, Senior:
Community Events
WOMEN’S AMATEUR GOLF- SIAM COUNTRY CLUB
If you would like to watch some of the best next-generation golfers in action, please visit the Siam Country Club Waterside Course from the 3rd – 6th November.
Entry is free and the golf promises to be electrifying!
