Term 1 - 11 November
Matters of Principal
Whole School News
LOY KRATHONG CELEBRATIONS
Loy Krathong is one of the biggest and most significant festivals in Thailand and is considered an occasion for joy, gratitude and new beginnings. It gives us the opportunity to reflect on our globally-mindedness and to show respect to our host country, Thailand. Being globally-minded is not just learning about the rich cultures around the world, but it is also thinking about our responsibility in protecting our world for the future. This year, we moved towards more biodegradable krathongs made from coconut shells and flowers, which were sold at the end of the day to raise further money for Hand to Hand.
A huge thank you to our Thai department for enabling us to observe this special festival responsibly, and for developing our globally-minded characteristic, whilst having a sense of celebration and fun.
Pre-Prep
Prep
Senior
RST CHARITY GOLF EVENT, SUNDAY 13th NOVEMBER.
This Sunday will see the inaugural ‘RST Charity Golf Day’ tee off at Siam Country Club’s beautiful Waterside course. 92 golfers will take part in the tournament with all proceeds going to support the wonderful work of the Bang Jing Jai Children’s Home.
We would like to wish all participants good luck and say a special thank you to Yee Thai Logistics, our Platinum Sponsor; our Gold Sponsors CSBC Law, FLS Group 1993 and The Good Old Sea Beachfront Cafe; and our Silver Sponsors Pacific Prime, International Education Solutions and Baker & McKenzie, who have all donated generously in support of the event.
CHRISTMAS FAIR
What's our Christmas Fair all about? As well as bringing the community together for fun and festivities, the main aim of this RSTPA event is to raise money for a selected charity partner.
This year, we have selected the Tamar Center. Started in 1999 by Project L.I.F.E. Foundation, Tamar Center was created to offer hope, healing and a new life to the estimated 35,000 plus women who are involved in prostitution in Pattaya. This incredible organisation run outreach programs, provide housing and care to the women and their children, offer vocational training, counselling and build lasting relationships. They do this because they truly believe in their tagline: “Every Life Counts”.
Proceeds from the Christmas Fair 2022 will be donated directly to the Tamar Center. So whether you're one of our generous sponsors, a kind volunteer at the event, or simply coming along for a fun day out, you'll be contributing to an amazing cause.
You can find out more about the Tamar Center here: https://www.tamarcenter.org/
If you would like to make a direct donation, please visit https://www.globalgiving.org/donate/33826/tamar-center/
CHRISTMAS FAIR SPONSORS
We would like to extend a huge thank you to Khun Sathitphong and Khun Pawika Kanjanawisitphon, RST parents of Time in Reception, who have generously donated as a lead sponsor of our Christmas Fair.
The Kanjanawisitphon family are behind one of Thailand’s leading condiment companies, Jew Huad, which has eight popular brands, including the beloved Tra Mae Krua & Chalak Tong. Thank you very much for your valued sponsorship.
We'd like also like to say a big thank you for the generous sponsorship towards our Christmas Fair from Ramayana Waterpark, we're very grateful to have their support behind our charity event.
Whole School Reminders
BOARDING OVER EXEAT WEEKENDS AND HALF TERMS
A reminder that boarders have the option to remain on campus over any of our Exeat weekends or half-term holidays, if they would like to do so. This is another way we are improving and developing our boarding provision to offer flexibility and support for boarding families' different needs.
If you would like to find out more please contact the Director of Boarding, Mr David Ennis-Billing dennisbilling@rugbyschool.ac.th. To sign up for a boarding trial or discover more about our boarding options and how they can help your child, please get in touch with the Admissions Department admissions@rugbyschool.ac.th
14th – 18th NOVEMBER - ANTI-BULLYING WEEK
Friendship Week in Pre-prep
14th NOVEMBER – ODD SOCKS DAY
Please come to School wearing odd socks
Please look for more details around your section of the School on whom to contact if you're worried about bullying:
21st NOVEMBER: School Closed (EXEAT)
22nd NOVEMBER: School Re-opens
Senior News
Announcements & Reminders
OUTSTANDING SUCCESS FOR OUR STUDENTS
Our students have been recognised by Oxford AQA for their phenomenal performances in June's GCSE examination series.
The list of winners are:
- Pann for the highest mark in Thailand in the International GCSE Biology exam and the highest mark in the International GCSE Chemistry exam. (Joint winner)
- Buggy for the 2nd highest mark in Thailand in the International GCSE Biology exam and for the 2nd highest mark in the International GCSE Chemistry exam
- Nicki for the highest mark in Thailand in the International GCSE Chemistry exam. (Joint winner) and the highest mark in the International GCSE Physics exam.
Congratulations to these students – we are delighted for all the students and staff involved in this wonderful success.
SIXTH FORM OPEN DAY
Have you signed up for our Sixth Form Open Day? If you have a child in E or D Block and would like to get to know more about RST's Sixth Form experience, join us on Saturday 26th November. Please register here: https://forms.gle/QtSr4fn9mJbefojH6
‘FUSION OF THE AGES’ ART AUCTION
You are invited to attend a live auction to bid for the art pieces that you admire the most. Not only does the auction display the talents of Senior art students, but the proceeds will support RST's microfinance fund for rural enterprises in the Isan region of Thailand. To drive sustainable growth for Thailand, we as the Rugby School community hope to play a role in promoting financial inclusivity and extending opportunities to entrepreneurs in the country's poorest regions.
The art auction will be held on Thursday, 8th December from 4-6pm finishing just in time for you to attend the evening's Winter Gala. There will be time to peruse the exhibition of art before the auction and refreshments will be provided. Please note that the event is free to enter but please do reserve seats by completing this form - ART AUCTION SEAT RESERVATION.
We look forward to welcoming you and hope to raise a large sum thanks to your generosity.
Dates for Your Diary
9th – 20th NOVEMBER: World Scholars' Cup trip to Yale, USA
12th NOVEMBER: RST Varsity Basketball Invitational
13th NOVEMBER: RST Charity Golf Day
14th – 18th NOVEMBER: Anti-bullying Week
14th NOVEMBER:
Odd socks day
U13 Boys and girls football v GIS Away
15th NOVEMBER:
8:00 – 9.00am Parents' Coffee Morning (D Block)
U18 boys, U15-18 girls Football v GIS Rayong, 7 v 7
RSTMAD local visit to Hand 2 Hand
17th NOVEMBER
Business Studies & DT trip to BMW Rayong
Senior Open Day
It was great to see so many parents joining our Senior Open Day on Saturday. We hope it was an insightful morning exploring the facilities, meeting key members of staff and seeing students in action around the School - from play rehearsals, to Art enrichment, D&T projects, science experiments and PE strength tests.
Headmaster's Distinction
I was delighted to award the following students a Headmaster’s distinction for a range of positive contributions to our community and for acts of excellence. The students were:
Perth (D Block);
Teru (D Block);
Raiki (LXX);
Ryo (LXX);
Pat (E Block);
Raf (E Block);
Mei-Mei (D Block);
Krit (XX);
Gryffin (XX);
Peace (E Block)
Learning
PSYCHOLOGY
XX Psychology students have been researching treatments for Schizophrenia this week. They made some fantastic presentations to share with each other and had some stimulating and thought-provoking debates, considering the strengths and weaknesses of the physiological versus psychological treatment options.
SPANISH
D and E Block students have learnt how to create personal profiles and CVs in Spanish as part of the Education and Employment topic:
DRAMA
F Block students have been creating their own abstract movements to accompany their verbatim stories in drama this week.
The Performing Arts Centre was very busy again this weekend as rehearsals continued for Pride and Prejudice during Open Morning.
E Block IGCSE students have been 'Learning to Fly' this week in drama as they have explored Frantic Assembly's exciting series of lifts!
Prep News
Announcements & Reminders
ACTIVITIES FOR TERM 2
Activities for Term 2 will be opening up next week. Mr Driver will notify you via email.
RSTMAD
This week, Margie from Hand to Hand came in to collect over 36,000THB that had been raised from our Halloween collection and from selling our krathongs. Many thanks to all of our families for being so generous. Margie met two of our House Captains to share how our money will benefit those less fortunate than ourselves.
Our donation will be specifically used to buy formula and nappies for the babies in the slums, which will provide much needed support for the families living there. We also discussed what future services our students could provide Hand to Hand and other local charities in the Pattaya area. Watch this space!
B-DAZZLED MUSIC AND DANCE COMPETITION
Congratulations to Prague and Emmet for achieving the highest certificate, Diamond, in the 2022 B-Dazzled Music and Dance Competition in Singapore.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN STRINGS COMPETITION
The following students recently attended the ‘Rocky Mountain Strings Competition’, achieving either first or second place. A huge congratulations to:
Shinna 6P
Yaya 6D
Emiya 5CD
Emmet 5MD
Prague 5MD
Dates for your Diary
12th NOVEMBER
- U9 Mixed Football Festival @NIST - Teams have been informed via email
- U8 & U13 Swimming @ISB - swimmers have been informed via email
- Y6 Production Rehearsal 08:15-12:30
- U12 & 13 Girls Football v Piing and Lions FC
- U13 Boys Football v Loma
13th NOVEMBER
RST Rugby v Bangkok Lions @BKK Patana - Teams have been informed via email
14th NOVEMBER
- Year 3 Geography Field Trip @Wisdom Valley - PE kit, sun cream, hat, water bottle & bug spray required.
- Odd Socks Day
- Year 8 Parents Evening (15:00 - 17:45)
16th NOVEMBER
Year 8 Parents Evening (15:00 – 17:45)
17th NOVEMBER
- Y7 Art Trip to Bangkok
- U9 Boys and Girls Football v GIS Rayong (15:30 – 17:30) – Teams have been notified
- Y6 Performance to Parents (16:30 – 17:45)
18th NOVEMBER
Y6 Performance to Parents (14:15 – 15:30)
14th – 18th NOVEMBER: Anti-bullying Week with Odd Socks Day on 14th November
21st NOVEMBER
School Closed for Exeat
1st DECEMBER: Christmas Concert:
We are excited to announce that our Prep School Christmas Concert will take place on Thursday, 1st December in the Veraphan Theatre. As seats are limited, we will be inviting only parents of performers to attend.
However, the whole event will be live streamed and we will share the link with you before the day so that the whole RST community can share in the musical talent which we have in our Prep School.
Learner Profile: Reflective
Today is Remembrance Day. We have been thinking about how we can reflect on this event but also in general around the School. Mr Howell has made a new Learner Profile news report about reflection that you can watch here.
Halloween
Halloween costumes might be back in the cupboard, but these winning videos from the Prep School dance competition can keep the fun of it all alive for a bit longer! Congratulations to the winning teams: 3VK (1st), 8E (2nd) and 8M (3rd).
Year 5/6 Junior Sports Leaders
This term, our Junior Sports Leaders have been developing their planning, organisational and presentation skills. Each group has planned two sessions which they will deliver to the Year 2s during break times over the next 4 weeks.
This week saw the first group deliver their session, which was very well received from the Hedgehog's in the Pre-Prep Hall. Olivia and Grace were excellent with the children, lots of fun was had, with very happy and active students.
Lunchtime Concert
We have had another three lunchtime concerts this week. It is so lovely to see so many of our student musicians and visiting music teachers performing to parents and students. They are all such an inspiration.
Pre-Prep News
Announcements and Reminders
LIBRARY TIME FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN
Starting next week (Mondays 3:15-3:45 and Thursdays 4:45-5:15), we are opening our Library to parents and children so you may share stories together in a quiet environment and have access to a range of English books.
Please click below for more details:
Dates for Your Diary
14th NOVEMBER: Odd Socks Day
14th – 18th NOVEMBER: Anti-bullying Week
Our focus is on ‘friendships’ and ‘accepting our differences’
15th NOVEMBER (8:30am): Monster Phonics Workshop
16th NOVEMBER: Nursery Parents' Coffee Morning
Informal chat with Head of Year and SMT
21st NOVEMBER: School Closed (EXEAT)
22nd NOVEMBER: School Re-opens
23rd NOVEMBER: Monster Phonics Day
Dress up as your favourite Monster Phonics character
25th NOVEMBER: Year 2 Coffee Morning (CHANGE OF DATE)
Pre-Nursery Rabbits
This week, as part of our 'People Who Help Us' topic, Rabbit class has been learning about dentists. We need to brush our teeth every day and Rabbits got lots of practice this week cleaning some unusual teeth in our classroom.
We used our playdough tools to pick playdough out of some big teeth and toothbrushes to brush our babies' teeth. There were also monsters in class who had dreadfully dirty black teeth, which needed a scrub.
Well done Rabbits - I love all your super clean, sparkly, toothy smiles.
Nursery Owls
This term's topic, "Off we go!", takes us to many places in the world each week, in different modes of transport. This week, we have been sailing away in our very own ocean. We stopped at the beach to read books and learn about sea animals, and we also enjoyed having an ice cream or two in our ice cream shop.
Year 1 DUCKS
Year 1 Ducks class has been busy this week with lots of hands-on learning experiences. We have been looking at concepts such as 'Greater than' and 'Less then' by comparing groups of natural materials. We used the correct symbols and wrote number sentences to share what we have learned.
In 'Talk for Write' we are discussing rhymes and poems and through the use of a 'Dinner Time Rhyme' the children found many more rhyming words to add to our tablecloth. Who knew rhyming could be such fun?
Year 2 Dolphins
The Dolphins have enjoyed using the bee-bots and testing their Computational Thinking during Topic lessons.
This term's focus has been on habitats so children were challenged to create algorithms which would move the bee-bots from a starting point to a given habitat like a rainforest, city or lake.
Students had great fun trying to devise the correct coding and also learnt about debugging which involved finding out the problem with any incorrect coding and fixing it.
We can't wait to try some more coding with the bee-bots!
Makaton Signing
This week we learned the signs for: ‘yes’, ‘which’ and ‘choose’.
Thank you to the Chick class for their help in making the video.
Mandarin
Reception students have been learning numbers 1-10 through songs, games and how to write them:
Year 1 students have been learning about family members through songs and games and are making a family tree:
Year 2 students have been learning to read and write Chinese Pinyin through songs and games:
Useful Links
Enrichment & Sport
Last weekend saw another day of RST sporting history! A record 14 different teams represented RST; 4 Prep and 1 Senior basketball team, 4 Prep football teams, 4 Senior volleyball teams and our junior swimming squad.
Over 140 of our students played against 9 different schools and 1 club! Here are some highlights:
Some of our youngest RST swimmers took part in the Puppy Cup swimming competition at BKK Prep School Primary campus last Saturday morning.
We took a team of 12 swimmers between the ages of 7-11. For many of our swimmers, this was their first competitive swimming meet; here's to many more!
PRE-PREP CODING
Our Pre-Prep students are really enjoying their coding activity:
Boarding Life
Every Thursday evening senior boarders from Rupert Brooke and School House sit together with prep boarders from Marshall for supper, as one big boarding family! It's a great opportunity for the prep boarders to find out all about senior school and boarding in Rupert Brooke and School House from the students themselves!
The Marshall House boarders spent Sunday morning challenging themselves at a new water sport - wakeboarding! After some initial nerves, each of the boarders were all whizzing around the circuit having great fun, even when they fell off. Mr & Mrs Stoker's daughter (year 2) and two of Mr Ennis-Billing's children (Years 1 and 3) looked to their older role models and got involved, too.
Another highlight of the weekend, was Zulin free-wheeling on a bike for the first time. He has shown such admirable resilience and determination to learn how to ride a bike this term and after various evenings and weekends, he finally cracked it. Well done Zulin!
Our whole boarding community gathered at the Outdoor Education Centre for Bonfire Night celebrations last weekend. It was excellent to get all three boarding houses together to honour the time-old British tradition of Guy Fawkes, which was explained to everyone in a 2-minute history lesson by Mr Lindop.
After lighting the fire and burning the 'Guys', everyone roasted marshmallows and cheered on a series of impromptu inter-house arm wrestling contests, before heading up to Wisdom Valley for pizza.
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 Rebecca Cooper - Gap Student:
Community Events
THE TRAIL MASTERS
Discover THE TRAIL MASTERS: the strongest and the fastest men and women of 10k, 30k, and 50k, with winners for each age and gender group in each trail. At the end of it all, enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of Wisdom Valley beyond finish line. There will be chill-out music from a famous DJ, a variety of delicious food and drinks from restaurants, and shops to pick up running and trail equipment for your next race. There will also be medical support on-site at the event.
Rugby school Thailand Family Rates Registration is NOW - 30 NOVEMBER 2022!
Click link below;
https://docs.google.com/forms/
Race Date: Sunday 8 January 2023
SAVE THE DATE! And see you all soon