Term 2 - 10 March
Matters of Principal
Whole School News
Announcements
NO SMOKING ZONE REMINDER
Please can we remind you and your staff that RST is a no-smoking site and that applies to inside and outside of our buildings at all times of the day? Please adhere to this policy and do not allow smoking anywhere on the premises.
Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
AUTOMATED ACCESS POINTS
You may have noticed new access points installed at the Senior and Prep entrances. These access points will be activated soon, which means that parents will need to have their RST ID cards activated by either the admin or IT teams to access the site during permitted times.
To help with this process, the IT and admin teams will be stationed at the main entrance from Tuesday, 7th March for two weeks. They will be available to assist you between 08:00 – 08:30 or 16:20 – 18:00.
If your card has not been activated, you cannot enter the site to pick up your child once the gates are fully operational.
DRIVING SAFELY ON SCHOOL PREMISES
We would like to remind you of the importance of driving safely on School premises. As the safety of our students is our top priority, we kindly request that you adhere to the following guidelines:
- Always drive at a safe speed and be aware of your surroundings, including pedestrians and other vehicles;
- Follow the designated drop-off and pick-up areas and avoid stopping or parking in undesignated areas;
- Do not use your mobile phone while driving on School premises.
We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our School premises safe for everyone. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Card Design Competition
We are running a card-design competition to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the game of rugby, when William Webb-Ellis picked up the ball and a new sport began. The winning design(s) will appear on official cards sold at Rugby UK, Thailand, and Japan and all proceeds will go to the Tamar Centre. Please see below for more details.
Digital Babysitting
As parents, we often rely on digital devices to keep our children entertained and occupied, but there are potential negative impacts on child development.
In this guide, we explore the potential negative impacts of digital babysitting and provide tips for building a stronger, healthier relationship with your child.
Senior News
Announcements & Reminders
THE SENIOR LIBRARY HAS A NEW WEBSITE!
Please scan the QR code to visit our new Senior library website, where you can search for (whole school) library books (Follett Destiny), check what other students and teachers are reading (Rugby Readers), read book reviews (Rugby Review), and check what's on this month in the library.
Book reviews and recommendations are encouraged and welcomed, please do email the Senior librarian at sidney@rugbyschool.ac.th
Furthermore, to celebrate International Women's Day on 8th March, the library has put together a list of 8 empowering library books, which are now displayed in the library, as well as on our new website.
IGCSE CURRICULUM 2023 - 2025
Last week, we welcomed F Block parents into School to discuss the IGCSE Curriculum their children will be following next year, including the elective choices they are currently making. You can view the presentation below:
Dates for your Diary
14th MARCH: F & E Block inter-House basketball preliminary in Games
15th MARCH: D Block, LXX & XX inter-House basketball preliminary in Games
17th MARCH: School closed for Exeat weekend
RST MAD
MANGROVES EXCURSION
On Saturday morning, 16 Senior School students visited the Mangrove Community Garden at Laem Chabang, a trip single-handedly organised by Lily [LXX, Tudor House].
Mangrove Community Garden consists of a small mangrove tree corridor between a polluted fishing village, Laem Chabang port, and two major industrial sites. The site has been preserved and nurtured for 3 decades by a remarkable man, Kru Ja, and his family. Our students pulled on protective boots and gloves and got to work planting 30 mangrove saplings amongst the established trees.
The group then volunteered an additional hour of litter-picking around a section of the site, which experiences daily spills from the incoming tide, and the stream that flows from the industrial sites. Senior School Head of Geography, Mr Fellows, spoke to students about the vital role that mangrove forests play in combating rising carbon emissions.
We hope that this will be the first of many visits by RST-MAD students to the Mangrove Community Garden, to support them financially and through active intervention.
Learning
CHINESE
E Block ‘Chinese as First Language’ students are using "Diamond Nine" to brainstorm the virtues of civilian heroes. With the given reading resources and questions, they analyse and develop their comprehension in group discussions according to the target theme.
They work together to evaluate and collectively prioritise ideas and pieces of information into what they consider to be their highest and lowest importance. The most important principle they discover as a civilian hero is "kindness"!
ART
The E block art students have been progressing and expanding their knowledge of varied skills in art, this year. After working with oil pastels, they have very quickly manoeuvred into painting with oil. This helps students to blend colours on canvas as it doesn't dry as quickly. But that doesn't mean to say there aren't challenges! This week, students created their tonal underpainting and will start working over it next week, brightening and making the colours more realistic.
Prep News
Announcements & Reminders
TERM 3 PREP ACTIVITIES
Activities will go live at 15:30 today. Please sign up as soon as possible and the deadline is Monday, 20th March at 7pm.
If you experience any problems, please contact Mr Driver rdriver@rugbyschool.ac.th
Dates for your Diary
11th MARCH: U9 Football Festival @RST
11th – 13th MARCH: U13 FOBISIA Games
13th MARCH:
08:30 – 10:30 - Year 3 Mother's Day Event
16:00 – 18:00 - Year 5 Parent Teacher Meetings
14th MARCH: U11 girls & boys Football v St Andrew's (away)
Teams have been notified
15th MARCH: Year 5 Parent Teacher Meetings (16:00 – 18:00)
17th MARCH: School Closed for Exeat
20th – 24th MARCH: Year 8 Residential
Letter sent to parents
Celebrating Student Success
DRESSAGE COMPETITIONS
We would like to congratulate Namo for winning first place in the preliminary and novice dressage competitions. She also came in 3rd place in the 90-100 cm jumping category. Imboon should also be congratulated on her achievements, including a 1st place in the novice dressage competition. Further praise to Prague with 1st place, Onyx with 4th place, and Emmet with 5th place in the dressage walk-trot.
Well done to all competitors in the Mounted Police 191 Open 2023.
MUSIC
A huge congratulations to Tian Tian for achieving 2nd place in her vocal age group in the Hong Kong International Performing Arts Festival that she attended in February.
KT has recently achieved first runner up on the piano at the Asia Students Arts Festival 2023 and also fifth place at the 10th Hong Kong International Youth Performance Arts Festival. Well done, KT.
MATHEMATICS
This week, Kun attended the Office of the Basic Education Commission to receive two silver medals in the 18th and 19th International Mathematics and Science Olympiad. Congratulations, Kun!
World Maths Day
Year 4s have had a wonderful day visiting Year 1. They had to take on the role of the teacher and help our younger students learn how to tell number stories:
Pre-Prep News
Announcements and Reminders
AIR QUALITY
The air quality has not been good this week. We do closely monitor this at School and our Air Pollution Policy can be found within the Health and Safety Policy on the RST website.
At Pre-Prep we do not go outside if the reading is over 150. Classrooms have air purifiers in them.
HAIR STYLES
A polite reminder that long hair should be tied up and extreme styles such as lines and patterns shaved into hair are not suitable for School.
LATE ARRIVALS
If you arrive after 8:30am your child will be marked as late in the register. A member of the office staff or SMT will then take your child to the classroom.
At this point lessons have started, and we want to minimise disruption to the classroom, particularly in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. In Key Stage One, Phonics lessons start at 8:30am so arriving on time is very important. It also helps the children settle in properly and feel more comfortable in the mornings. Naturally we are aware that there are times where being late cannot be helped, but please do aim to arrive on time between 8:00am and 8:30am.
The School gate closes at 8:30am each morning and after this you will be required to sign in the late book.
EYFS SPRING SHOWS
Our Early Years children will be putting on a Spring Show this half term:
- 28th March (9am): the Rabbits, Owls, Geckos, Toucans and Parrots.
- 29th March (9am): Pandas, Fish, Bears, Foxes and Giraffes.
Parents are invited to watch their child perform on their day.
CAR PARK
This is a friendly reminder about the car park as we have received several complaints about how parents are using it:
- Please drive slowly, both in the car park, and the School area;
- The area outside the Pre-Prep building is for drop-off only. You cannot park there, and security will ask you to move if you do;
- Please keep the zebra crossings clear so that pedestrians can use them safely.
To ensure the safety of our children, we ask everyone to cooperate with, and support, our security team in their duties.
Dates for Your Diary
11th MARCH: Year 2 Football Mini Tournament 8:30am onwards
An email has gone to the team members
15th MARCH: Pre-Nursery Coffee Morning 8:30-9:00am
16th MARCH: Come and See 8:00-9:00am
Parents are invited to visit their child's classroom to see what they have been learning - please bring your ID badge
17th MARCH: School closed – EXEAT weekend
23rd MARCH: Concentrating Crocodile Day
Wear something green or come as a crocodile as we celebrate "Concentrating Crocodile"
Pre-Nursery
In Pre-Nursery, we have started our new topic of 'Under the Sea' and the Fish Class have especially enjoyed all of our fishy themed activities this week.
Nursery
Just before half term, the Nursery children were Exploring Eagles as they enjoyed a full week of STEAM activities.
We started the week by looking at light and shadows and talking about why and how they form. We then moved on to colour and enjoyed experimenting with mixing the three primary colours to see what other colours we could make. Finally, we had fun playing with magnets and looking at items from around our classrooms that 'stick' and 'don't stick'. Throughout the week we created various fun art pieces by using various methods from shadow pictures to painting with magnetic paper clips.
Such a fun way to finish off our half term!
Reception Chicks
In Chick class this week, we have been learning about standardised units of measure. We were Exploring Eagles when we started to explore how to measure and records things around the classroom using rulers.
International Maths Day
On Wednesday, we celebrated International Maths day in Pre-Prep.
Early Years started off their day with a very special maths based ‘Wake and Shake’ led by Miss Sophie. It was lots of fun joining in with the actions whilst honing our maths skills. A real favourite was 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.
After that, we all returned to our classrooms to play some maths games. Year 1 were very lucky and had some special visitors from Year 4 who came to help them celebrate in class. Many thanks to all the teachers and children for making Maths day such a success.
Wake and Shake
This week the Turtles hosted Wake and Shake! All of KS1 enjoyed dancing to the 'Hokey Pokey', 'I've got the Power' and 'Tooty Tata'. There were some very good moves from everybody- including the teachers! At the end, everybody was awake and ready to start a day of learning!
Makaton Signing
This week we learned the signs for: 'Now', 'Next' and 'A long time ago'.
A huge thank you to Dolphin class for their help making the video.
Happy signing!
Music
Our energetic Reception students diligently practise their songs for the EYFS Spring Concert at the end of the term. They are so excited to share their love of music with their parents.
Useful Links
Enrichment & Sport
Sport
HARROW PRIMARY FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT
Last Saturday saw another amazing day for RST sport. Our U9 and U11 boys and girls teams all emerged as winners in the Harrow Primary Football tournament!
The U9 boys' team secured their victory in a thrilling manner with a sudden death extra time 1v1 match, where they scored a goal from the halfway line!
USEFUL LINKS
For even more photos of our sporting events, please look on the SOCS sports website. Or follow us on our RST Instagram page: sport_rugbyschoolthailand
Enrichment
PREP AND SENIOR CROSS-COUNTRY INVITATIONAL
On an incredibly hot afternoon, Prep and Senior cross-country athletes battled it out during their first combined event. All students demonstrated great resilience and rose to the challenge. Students had to try and run their fastest on a 1.8km trail loop. It was fantastic to see such good collaboration between the Senior and Prep students. Congratulations to all the athletes involved.
ADVENTURE EXPLORE SURVIVE
This week, the Adventure Explore Survive students learned about some basic outdoor first aid skills and how to look after each other in the event of an injury.
The students were taught the basics of what a First Aid kit looks like, what is inside a kit and most importantly how to use the kit to treat a variety of small injuries that they might get on a hiking trip.
They were then all given hypothetical injuries and had to carefully treat each other's "injuries". Working at our Outdoor Education Centre (OEC) really immerses the students in their activities making learning much more rewarding for them.
Boarding Life
Over the long weekend, the Marshall House boarders had a lovely time. Friday started with a night swim which created lots of fun, laughter and racing! After a busy morning of play rehearsals on Saturday morning, we had an evening walk around Lake Maprachan which was followed by delicious kebabs.
Sunday was a great day out with our first ever trip to Koh Samet. A wonderful day was had, lazing around on the bean bags, having a fantastic lunch, swimming at the beach and going on a banana boat.
Monday was much slower with a sleep in and a late lunch out. An afternoon gym session at the WEC rounded off a superb weekend.
Marshall House is incredibly lucky to have 2 very gifted singers in our midst.
Over the half term break, Tian Tian and Donut attended the Hong Kong International Youth Performance Arts Festival, where Donut (Y7) finished 5th and Tian Tian (Y8) finished 2nd in their respective age groups. While they both finished 3rd out of all the Thailand competitors!
Donut and Tian Tian both demonstrated in their performances some amazing talent, determination, and resilience, and we are all very proud of you both. Well done, girls!
RSTeam Spotlight
Get to know our dedicated team of teachers and support staff who make our School great a little better, by learning more about them and their roles.
This week we focus on Khun Benz, Teaching Assistant, Pre-Prep.
Community Offers & Events
HOLIDAY CAMPS
Are you a parent looking for a camp for your child during the April school holidays? If so, here are some sports camp options:
- 8th- 12th April: Sharpen your skills at a football or basketball camp;
- 17th – 21st April: Enhance your skills at a basketball, softball, or fitness camp.
The day camp option costs 7,500THB and includes lunch, dinner, and snacks. If you choose the boarding camp option, which includes accommodation at Rugby School Thailand, the cost is 17,500THB. There's even a special discount available for groups!
If you're interested in learning more or have any questions, please contact us via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/wisdomacademythailand, call us at 099-289-6454, or email us at admin@wisdomacademythailand.com. We'll be happy to assist you further!
HOLIDAY CODING CAMP
Our holiday coding camps, provided by BSD Online, are still available for sign-up for a range of topics from Artificial Intelligence to game development. These are a great way to up-skill our children as well as help ensure a healthy screen time balance with the importance of WHAT our children are doing on-screen, not necessarily HOW LONG.
Please follow this link for more information: https://virtualclasses.bsd.education/rugby-school-thailand/
HOLIDAY INN- RST COMMUNITY DISCOUNTS
We’d like to thank our friends from the Holiday Inn, who are offering our RST Community preferential hotel rates and discounts in their restaurants for 2023:
