Rugby School Thailand eNewsletter

Matters of Principal

Whole School News

Announcements

TECH TEAM
The Tech Team got a chance to share their message of what it means to be a digital leader for the COBIS Wellbeing in Schools conference in Malaysia as we push forward with the importance of digital well-being and 21st-century visions for the future. Who better to share this with us than the students who are and will be living it?

LITPOD
Salutations once again! This week, the Tech Team released the second episode of the LitPod, a podcast series discussing the wonderful world of literature.

In this episode, your gracious host Pun is joined by Delilah and Grahame, who are senior students in years 9 and 13 respectively. They discuss their experiences with literature during a time when screens and communication continue to become increasingly prevalent in our everyday lives, especially as Gen Z. Listen to hear some takes on book-to-screen adaptations, reading as a social media trend, and more.

Stay tuned for the release of the final episode: Reading and Accessibility, where Pun and Katie discuss some of the socio-political implications of literature with Mrs Pearce and Mr Spreyer.

RSTPA PARENT COOKING CLASSES
Our Parent Cooking Classes are proving very popular. As a result, we have added an additional date to the calendar. On Monday, 19^th June (08:00 – 10:00), we are now offering a Thai Cookery Class. We will have a maximum of 20 places, so if you are interested, please reserve your place via Line: Helen Cool or via 0907694661.

There will be a small fee of 200THB per session to cover the costs of ingredients and you will need to bring some empty containers to take your food away. If you have any questions, please email irbis2002@bk.ru

Reminders

SE@RST
We are delighted to announce that, from August, we are launching "Saturday English @ RST", a subject-based approach to teaching English for beginners aged 10 - 12 who wish to improve their English as they prepare to join an international school.

This is a course designed around subject-based learning, and each subject unit is designed to pre-teach vocabulary and concepts that are needed within the British curriculum. Units follow the inquiry process of each discipline and culminate in a project completed by the students.
This two-term course is only for children not yet studying at Rugby School Thailand so that they can improve their English to the necessary level. Please see the flyer attached if you are interested and do pass it on to anyone you may know whose children would benefit from this course delivered by our own, highly qualified EAL staff.

Senior News

Reminders

SAVE THE DATE: SATURDAY, 17^th JUNE – SPEECH DAY
All Senior students are required to attend Speech Day in full uniform at 10am. All Senior parents are invited to attend. Please join us for this great event! Please confirm your attendance using THIS LINK.

SIXTH FORM STUDENTS
Please sign up for the Rugby Ball on 29^th June, at THIS LINK.

Dates for your Diary

29^th MAY: U14 Girls Basketball vs MIS (Home)

3^rd JUNE: SAT Assessment

3^rd – 5^th JUNE: Thailand Regional Swim Championship at RST

4^th JUNE: Rordor 1^st year to report to Army

Learning

D&T
At the start of term 3, the D&T students of LXX started working on an exciting project inspired by the iconic wooden Lego figure. Their goal is to create a Lego figure that is five times larger than the original using only the information provided in the working drawing. Through this project, students are developing a wide range of skills in manufacturing, as they get hands-on experience using various tools and facilities available in the D&T room.

Each student has the opportunity to design their own figure, using different materials like wood and resin, and employing tools such as the wood lathe, bandsaw, and sanding machine. It is an engaging and personalised project that allows students to unleash their creativity while learning practical skills.

(written by Lynne - LXX)

ART
Over the recent weeks, F block students have been researching how our home environment is different for us all, depending on the life we were born into and our culture. They have researched Spirit houses, and local minority communities as well as artists that use houses and structures as a starting point. Here you can see examples of their clay sculptures that are going into the kiln this weekend so they can be fired. Students will then decorate them very soon and be finished for parents to view in the F Block Review.

CHINESE
E Block Chinese as First Language students are practising a rhetorical skill - metaphorical comparison - by likening certain characteristics of things in nature, including plants and animals to human virtues. They decided on a poster to present the virtues which we could learn from nature and insects by applying imagination, research and visualisation skills. They enjoyed listening to the other groups and were impressed by their creativity!

Prep News

Announcements & Reminders

RSTPA REPRESENTATIVES
We are incredibly grateful for all of our Prep parent representatives who have done an amazing job over the last couple of years. They have helped us to improve our communication from School to parent but also from parent to School. This two-way relationship, with student improvement at the heart of what we do, is invaluable for all. Many thanks to Khun Warin (Y3), Khun Supawee (Y4), Angelique (Y5), Gisela (Y6), Alena (Y7) and Ben (Y8).

Next year, Gisela will be stepping down to focus on her teaching career. As a result, we are now looking for a new Year 6 parent representative (Year 7 next year). If you would like to join the team, please get in touch: showell@rugbyschool.ac.th. Together we can make a difference!

TRANSITION PRESENTATIONS
This term, we will hold our Transition Presentations to inform you about any changes moving from one year group to another. If you would like to hear about our new staff, about what events we will run and other crucial information about next year, please come along.

Our next one will be on Thursday, 8^th June (17:00 – 17:30) for our Year 5 parents with students moving into Year 6 in August 2023.

UKMT JUNIOR MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGE
At the end of Term 2, our Year 7 and Year 8 children took part in the UKMT Junior Mathematical Challenge. This prestigious individual challenge encourages mathematical reasoning, precision of thought and fluency in using different mathematical techniques to solve interesting problems. Our students did very well indeed achieving:

27 Bronze Certificates;
12 Silver Certificates;
15 Gold Certificates.

Special mention must go to Cha Cha (117 pts) and Kun (113 pts) from Year 8, both of whom have been invited to take part in the Junior Mathematical Olympiad taking place on 15th June.

Other important maths events taking place in Term 3, include:

First Maths Challenge (12^th – 23^rd June), this exciting online challenge promotes logical thinking and gives our Year 3 and Year 4 students an introduction to the fun world of maths challenges;
Bangkok International School Junior Maths Competition (19^th June). We will take one team of Year 7 and one team of Year 8 students to Shrewsbury International School, Bangkok to take part in our first in-person team competition. Each team consists of four students selected from our highest-scoring JMC participants.

Well done to everyone who is taking part in and enjoying our exciting maths challenges.

YEAR 8 LEAVERS’ LUNCH
At the end of this term, our Year 8 students will be the first cohort to journey through the whole of Prep. Some of the students have been with us for six years! To mark the end of their time in Prep, we would like to arrange a special Year 8 Leavers' Lunch on the last day of term.

Please find the invitation attached with a QR code to a Google Form to confirm your attendance. This will help us to cater for appropriate numbers.

SAVE THE DATE:
Prep Speech & House Music Final: Friday 30^th June 10:30 – 12:00 (all Prep School parents invited)

PREP ECO TEAM
We are collecting HDPE plastic which is a very reusable type of plastic. If you are able to help us, you can drop this plastic off in the box at the Prep entrance. Please see the poster for more information. If you'd like to learn a bit more about what we do with this plastic, please watch the video below:

U11 AND U13 EXTENDED WISDOM FOOTBALL COACHING
At the start of this term, RST welcomed two new professional football coaches who have been supporting our School football programme by coaching students in PE lessons and football activities. During the month of June, the new Wisdom Academy coaches will be offering extended 'advanced football training' to those boys and girls who currently attend the U11 and U13 team football activities on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Please see the poster below for further information about this great opportunity, and register your child's place by clicking on this link.

YEAR 4 TO YEAR 5 TRANSITION PRESENTATION
On Tuesday, we welcomed our current Year 4 parents and our prospective Year 5 parents to learn about some key information for next year. If you were unable to attend, you can find our presentation here. If you have any questions about next year, please do ask us. We are very happy to help. Thank you to those who attended.

Dates for your Diary

27^th MAY:
U14 Boys & Girls RST Football
08:00-09:15: U10 & U12 Boys Basketball Training in the WEC - please sign-up with Mr Chisholm
08:30-10:00: Saturday Enrichment Programme Session 1 - please sign-up on SOCS
09:15-10:30: U10 & U12 Girls Basketball Training in the WEC - please sign-up with Mr Chisholm
10:15-11:45: Saturday Enrichment Programme Session 2 - please sign-up on SOCS

27^th – 28^th MAY: Summer Sizzler Swim Meet for U8-U19 @Bangkok Patana

29^th MAY:
16:15 – 17:45: U14 Girls Basketball v MIS
16:35 – 17:35: LAMDA Showcase in the Veraphan Theatre
18:15 – 19:45: U10 & U12 Boys Basketball Session @WEC

30^th MAY:
16:35 – 17:35: LAMDA Showcase in the Veraphan Theatre
18:15 – 19:45: U14 Boys Basketball Session @WEC

31^st MAY:
18:00 – 19:30: Marshall House Barbeque
18:00: Effort & Attainment Grades Published on the Parent Portal
18:15 – 19:45: U10 & U12 Girls Basketball Session

1^st – 5^th JUNE: School Closed for Half Term

6^th JUNE: Year 8 parent information session about the Senior School at 4pm in the Veraphan

Year 8 Parent Information Session

Year 3 English

Do you know what students enjoy more than being students? TEACHERS! They love getting the chance to use the highlighters to identify mistakes and assess each other's work.

In this lesson, students reviewed key grammar points first and then had to highlight any mistakes in a selection of writing from the previous lesson. Teaching our students to evaluate their own and each other’s work in Year 3 means they are exposed to higher-order thinking from an early age.

We teach children HOW to think, not WHAT to think!

Year 4 Maths

4F have been working hard to understand different types of shape and calculate their perimeters. Challenge your children at home to find the perimeter of something. All they need is a ruler and their thinking brains.

Year 6 Residential

The Year 6 students recently enjoyed snorkelling around the Samaesan islands on their Residential. The photos don't do it justice!

Music Recitals

We have recently held two Prep Music Recitals to give our students the opportunity to perform to our community. It was wonderful to see that their determination and resilience pay-off in such a talented set of performances. Congratulations to our musicians and a huge thanks to our highly-qualified team of music teachers.

RST Bake-off

The Year 7 and 8s recently participated in a thrilling bake-off. Teams gathered, plans were devised and chocolate lava cakes were baked. While creating their recipe, students excitedly created interesting garnishes and accompaniments. All cakes were made with love, yet a few groups forgot an ingredient or skipped a step so their creativity and collaboration created a new and unexpected pastry.

Was it edible? Did it ooze? Watch this fun video to find out answers to those questions as well as the winning team and the winning house.

Pre-Prep News

Announcements and Reminders

TRANSITIONS
It is that time of year when we are talking about MOVING UP to the next year. There are several meetings scheduled for year groups where there are key changes as below:

Nursery to Reception Transition Meeting, 6^th June 8:30am,
Reception to Year 1 transition Meeting, 13^th June 8:30am,
Moving Up Day, 14^th June (all children get to experience a morning in their next year group),
Year 2 to 3 Transition Meeting (first of 2), 7^th June 8:30am.

For Pre-Nursery moving to Nursery, there is very little change other than the room and teacher so we do not offer a meeting. In September all classes will have a curriculum meeting with the class teacher to learn more about the curriculum and the timetable.

BAKE SALE - THANK YOU
A BIG THANK YOU from the MAD Juniors to everyone at Pre-Prep who donated to the Bake Sale. We raised a total of 18,135THB for our charity, Hand 2 Hand. Your generosity has ensured that they were able to buy enough rice to feed more than 400 people this week.

Thank you SO much!

ART COMPETITION WINNER
Here is the winning piece for our BEACH FUN competition this year at Pre-Prep. Rhea won with this wonderful picture and it is now proudly displayed in the Pre-Prep office. Well done Rhea.

NATIVE READING STORY TIME
The Pre-Prep held its first-ever Native Reading Story Time this week, as we continue to promote the importance of our children speaking and hearing both English and their native language. Many thanks to the parents who kindly volunteered their time to share stories with the children; the children were so excited and proud to be able to talk about the stories they had heard and enjoyed recounting them during their playtime with their peers.

U7 AND U9 WISDOM FOOTBALL ACADEMY COACHING
A fantastic opportunity has arisen for our U7 (Year 1&2) and U9 (Year 3&4) footballers to develop their football skills with our new Wisdom Academy professional football coaches. Through the month of June, the coaches will be offering free Saturday morning coaching sessions at RST at the times listed on the poster. The sessions are open to both boys and girls of all abilities.

Please note that places may be limited, so please sign up through this link.

Dates for Your Diary

29^th MAY: RSTPA reps meet with SMT 8:30-9:00am

30^th MAY:
Year 1 Summer Show (2.30pm)
Year 2 visit the Outdoor Education Centre

31^st MAY: Come and See and STEAM DAY
Parents are invited to come to their child's classroom between 8:00 and 9:00 am to see their work

1^st June – 5^th JUNE: Half-Term Holiday

6^th JUNE:
- School reopens
- Nursery to Reception Transition Meeting 8:30am (for parents with children in Nursery moving to Reception next year)

Nursery Bears

The Bears have been busy reading and acting out the story of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. Lots of the children didn't know what porridge was or had never tried it. So we decided to make some in class so that we could all have a try.

The children took turns to carefully measure out and add the oats, water, milk and sugar and then we watched as it cooked from a liquid to a thick, creamy porridge. After allowing it to cool the Bears got to try it for themselves and I think most of them agreed that it was "just right".

Goldilocks would definitely have eaten it all up!

This week, we made our elephant crafts to sell in order to raise funds for the elephant sanctuary. We made sunset elephant silhouettes and elephant ornaments.

Year 2

This week our Year 2 children visited the Hand 2 Hand Foundation. As part of our topic classes last week, we had a bake sale and we are very pleased to say that we raised more than 18,000 baht to donate to the foundation. Our children had a great time on their trip and took part in some dancing, playing and art activities.

This week, the MAD Juniors helped out the TAs and teachers of Pre-Prep. We helped them to prepare resources for their lessons, cut, glue and we even got to paint!

The MAD Juniors realised what a big responsibility and hard work it is, to be a teacher and TA at RST and that so many behind-the-scenes jobs need to be done so that the children can receive the best education possible.

Makaton Signing

This week we learned the signs for:

‘Toilet’, ‘table’, ‘chair’.

Thank you to our Parrot class for their help in making the video.

Happy signing!

EAL

This week in our EAL sessions, we have been engaging in an exciting activity using pens with invisible ink to practise sight words. The children have transformed into detectives, using UV lights to reveal the hidden words and write them down. Additionally, we focused on mastering past tense verbs, ensuring a solid understanding of their usage. We also dedicated time to consolidating digraphs, helping the children strengthen their knowledge and application of these letter combinations. Through these engaging activities, we aim to enhance their language skills and promote a fun learning environment.

Useful Links

Learner Profiles

Boarding Life

We had the best time at the E Block boarding social on Monday evening!

Students took part in the hilarious Oreo challenge, tested their film knowledge in a movie quiz, drank some delicious hot chocolate and spent some well-deserved time relaxing together.

We started off the weekend right by heading to the beach on Friday evening for a yummy and very chilled dinner and swim. On Saturday, after a morning of basketball playing and watching, we all got creative and made our own "Subway at Home" sandwiches for lunch. We then headed into town for a spot of ten Pin Bowling, of which Kaimook claimed the top spot with an amazing 2 strikes in a row! We spent the evening back at Marshall House having a great game of Hide and Seek with some very clever hiding spots as demonstrated by Zulin.

On Sunday we all headed to Ramayana Waterpark to beat the heat, with an enjoyable day of swimming and sliding. Needless to say, everyone was exhausted but very happy after such a fun and busy weekend.

Enrichment

PREP CROSS COUNTRY
Cross Country students enjoyed a beautiful trail run through the hills behind School. We had a few first-timers join us this session, who demonstrated incredible resilience and Avrora and Kaofang were our stars this week.

PREP COOKING CLUB
Students in Years 3&4 Cooking Club recently collaborated on a culinary adventure, creating homemade pasta infused with spinach, carrots, and squid ink. Through teamwork and creativity, they explored the art of cooking. Next week we will cut it out, boil it and serve it with a decadent sauce.

PREP AES ACTIVITY
This week our year 5 and 6s completed their shelter-building activity which included learning how to pitch a tent and set up various tarp shelter designs. The students had to orientate their shelters according to the prevailing weather conditions and the view they wanted. Some even practised setting up a hammock under their tarp for a realistic lightweight camp.

It was the Year 3 and 4s turn to go fishing and the wonderful weather brought out the fish. The students practised carefully baiting and casting their hooks and then waited patiently for the bites. There were a number of successful catches (and releases) and only a few narrowly missed their first catches. However, these students showed great character, resilience and determination to keep practising and earning their Fishing Badge.

FOBISIA PRIMARY GAMES

The team had an incredible performance and achieved remarkable success in various events:

In the athletics match, the team displayed exceptional talent and won a total of 65 medals, securing a well-deserved 3rd place overall. Their impressive efforts and outstanding performances made the entire team proud.
Despite a shortened programme due to lightning, the team also excelled in the pool, earning a fantastic tally of 28 medals. Their hard work and determination led them to a commendable 4th place, missing out on the top spot by a mere 4 points.
In the TeeBall competition, the mixed A team delivered an exhilarating performance, winning a dramatic final game and ultimately claiming the Silver medal. It was an extraordinary achievement that showcased their teamwork and skill.
Adding to the team's success, the boys A team demonstrated their exceptional abilities and were crowned champions, bringing home a well-deserved trophy. Moreover, the boys B team, girls A team, and girls B team all exhibited incredible talent and secured Silver medals, making the team's accomplishments even more remarkable.

In total, the team proudly earned 6 trophies across various disciplines, reflecting their outstanding achievements. What's more, every member of the team achieved at least one medal, making it a truly memorable and joyful experience for everyone involved.

U16 GIRLS FOBISIA FOOTBALL CHAMPIONS
Last weekend, our U16 girls competed in the annual FOBISIA football competition hosted by Bangkok Patana. In very hot conditions, the girls played 10 games over 3 days as part of their residential trip. With a record of 8 wins, 1 loss, 1 draw and scoring 25 goals, they were crowned champions of the tournament!

Congratulations to all the girls involved who displayed outstanding levels of effort and teamwork throughout the weekend.

BASKETBALL
Last Saturday, RST hosted the top 3 Thai U13 basketball clubs at the Webb Ellis Centre. The girls had two challenging games vs Chonkanyanacoon and the Magic Owls.

The boys narrowly beat KOB and Magic Owls, then had a dramatic final vs the Thai National Club Champions Timeout Cafe BBC. Behind for most of the game, RST hit a key basket to lead 44-42 only to see the opposition score in the last 8 seconds to force an overtime. RST took an early lead in these extra 3 minutes, but couldn't hold on, eventually losing 49-51 in the last few moments.

HORSESHOE POINT OPEN 2023, THAILAND CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFIER

A number of our students took part in the competition.

Pai (F Block) achieved the following placements:

1^st place in the Open category for show jumping at a height of 100cm;
3^rd place in the Open category for show jumping at a height of 90cm;
2^nd place in the Cat A division of the Thailand Championship Qualifier #2 for Pony Dressage (Preliminary 1);
6^th place in the Open category for the Novice 1 dressage competition

Sidney (F Block) achieved the following placement:

1^st place for show jumping at a height of 60cm;

Prague (Prep) achieved the following placements:

1^st place, Dressage Pony (Preliminary 1), Dressage open (Walk trot 2)
2^nd place, Dressage pony (Walk trot 2)
4^th place, Dressage open (Preliminary 1)

Congratulations to all who took part!

RSTeam Spotlight

Get to know a little better our dedicated team of teachers and support staff who make our School great, by learning more about them and their roles.

This week we focus on Niall Watts, EAL/Cover Teacher, Pre-Prep:

Community Offers & Events

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:

Term 3 - 26 May