Rugby School Thailand eNewsletter

Matters of Principal

This week Mr Grindlay talks about fear and how, when you step out of your comfort zone, you start to grow.

Whole School Reminders

END OF TERM
Term ends next Friday for the Songkran holidays. Normal Friday pick-up times across the School applies.

COVID-19
A reminder that it is vital to help us prevent the spread of COVID-19 that you do not send your child into School if they have any symptoms. Our experience tells us that children tend to exhibit symptoms for 1 or 2 days before testing positive. Thank you for your understanding in these challenging times.

DIGITAL SAFETY
As part of our efforts to create a Whole School Wellbeing Programme, we'd like to remind you of the School's Digital Safety website. The site is a useful resource for guiding you in the ever-changing world of digital platforms and devices. It hosts articles and digital safety tips that are divided into four main sections:

Social Media
Online Safety
Hot Topics
Useful Information

Parent guides and more are frequently updated as the platforms and devices our children use, change. Please do get in touch with our Head of Computing, Mr Richard Birkhill (rburkhill@rugbyschool.ac.th) if you have any feedback or questions you'd like to ask.

FOBISIA ACCREDITATION
RST will be visited by the Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA) at the end of April, to be accredited to join the organisation. There are numerous benefits of membership, including access to FOBISIA sports competitions, artistic and cultural collaborative events and high quality CPD opportunities for staff.

As part of the accreditation process, FOBISIA would like to hear from RST parents. Please complete this short survey before the end of term:

School Membership Application Survey (Parent)

SCHOOL SHOP OPENING HOURS
During the School break the School shop will be open on the following days:

4^th – 8^th April: 9.00am - 4.00pm
17^th April: 12noon – 7.00pm

WISDOM FIT
A reminder that the School gym will open from 18^th April onward and will operate under the new name of ‘Wisdom Fit’.

Parents who participate in the survey will receive a complimentary 2-week trial from 18^th – 30^th April. All survey participants will be entered into a prize draw, and one lucky person will win 6 months’ free membership. The deadline for completing the survey is Thursday 31^st March.

Whole School News

Songkran Festival

We will celebrate the Songkran Festival on Friday 1 April across the School.

The theme for this year is ‘Amazing (Thai) Tie Dye’ and we encourage students to wear a tie-dyed outfit.

The day will involve the Rod Nam Dam Hua as well as some traditional Thai activities. It'll be a great way to end our term.

RST MAD Booth - Wisdom Flea Market

Members of the RST community will be hosting a booth this weekend at the Wisdom Flea Market to benefit The Tamar Center where we will be selling their handmade items. There will be cards, purses, earrings, heat packs and pencil cases – wait until you see the cards in person, they are gorgeous!

The Tamar Center provides job training and housing for women and their children in Pattaya to help them support themselves. In addition, they also provide meals to hundreds of people each week.

To further support their efforts, you can order baked goods from Tamar Bakery, which is part of their job training programme. They make the most amazing cupcakes and cakes.

https://www.facebook.com/TamarBakeryandRestaurant/

Senior News

Announcements & Reminders

PSHE WHOLE ME PROGRAMME
As part of the Whole Me Programme development, we aim to create and deliver a series of training sessions to support parents and carers with the social and emotional aspects of learning. We are developing the RSE (Relationship and Sex Education) element of the programme for the next academic year and are keen to address the areas you feel you would like to know more about and/or receive additional support with.

To help guide the development of the Programme, please complete this short survey by the end of this term.

NEW SENIOR SCHOOL HEAD VISIT
Mr Robert Groves, the incoming Head of Senior School visited RST again on Wednesday. He spent time talking to staff, meeting with students – who also gave him a tour of the campus – and attended the termly Governors’ meeting.

NEW HEAD OF DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCEMENT
Mrs Rees, a qualified accountant with 6 years of experience working with a diverse range of businesses, will be taking on the role of ‘Head of Business and Economics’ from August. This will allow Mr May, the current post holder, to focus on his duties as Head of Sixth Form. We are delighted that the hard work, professionalism and creativity that Mrs Rees has shown over the last 3 years teaching at RST, have been rewarded.

TUDOR HOUSE CREDIT QUEENS
Tudor House celebrates the top credit award winners of each year group through awarding a ‘Credit Queen’ certificate every week.

Congratulations to this week’s F - D block winners: Pair (F Block), Nara (D Block) and Annie (E Block)

Important Dates

28 March: Year 8 Experience the Senior School – Science!
28 - 30 March: House Art Exhibition
28 March: House Academic Challenge Finals
28 - 29 March: House Drama
29 March: Senior School Assembly

Learning

We have had another busy week of learning in the Senior School, here are some highlights:

IGCSE POETRY LESSON
Our E Block students have enjoyed taking a break from Shakespeare this week to focus on improving their ability to discuss, analyse and annotate poetry.

To kickstart the renewed focus, we decided to explore the deceptively simple “Request to a Year” by the award-winning Australian poet, Judith Wright.

IGCSE DRAMA
D Block IGCSE students have been practically exploring one of their exam texts, 'Like Doves We Rise' by Yael Farber. Here, they are experimenting with light to help realise the stage direction:

'A frightening figure of a woman rises. Her height is created by the actress standing on one of the upturned zinc baths, with an extra-long skirt that creates the illusion of her towering over the children.'

MATHEMATICS
Here the XX Further Maths students are learning how to calculate the shortest distance between skew lines (lines which are not parallel and don’t intersect in 3D space) using vectors.

The module they are doing is called ‘Further Pure Maths 3’ and is arguably the most difficult of all the modules in A Level Further Maths. They have all worked extremely hard to get to this point and the Senior School maths department is proud of everything they have achieved so far. We are now pushing to get students ready for the final set of exams coming up in May/June.

ART & DESIGN
As we come towards the end of the A Level Art & Design course the artists in XX are working studiously to complete their coursework portfolios. They have each chosen a theme that is of interest to them and pursued it for 15 months. Supporting studying such as observational drawing, artist responses and exploring and developing ideas in their sketchbook underpins all of their final pieces. Here is a section of their work so far. Well done to Poom, Sandra, Tian, Grace and Eduard.

BIOLOGY
Three LXX A-Level Biology students (Pun Jaratjitwilai, Lulu Hopkinson and Min Cho) worked very hard to create this excellent animation which explains the cell cycle and Mitosis this past week.

LXX UNIVERSITY RESEARCH
This week, LXX students started to think about the Universities they would like to apply for as their first, second and third university options.

Students arranged themselves into groups, and researched the country or region that the universities are located in. Once they have completed their research, they will present their findings to the rest of LXX, which will give them the opportunity to practise their presentation skills.

CHEMISTRY
In preparation for a presentation that will be delivered next week, Chemistry students performed an experiment to detect the products of combustion:

GEOGRAPHY
The LXX students enjoyed getting 'hands on' in physical geography this week.

The rocks they are studying are different categories, and it is important to know their classification, or be able to describe their character, in order to ultimately explain how rock type affects landscape development.

Specialist geological knowledge is only the starting point; in order to know how we manage landscapes, students need to be able to interpret landscapes and how they form and develop.

This year our Art House Competition received many strong pieces from the Art House Sixths. Work in photography, mixed media and drawing were popular. The exhibition is being held in the Music and Drama building (MD204) and is open from Wednesday 23^rd to Wednesday 30^th March.

Below are the pieces that have been submitted:

F Block

E BLOCK-XX

STAFF

Prep News

Announcements & Reminders

SATURDAY ENRICHMENT
There is a slight change to what we are offering this Saturday 26^th March: We will now offer basketball for both boys & girls in Years 5-8 and/or striking & fielding games for both girls and boys in Years 5-8. Please meet in the CGA at 8.00am & pick-up from the Admin building at 9.30am. Email sbuck@rugbyschool.ac.th if you would like your child to attend.

YEAR 3 & 4 TOPIC
The Year 3 & 4 students have been enjoying a very exciting unit of work based around the topic of animals. They have been exploring jungle animals and sea creatures, and have devised some dances to the music ‘Bare Necessities’ from the “Jungle Book” and ‘Under The Sea’ from “The Little Mermaid”.

Next week will be their final lesson and performance. We would like them to wear a costume that either represents a jungle animal, or sea creature. This could be a costume or just clothes in jungle or sea colours. If they bring them in a separate bag they can change into them in the dance studio at the start of the lesson. Their lessons are:

Leopards on Monday;
Panthers on Tuesday;
Tigers on Wednesday;
Jaguars on Thursday.

SENIOR SCHOOL SCIENCE EXPERIENCE
On Monday afternoon our Year 8 students will experience Senior School science by attending an introductory lesson into a Senior School topic, including an experiment that investigates the topic.

Biology - Introduction into DNA and extracting genetic materials from fruit;
Chemistry - Investigating the difference of metal reactivities with acid;
Physics - Introduction into electromagnets and creating an electric bell.

It will be a great afternoon and will help get the Y8s used to the amazing facilities on offer in the Senior School science labs.

Important Dates

SAVE THIS DATE
25 & 26 May: Year 8 Production of Shrek the Musical

Prep School Languages

In the Languages Department we have been very busy collaborating with our partner school, Bilton Grange, who are currently organising a ‘World Culture’ event for this term. Four of our Year 8 House Captains prepared a video called “A Normal Day at RST” which was presented to all year groups at Bilton Grange during their form time. This sparked some good discussions and resulted in an Assembly led by Mr Westlake (our former Head of Prep) about RST. Huge congratulations to Iyara, Patricia, Si Eun and Amara for putting this lovely video together.

Year 8: Shrek

Year 8 had a special movie afternoon to explore characterisation and plot for their forthcoming production of 'Shrek'!

Songkran Assembly

Today our Thai department and their students put together a wonderful assembly all about the importance of Songkran in Thailand. We learnt how to tie-dye clothing using colours from a variety of herbs and spices and then competed in our Houses in a Kahoot! quiz. We are truly globally-minded!

Don't forget to wear tie-dye on Friday 1 April.

Year 8 EAL

EAL students are completing their unit on ‘Crime and Punishment’ in the Y8 English class. For the Crime fiction part, the class read Sherlock Holmes ‘Adventure of the Dancing Men’ and discussed how the case would have been reported in a local newspaper. They then read another Sherlock Holmes adventure and are now working in groups to transform it into a TV news report. Half the class are working from home so our collaboration is happening across Thailand! Here is a clip and a screenshot of the work in progress.

RST Factor

Last week, nearly 70 students auditioned for The RST Factor, our solo House Music Competition, which gave Miss Andrews many sleepless nights trying to decide who to put through to the Grand Final on Friday!

We had contestants representing each House and it was a spectacular show of many talents. All of the contestants showed resilience, strength and bravery, and should be very proud of themselves.

Congratulations to everyone who entered, but especially to Donut (Grade 1-2), Ningning (Grade 3-4) and Maddy (Grade 5-6) who won their groups. We look forward to seeing the House Music Group Competition next term.

Pre-Prep News

Announcements & Reminders

TERM 3 ACTIVITIES
We will be sending information out on Monday for parents to sign in to SOCS to register for the Term 3 Activity programme. SOCS is also available on the Schoolzine App.

PRE-PREP TERM 3 COVID-19 PROTOCOLS
Whilst we adapt to living with Covid-19 we know that young children are much better served both socially and emotionally by being in School. We are working within the Ministry of Public Health’s guidelines to maintain safe working practices whilst allowing children and staff to remain in School. These updated protocols are intended to combine safe working practices and support keeping our young children in education.

Please read the following letter for more information on our Covid-19 protocols for Term 3:

Term 3 Covid-19 Protocols - ENGLISH

Term 3 Covid-19 Protocols - THAI

SONGKRAN IN PRE-PREP

Please view the letter below for more details on how we will celebrate Songkran in Pre-Prep:

Songkran in Pre-prep

ART COMPETITION

We run an annual art competition at the Pre-Prep each year with the winning piece of art work framed and displayed in the School office.

The children are encouraged to enter a piece of work on the theme “Down in the Jungle” and the work must be completed at home. Children do not have to enter - only if they wish to do so.

Click on the letter below for more details.

Happy creating!

Down in the Jungle

Pre-Nursery

In Pre-Nursery we have continued on our under-water adventure. This week we have been focusing on sharks! We have practiced our gross motor skills by feeding the big shark, we used our fine motor skills to give the little shark teeth, we read shark stories, and did lots of counting too!

Nursery: Owls

We are continuing to learn about people who help us in our community. This week we are looking at Nurses and Doctors. We are learning about what nurses and doctors do and what we call the instruments they use.

This week in maths Year 1 have been learning all about turns and directions. They had to listen carefully to the instructions to find their way around. Being 'Creative Chameleons', they had to find alternative routes to get to the end point. The highlight of the week was coding the beebots to follow our directions.

Boarding Life

Boarders have had a busy week this week - here are some highlights:

Two teams of School House boarders battled it out in a fiercely contested game of Pictionary on Saturday night!

The tracks around School made for a great morning mountain bike adventure for some of our boarders last weekend!

School House boys spent Friday evening flying kites over our beautiful campus grounds.

During Rupert Brooke house time this term tutors have been running weekly sessions. This week's was lead by Pete Lynch, who delivered a session to the girls on the importance of kindness.

Enrichment and Sport

Year 5 Art CCA

This week Year 5s have been using the Proceate app to create vibrant insects in a session we have called ‘Doodle Bugs’.

Year 3 Craft Club

The students in Year 3’s Wednesday Craft Club made stress balls using balloons and rice. They personalised them and were so excited to take them home! Why not try making these at home?

Senior Orchestra and Choir Rehearsal

This week, the RST Senior Orchestra practiced "Por Una Cabeza" by Carlos Gardel and the Senior Choir practiced John Rutter's "A Clare Benediction".

F Block Temple Excursion

F Block students were taken on a tour of the nearby Wat Yangsanwararam in order to learn more about Thai culture and practices.

Senior Inter-House Basketball

Last week our inter-house competitions continued with boys’ basketball. After a thrilling preliminary round-robin tournament, it came down to a championship game of Sheriff vs. Town House for both age divisions. In front of a live crowd – that included the entire Senior School – Sheriff managed to win both championship games by the narrowest of margins during the final seconds. Nail biting stuff!

U11 A/B Boys & U11 Girls Football Tournament

Last weekend our U11A Boys and Girls, and U11B Boys played in a large Bangkok schools football tournament hosted by Patana School.

Our teams played a total of 15 matches and faced strong opposition from BPS, NIST, St Andrew's, Shrewsbury, and ICS! Our RST teams won 10 matches, drew 1, lost 4, and scored a total of 41 goals, whilst conceding only 17! There were 2 penalty shootouts, and after all that...our Boys A team won the tournament!

Congratulations to all the teams – we are very proud of you!