Rugby School Thailand eNewsletter

Whole School Reminders

SCREEN TIME
We receive a lot of questions around how, as parents, you are better able to monitor your child's screen time, and how to restrict it if necessary.

Please visit our Wellbeing website's Screen Time page for the latest research, advice and instructions on how to set up Apple and Google's screen time systems. These can help you monitor and restrict your child's Apple or Google Android device.

We've also updated our Social Media and Digital Safety sections of the site with parents' guides on the latest social media apps Wink, Yubo and Phone Scams.

TERM 3
Term 3 will commence:

Sunday 17th April - Boarders Return (no later than 8.30pm)
Monday 18th April Term Starts

Whole School News

LETTER FROM THE PRINCIPAL
Please find an 'end of Term' letter from our Principal, Mr Bruce Grindlay, below:

End of Term Letter

SONGKRAN CELEBRATIONS
What a bustling week it has been for all the students and many of our teachers to celebrate Songkran.

In Pre-Prep our Thai teachers made a video that teaches us all about Songkran. We also played some traditional Thai games too!

Our Pre-Prep students loved showing off their tie-dye outfits:

In Prep-School our Thai teachers have been working alongside colleagues from across the School to choreograph dances to traditional and contemporary Thai music. The traditional Thai dance is related to a story about collecting ant eggs for soup where the dancers end up being bitten by the ants! This was presented at our Songkran Assembly today.

Students have also learnt about traditional tie dye techniques, including how to use natural ingredients to make the different colours and how to tie the fabrics in a variety of ways in order to achieve different patterns. All students came to school today wearing tie dye outfits. We concluded our term by celebrating Songkran water games in the fields, where all teachers and students joined in.

SPECIAL OFFER FOR THE RST COMMUNITY
For the water park lovers in our community, Ramayana has kindly offered RST some special pricing for bookings, so please see below for details. You just need to show your RST ID on arrival! (Offer valid until the end of April 2022).

Senior News

Announcements & Reminders

END OF TERM MESSAGE
Please click on the video to listen to the end of term address from Dave Ennis-Billing, Acting Head, Senior School.

CHINESE WRITING COMPETITION
We are proud to announce that Ross Xiaochuan Luo (School House, D Block) participated in the first Global Chinese Writing Competition for Young Writers, 2021.

Nearly 2000 students participated in the writing competition; Ross received a "star writer" award in the category of ‘overseas native Chinese speakers senior high school group (Regional)’. He wrote an article about "Opportunities and Challenges in the Pandemic Era".

There are only two international schools that received awards under this category in Thailand. One is the Thai-Chinese International school (Champion and first runner-up) and the other one, of course, is our School!

Please follow this link if you would like more information on the Competition.

DRAMA
We captured some excellent profile shots of Delight in action on stage. Delight has been offered a place on an acting course at the highly prestigious Rose Bruford College in the UK, so we're excited to see her journey ahead as she pursues her ambition to be an actor and director.

Tamar Charity Collection

Thank you to everyone who so generously donated money and household goods to the Tamar Centre. We raised 12 000 THB to cover the annual sponsorship of a young girl, Nicha, who lives with her mother at the center, and delivered a large haul of household goods.

Pupa and Boo presented Nicha’s mother with the money and the people at Tamar were overwhelmed by the scale of RST’s donations! In return, our students were given a tour of the premises, including the embroidery and arts studio, and the bakery where the best bakes in the whole of Chonburi Province are made. As a token of thanks, each student was presented with a bag of assorted cookies (and yes, they were truly amazing!). Fifteen students also kindly volunteered to help the Tamar Centre sell their homemade goods at Wisdom Valley's 'Flea Market' last weekend. It makes us so proud to see this kind of charitable spirit in our students.

The 2021/22 Academic Challenge League concluded this week with the long-awaited play-off final. Southfield and Town House had emerged from the preliminary rounds in Term 1 as the two mini-league winners and were ready and primed to face off in a dramatic head-to-head battle of the wits.

Based on the format made famous by the TV quiz show 'University Challenge', Mr Green presented quick fire questions on topics ranging from ‘the moons of Saturn’ to ‘the paintings of Botticelli’, with Mr Maddran ably assisting as the scorer. Town House took an early lead in the proceedings, thanks especially to the quick reactions on the buzzer of their captain, Ohm, and never looked like conceding their advantage. Despite Southfield answering the final question correctly just before the buzzer, it wasn't quite enough to stop the gentlemen from Town House emerging as the Champions of the 2021/22 Academic Challenge.

Inter-House Art Expo Winners

The winners of the Inter-house art competition were announced this week:

Best F Block – Patrick and Kevin (Town House)
Best Staff – Ms Coetzer (Rupert Brooke)
Best E block – XX – Dee-Dee (School House) and Leon Hufschmidt (Town House) – Joint first
Most original – Candy (Rupert Brooke)

The overall house art winner this year, was Rupert Brooke!

Congratulations everyone!

Learning

D BLOCK ART
Our IGCSE artists have been working frantically to complete their final piece of coursework art. Here is a sneak preview of some of their fantastic work:

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
Last week LXX students were challenged to consider what they know, how they know what they know, and how to apply what they know. In a collaborative session, students reflected on their understanding of incredibly complex atmospheric systems by describing the processes in simple steps.

Simplifying complex systems in this way is an important part of understanding global change.

CHEMISTRY
This week, the FS chemistry class completed their presentations on “types of chemical reactions” in the science lecture theatre. All the presentations were of a very high standard, but the winners were group 1 whose topic was ‘combustion’. Congratulations Susie, Seitaro, Achira and Ferry!

DRAMA
E Block IGCSE drama students have started their first piece of coursework recently, which is a devised performance in response to the stimulus, 'lack of freedom, power and control'. This is an initial physical exploration of the theme, which they had only 15 minutes to create.

BIOLOGY
LXX students carried out one of their required practicals for A level Biology looking at using chromatography to help see the variation between different leaves found in plants separating the pigments from within. Some brightly coloured chromatograms were produced.

Prep News

Announcements & Reminders

TERM 3 ACTIVITIES
Please remember to register for Term 3 activities using SOCS. A link to SOCS can be found on the main page of your SchoolZine App.

WORLD BOOK DAY DONATIONS
We raised over 10 000 THB from World Book Day Donations for the Take Care Kids charity. Thank you to everyone who so generously donated!

Below is a picture of the children saying thank you!

TALENT COMPETITION

The Flawsome Creators

Some of our students have been developing a newspaper throughout this term. This student-led initiative has been instigated by our Year 5 students, who plan, write and edit all of their work independently and in their own time using the Mac Suite to produce professionally looking newspapers every month. The April edition can be viewed here:

Year 8 Senior Science Session

The Year 8 students came to the Senior School to experience F block science lessons in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. In each lesson the students were able to get hands-on with a variety of Senior School experiments, extracting fruit DNA in Biology, testing the different reactivities of metals and acids in Chemistry, and creating an electromagnetic bell in Physics.

Year 3 students have had fun making notes out of Play-Doh in music. This has been a great way to encourage creativity and develop fine motor skills, whilst learning about the different notes.

It was wonderful for the community to have hallways full of music while protocols demanded open air rehearsals, but our Year 8 Orchestra was delighted to be back in the air conditioning, away from the wind and humidity, for their rehearsals this week!

The Blue Tigers enjoyed their weekly jam session on Tuesday. They have been really rocking in recent weeks!

Design & Technology

YEAR 4: MAZES
After building 3D CAD models on computers and using a laser cutter to support their manufacture, Year 4 students finished their mazes this term. The students were responsible for each stage of the project, from the early research and design stages, to building test models and assembly.

Now that each student has successfully completed their model, they will be moving on to a new stage which looks at packaging and advertising.

PRACTICAL WORK
This term has been busy with lots of classes starting to manufacture their project work. Here are some photos of children doing practical work.

This week the Beauclerc house captains, Jago, Vida, Bai-Toey and Iyara, hosted the first ever final of the Water Balloon launcher competition. There was a wonderful turnout of students and staff that came to watch and support the finalists.

Wynn Wynn represented Arnold, Jule represented Beauclerc and Leo and Roy represented Hardy. The devices they built were very impressive and the longest launch went over 10m - an impressive distance indeed!

This term, we started the first sessions of the STEM leaders award. Students spent the term practising STEM activities and learning about the importance of teamwork, honing their skills in this area through experience-based learning. They have investigated the impacts of STEM and delivered presentations to practise their communication skills.

Next term will see them plan, prepare and deliver their own activities to groups of younger students when they will become leaders of the STEM session. They are doing this to try and achieve a Level 1 award in STEM leadership.

Announcements & Reminders

TERM 3 ACTIVITIES
A reminder to register for Term 3 activities using SOCS. A link to SOCS can be found on the main page of your SchoolZine App. This will remain open until 8^th April.

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.

Happy creating!

Pre-Prep Music

In Pre-Prep Music, our young musicians are "Go for it Gorillas" when they first learn new music. They are "Persevering Penguins" when the music is challenging and tricky, they won't give up. They are "Teamwork Tigers" when they play in the ensemble as they have to listen to each other so they can make beautiful music together. Finally, they are "Creative Chameleons" because they have their own musical ideas that they are proud of.

This week Nursery students visited the security guards as part of our topic, “People who help us”.

It is great to learn about how security guards help us in our day-to-day lives and what they do to keep us safe in our School environment. They showed us how to salute, catch snakes, and keep us safe in case of fire or lighting. We pretended to be security guards: taking temperatures, dispensing hand gel, signing in the visitor log, and handing out ID badges.

Our Starfish class always love their PE lessons; they enjoy a bit of competitive fun, and all try to be the fastest runner in the class! Here they are enjoying PE this week, where Mr. Sizer reported they were all great "Teamwork Tigers" whilst playing football and handball.

Starfish students also really enjoy learning new songs in Music and here they are proudly posing after Miss Pook taught them a new song!

Year 2 Student Council

The Year 2 Student Council have been meeting with our Pre-Prep Head, Miss Sarah, to put forward ideas to improve the Year 1 and 2 play times. They came up with some great ideas which we hope to put into place for Term 3. They requested the following:

a reading area;
a creative area;
a sand/digging area;
an ECO garden activity;
a Lego building area;
a table top games area;
mini tennis and much more.

In Term 3 they will be learning about Responsibility and as part of this topic, they will compile a rota for tidying up the activities. We have some real "Teamwork Tigers" and "Go for it Gorillas" in Year 2 – well done everyone!

Year 2 Hedgehogs

This week Year 2 Hedgehogs have worked very hard designing a Rube Goldberg machine to create a chain reaction. The children had to use a range of skills such as being good team players, critical thinking and problem-solving.

Year 2 Swimming

Year 2 students have started their transition to swim at the Prep School's CGA 25 metre pool, preparing for their upcoming Pre-Prep Swimming Gala, before moving into Prep School Year 3. Students are super excited to come and swim at the "big pool" each week!

Senior boarders from Rupert Brooke and School House enjoy team activities in the fresh air. Friendship is developed by time spent together and supporting each other, which is exactly what RST boarding is all about.

The Marshall House boarders had a brilliant evening tie-dying t-shirts for the end of term Songkran celebrations!

After a couple of almighty storms during the day, the School House boarders made the most of cooler evenings by doing some sports practice on the pitches.

A shout out to Mimi and Woody, two of our Year 8 boarders, who dedicated their Saturday afternoon last weekend to manning the Tamar Centre stall up at Wisdom Valley. In recognition of their efforts, they were rewarded with their choice of takeaway (pizza!) and a movie back at Marshall House!

Enrichment and Sport

Year 3 & 4 Coding

As part of the Saturday morning Enrichment Programme, year 3 and 4 students developed their coding skills and created their own games. At times, they had to be resilient and work hard to problem solve. They also worked collaboratively and shared their knowledge with others!

Senior Juggling Club

Kevin (D Block) shows us some juggling skills that he has learned this year and Lynne (D Block) demonstrates her devil stick moves.

JV and U14 Volleyball and Basketball

There is so much to celebrate in these photos! Last weekend RST hosted Wells International School Varsity, JV and U14 boys and girls volleyball and basketball. There was an electric atmosphere with all four of our Webb Ellis courts in action - and spectators in the stands for the very first time!

Our Girls basketball team won the day, with volleyball coming in a close second!

Plus these fantastic photos of the day were captured by one of our talented students, Bunn!