The Termly Magazine of Bangkok Patana School Bangkok Patana Magazine
Bangkok Patana
Magazine
Issue 43 Term 3, June 2014
Secondary
Primary
Cross Campus
Graduating Class of 2014
Primary Community Action Team
Season 3 Sports Round Up
TERM 3/2014
Bangkok Patana School is an IB World School, accredited by CIS and NEASC
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Contents
secondary
Issue 43, Term 3, June 2014
6 Graduating Class of 2014 8 International Award Gold Presentation Evening 12 Developments in Senior Studies
@SkyKick Bangna Soi 6
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There Is Magic in the Air… Creating Learning Environments for the 21st Century Primary Community Action Team – In Action Overseas
All Sessions Restart - Little Kicks (2012) - Kiddy Kicks (2010 - 2011) August 25th -
- Kiddy Kicks (2011 - 2012) - Girls Only (2009 - 2010) - Juniors (2009 - 2010) - Girls Only (2009 - 2010)
- Juniors (2009 - 2010)
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cross campus
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Dance Extravaganza Alumni Update – Greetings from Seoul: Elisabeth Addicks (Class of 2006) Bridging the Gap Between Physics and Music: Lamtharn (Hanoi) Hantrakul (Class of 2011) Season 3 Sports Round Up Global University Offers
- Girls Only (2009 - 20101) - Juniors (2009 - 2010)
JOIN US !! - Girls Only (2008 - 2010) - Juniors (2008 - 2009)
ONLINE BOOKING WWW.KIDDY-KICKS.COM
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Front cover: Artwork by Jynna Wongsuan and Caitlen Zhou En Chan (FSA). Taken from the Foundation Stage Art Exhibition 2014
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Bangkok Patana Magazine
a memorable close to the year
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re you grateful for what you have? “Good joke”, said everyone everywhere at any time. With the recent advent of “First World Problems” and “Things Moms Say”, it is clear our generation agrees. Further, when one’s quotidian reality is one of sheer possibility and achievement, like that at Bangkok Patana, it becomes easy to let the outstanding blur with the ordinary. Fortunately, this magazine is a termly reminder of the excellence that we (often groggily and sometimes tardily) greet every morning as students, staff and parents of Bangkok Patana School. Despite its relative brevity, Term 3 has harboured an eclectic wealth of activities, from the presentation of the prestigious International Award Gold Level to cyclists, trekkers and rafters, to the dazzling Dance Extravaganza. With this in mind, let us be continually inspired by the normalcy of excellence that cradles Bangkok Patana School. Let us recognise how truly extraordinary it is to be a member of a community of gifted individuals who fill up an entire magazine’s worth of polished pages with accolade after accolade. Let us remember how remarkable it is to contribute to our microcosm of warmth (this term, literally!) and activity all year round. Let this magazine remind us how sensational it is to involve oneself in the wealth of activities that congests the term which sees the academic year “slow down”. Despite colossal success across the board, the Bangkok Patana community never stops striving to achieve more. Each year, Term 3 is met by hundreds of frantic
students preparing to do their best in both internal and external examinations. Regardless of the time of year, our athletes train and train some more. Dedication and enthusiasm lift the shroud of humanity’s complacency, allowing us to start – but never finish – the journey of improvement. The desire to improve is among humanity’s most beautiful capacities, and it is the fountain from which success flows. We at Bangkok Patana continue to reaffirm the importance of improvement, recognising the moments of awe and elation that
encourage us to push on the frontiers of success and seek the next horizon. We bid a bittersweet farewell to the Class of 2014 and all families moving on this year; we are saddened by your departure yet confident that you will blossom into even more accomplished global citizens in the future. Lastly, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all who have contributed to making this magazine a memorable and telling edition to close the academic year. – Kristie Mae Han Chow, 12R
643 Lasalle Road (Sukhumvit 105) Bangna, Bangkok 10260, Thailand Tel: +66 (0) 2785 2200 Fax: +66 (0) 2785 2399 Email: reception@patana.ac.th www.patana.ac.th
Editor: Cheryl Rego Tel: +66 (0) 2785 2200 Email: chre@patana.ac.th Advertisement: Finn Balslev Tel: +66 (0) 2943 7166-8 Email: finn@scandmedia.com
Design & Production: Scand-Media Corp., Ltd. Tel: +66 (0) 2943 7166-8 Fax: +66 (0) 2943 7169 www.scandmedia.com
Bangkok Patana Magazine is the termly publication of Bangkok Patana School published three times per year and distributed to 2,500 members of the School community. Reproduction of articles, artwork and illustrations by written permission only. TERM 3/2014
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P RL IAMS A C S RO Y F 2014
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International Award Gold Presentation Evening Sally Madden
International Youth Award Coordinator
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n Wednesday 4th June, Bangkok Patana School held a Gold Award Presentation Evening dinner for 38 outstanding students. In the ten years that the Gold Award has been running at Bangkok Patana School this is the highest number of Awards ever received. To achieve the prestigious Gold Award the students completed five sections: Skills, Service, Physical Recreation, Adventurous Journey and Residential for a period of 12 months during their time in Senior Studies. The Adventurous Journey takes place over four days and three nights and students must do
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a practice and assessment journey. One student joined a group from Year 12 and went sailing, eight students chose cycling, and 14 students trekked to Everest Base Camp. An additional fifteen students chose to do a combined adventure with white-water rafting, caving and trekking. The students all achieved this on top of a demanding IB programme; they give up over 500 hours of their time going through all three levels of the Award, a fantastic achievement. For many of them it has been a four-year-long journey through the Bronze, Silver and Gold Award.
It was a ‘Night under the Stars’ and the Black Box became an exclusive venue, all decorated in gold, black and white. Mr Mills opened the evening by praising the students and thanking the staff for all their help in making the International Award at Bangkok Patana so successful. Gold Award recipients Pankhuri Singh and Prawat Trairatvorakul gave a stunning performance with their version of the song ‘For the First Time in Forever’ from the Disney film ‘Frozen’. The special guest speaker was David Nicholson, Strategic Business Manager for
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“There are the obvious reasons: It’s fun (if you don’t mind pitching your tent in the rain); it’s an adventure; you enjoy new experiences, you challenge yourself and the most important reason … it gets you out of school for a week!...”
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Bangkok Patana Magazine
Coca Cola, Gold Award holder, and parent of Emma Nicholson, Gold Award recipient. David completed his Gold Award over thirty years ago and talked about why he believes it has helped him in his career: “There are the obvious reasons: It’s fun (if you don’t mind pitching your tent in the rain); it’s an adventure; you enjoy new experiences; you challenge yourself and the most important reason … it gets you out of school for a week! Now for the less obvious reasons, but far more important ones: completing the Award gives you skills, confidence and a view on life that universities
and ultimately employers are looking for. You will make a difference to other people’s lives and your community, be fitter and healthier, make new friends and have memories to last you a lifetime.” It was a very proud moment for everyone when the students took to the stage and David presented the Gold Award certificates. The evening was certainly a celebration of the students’ achievements with Davis Ho and Nathan Harsono talking about their Award experiences; and Shaifali Thakker, Punnaporn Thepkanjana, Jasmine
Chia and Huei-Yu Daniel Lo sharing their fond memories of the trek to Everest Base Camp. Mr Friend gave a very insightful and thought provoking speech titled ‘Why Go Into the Wild’ and Mrs Madden shared some of her favourite photos of the students. An enjoyable evening was had by all and the students were justifiably proud of their achievements. They will take away many fond memories of the many challenges they faced on their journey through the Award.
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Developments in Senior Studies Andrew Roff
IB Coordinator
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he Senior Studies programme at Bangkok Patana School is well established. We have offered the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma and Patana Certificate Plus for many years and deliver what we consider to be an academically rigorous, challenging programme for all of our students. The excellent success we have enjoyed in terms of results stands testament to that. Few things improve, however, by standing still, and with this in mind we continue to strive to improve our programme. We do this by evolving and adapting to our students’ needs, considering carefully the developments coming from the International Baccalaureate organisation and ensuring that we are at the front end of evaluating and implementing these developments. We also consider carefully the needs of our students when applying to courses of further education, and I work closely with our Careers and University Counselling department to ensure that the programme for each student is as appropriate as possible to appeal to their future plans. We have developed several initiatives this year, which I will share with you below. An important development has been the introduction of greater guidance and support for students in Year 11 making their option choices; indeed we are beginning to have these conversations with our Year 10 students too. Using data from over a thousand students who have graduated from Bangkok Patana, we are able to see trends and pointers for success in different subjects as students move from (I)GCSE courses to IB. This allows us to advise in a more robust way than ever before on appropriate subject choices for Senior Studies. Most important is setting students up for success and by projecting students’ academic profiles from Key Stage 4 to Senior Studies, we are able to get a good idea of likely student outcomes at the end of Year 13 and thus advise on appropriate course choices for the start of Year 12. We are using adaptive reasoning tests at the start of Year 12 to further confirm our target data for students and to enable us to monitor and ensure students in Senior Studies are working towards reaching their potential in each of their subjects, providing intervention and support as necessary to help students to meet the demands of the programme. We are looking to continue this development with the implementation of more advanced data interrogation systems and academic mentoring.
IB Developments
Developments that are on the horizon from the IB include an increased focus on international mindedness and approaches to teaching and learning as well as a continued focus on embedding 12
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the learner profile attributes throughout the academic courses. Of course we continue to improve these aspects of our own programme by ensuring regular and comprehensive course revisions (August 2014 will see the first teaching of all new syllabi in Physics Chemistry, Biology, Design and Technology, Business Management, Visual Art and Theatre), coherent planning underpinned by the idea of concurrency and continued professional development of our staff on IB workshops. I consider an important part of my work to be in feeding back to the IB organisation the ways in which we are making these things happen and ensuring we share our successes as examples of best practice. We are also keen to see the important aspects of the IB Diploma core more fully embedded in our delivery of the academic subjects.
Explicit links to Theory of Knowledge (TOK) are continuing to grow in our delivery of the curriculum and beyond. We are keen to feed the intended learning outcomes of Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) into lower years and an excellent example of this is the CAS focus of this year’s Patana Student Conference, which was an excellent opportunity for our Senior Students to raise awareness and role-model good practice to our younger students. Another key aspect of my role is to help structure students’ workloads to make them manageable and give them the best possible chances to perform well. Speak to any Senior Student and they will attest to the challenge of the workload, especially in Year 13. Over the course of this year we have worked with Year 13 students to better structure the Extended Essay; giving the students clear deadlines to meet so as to allow consistent, timely feedback in completing this 40 hour, 4,000 word independent project. I have been able to keep a keen eye on the development of over 120 Extended Essays by moving to a new online management system called Managebac, where students and supervisors are able to keep an online record of their communications, set tasks and recommend further reading. Managebac is now being used throughout Senior Studies to manage CAS, Extended Essays and Internal Assessment work. It is a versatile system which students can access on the move, even from their mobile phones! The completion week, run for the first time this year with the Year 13 cohort, was a great asset in enabling students to work effectively on completing their Extended Essay thus enabling an appropriate focus to be put on the other aspects of internal assessment and due diligence to be paid to the important trial examinations in January of Year 13. Term 3 is an extremely challenging time in Senior Studies Students take their final examinations (or for Year 12 their important annual examinations), and for staff it is an important developmental period to reflect, evaluate and prepare. TERM 3/2014
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There is Magic in the air… Kiri Grimwood
Gifted and Talented Coordinator
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angkok Patana School had the privilege of hosting the annual FOBISIA short story competition for 2014. This competition is the biggest writing event in the calendar for FOBISIA schools and is open to Primary students from Years 3-6 who can submit a 600 word entry and Secondary students who can write up to 1,000 words. Every FOBISIA school is only allowed to enter one Primary piece and one Secondary piece in the competition, to allow for the huge number of schools that participate. This year the theme was ‘Magic?’ and it lent itself to some very creative ways of interpreting the topic beyond the typical Harry Potter and rabbit out of a hat types of magic. It was wonderful to see such interest from our Primary School with 27 enthusiastic children submitting their magic stories, of which only one could be selected to represent Bangkok Patana in the competition. All the entries were of a very high standard and it was a difficult decision for the judges to finally decide that Kai Mitsuishi from 5B would be the representative in the Primary division for Bangkok Patana and Megan HeatherMaher from 10G for Secondary.
FOBISIA
SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2014 The 4th FOBISIA SHORT STORY COMPETITION with the theme
‘MAGIC?’ is now open in two categories with a word limit of 600 words for Primary (Years 3-6) and 1000 words for Secondary (open) See your English or class teacher for details
Closing date for entries 28th March, 2014
Hosted by Bangkok Patana School, Thailand
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Both students had their entries put forward with 28 other FOBISIA schools to see if they could make the final short listing of six students who were judged by Linda Newbery. Linda is a winner of the Costa Children’s Book Prize, for her young adult novel SET IN STONE, and has twice been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, as well as for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and for numerous regional awards. Linda has written over 50 books and is hugely popular amongst readers of all ages. Kai was a runner-up in the competition. Here is his story entitled “The Living-Dead Warrior” for you to enjoy ...
Bangkok Patana Magazine
The Living-Dead Warrior Kai Mitsuishi Y5B
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hrough the visor of his brand-new helmet, Julius scanned the battlefield raging around him. He had been sent from his small village to assist the Roman Empire. Taking a deep breath, he skidded down the hill, breaking into the pandemonium below. The next few hours were a blur. Cutting, jabbing, rolling and slicing, his body went on auto-pilot, letting his reflexes take full control. Tragedies were happening, and allies were lost... The blazing sun was sizzling onto the earth, and he peered down into his water bag, which only had one mouthful left. “I’ll save this for later,” he thought, fighting the urge to gulp it down. “Water...water...” Looking down, he found a dying ally. He poured the last gulp of water down the throat of his ally. Abruptly, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a spear whizzing through the air toward his childhood friend, and instinctly dived toward to stop it. The spear pierced his arm at an alarming speed. All his memories, promises, friendships...all gone in those two or three seconds. He slumped to the scorching soil, glanced at his friend one more time before slowly passing away. Floating away...the wind rushing...a palace of clouds...a grand voice... “No, Julius, your time will come,”...pushed back...the light fading ... His eyes fluttered open, and memories flooded back to him like a stream, rapidly bringing him back to his senses as his feeble brain interpreted all the knowledge. As his senses regained, he uttered a single, fateful phrase, “Like magic.” All was silent. Soft, silky moonlight lit his face as he trudged away from the sleeping warriors. He desperately needed to know – what had stopped him from dying? And why? The sky showed a hint
of orange while Julius started remembering his past, and about Grandpa’s mystical story about a magical stone… Grandpa took a deep, raspy gasp as he started speaking. “Once, days were filled with gloom and hatred,” he began, and Julius gulped. “So one brave man decided to push all the evil out from the world. He created a tiny stone of crimson that showed one person that could save the world a glimpse of the future they should lead toward. After doing this, it gives the person confidence and power that would help him on the way to being a leader. The stone was magical, going around anywhere on the globe and pulling the world to peace and progress...” PARP! A deafening warhorn blew in the battlefield, breaking apart his trail of thought. Julius leapt up, when he noticed something on the floor a few metres away from the war zone. It was a brilliant crimson and about two inches diameter. He dashed toward it to have a closer look. When he picked it up, he gasped - for inside the ruby-like pebble, he could see millions of Romans bustling around happily, and himself, wearing a gold tunic, a crown and leaning back on a giant throne! “Could this be...?” he thought to himself, and in an instant, it disappeared into thin air. BOOM! An ear-piercing sound erupted out of nowhere, bringing him back to reality. The battle had started again, more brutal than before, but Julius wasn’t the same Julius as before. It was the Julius that will rule the kingdom of Rome for his braveness and power. Twelve years later, the same man sat briskly in his majestic throne, remembering how far he had come – from poor warrior, to a man with great power – Julius Caesar, the ruler of Rome. TERM 3/2014
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Creating Learning Environments for the 21st Century
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good school is, in essence, a place where students are stimulated to learn and grow as adults. It is a place that prepares them for life as wellrounded, global citizens in a future world we cannot yet imagine. Facilities certainly do not make a school; it is essential however that students learn within a setting that supports their individual educational and pastoral needs. In modern pedagogy this learning environment is known as the Third Teacher, with adults and other children being other two, and it has a profound effect on the ability of each and every child to learn. Our mission is to ensure that students of different nationalities grow to their full potential as independent learners in a caring British international community. This is achieved through the excellence and expertise of the school’s teachers, support staff, curriculum and extra-curricular 18
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programme, ensuring that students aged between 2 ½ and 18 years consistently receive a diverse and engaging education both in and outside the classroom. In keeping with the third teacher philosophy, the
“Good facilities do more than teach, they inspire. They aspire to shape minds both inside and beyond the classroom.” Pit Li Phan, Senior School Architectural Consultant and OECD advisor
Bangkok Patana Magazine
school environment also plays a key role in achieving their mission. It is not just a question of the range of facilities available but in creating an atmosphere that is safe, conducive to learning and supportive of student wellbeing across all stages of the school. In August 2014 the Primary School will be unveiling its renovated Year 1 and 2 facilities. Built in 1990 as part of the original Lasalle Road campus, this two-storey building will be given a complete upgrade to provide a unique setting that stimulates and encourages children’s learning and development. Designed in consultation with the teaching staff, the remodelled facilities have several key features that recognise the importance of the environment on the quality of learning. Not only will the new classrooms be bigger and brighter (whilst the maximum number of children per class will be maintained at 20), the new building will also incorporate more open, collaborative work spaces for group learning and creative play as well as quiet breakout spaces where individuals or small groups can learn. Other exciting new facilities include a physical development room, wet and dry activity room, ICT labs and a rooftop garden that literally takes the ‘ground’ out of playground! The raising of the school’s Primary Hall to the 1st floor level will result in a larger, age-appropriate space that can
accommodate the whole Primary School. This will allow children further opportunities to share their learning with students of other ages and parents. The subsequent increase in ground level, outside space will in turn offer the younger Primary students access to areas designed to foster social, behavioural and problem solving skills, that inspire imaginative play and present unique opportunities for larger scale learning, particularly in Mathematics, Science, Language and Communication and Humanities. Primary Principal Clare Sharp agrees.
“Research indicates that even though we all have different ways in which we learn best, providing children with an exposure to many experiences can help build up a bank of learning styles, which they can tap into depending on the activity. This is also true for buildings and the design and flow of a building can influence how we learn. We know that the children in Year 1 and 2 will benefit immensely as they move into their new learning environment, specifically designed to promote inquiry, encourage learning through doing and to develop creativity, collaboration and independence.”
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Primary Community Action Team – In Action Overseas Peter Hockley
Primary Community Action Team Leader
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n the Term 1 issue of the Bangkok Patana Magazine, I described the work of Primary CAT (Community Action Team) in supporting children’s educational and welfare projects in Thailand, which, when CAT was established over ten years ago, was our main aim. In this issue, I will recap our efforts in supporting similar projects overseas over the past ten years, which, being an international school representing children and families from more than 60 countries, we felt was also important. Our support has largely fallen into two categories: Response Aid and Short and LongTerm Project Aid. Many of the Response Aid projects have been in collaboration with Secondary Community Action.
Response Aid
Sadly, this aid is inevitably the result of a natural disaster somewhere in the world and whilst we cannot respond to them all, we have tried to provide immediate, and sometimes, rehabilitation aid in some of the more significant disasters, particularly if it has been in the Asian region or in countries connected to our Bangkok Patana community. Here are some examples of our responses on these occasions.
Pakistan
Following the powerful earthquake in 2005, many children in the affected regions suffered from spinal cord injuries, rendering them permanently housebound and unable to attend school. Through 100friends (more about this organisation later) and the local Hashoo Foundation, we were able to provide home schooling for these students. The teachers were hired from the same community as the children beneficiaries, thereby promoting local 20
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employment, while allowing the teacher to work within his or her own community. Also in Pakistan, we collaborated with Secondary CAT to provide immediate relief aid after the Pakistan flood disaster of 2010. Myanmar Typhoon Nargis in 2008 devastated large areas of our neighbour’s delta region,
leaving thousands of children without homes, schools and, in many cases, a number of their family members. Through the many generous donations we received we were able to provide immediate disaster relief in collaboration with the International School of Yangon. Later, I travelled to Yangon with Marc Gold of 100friends and, working with local Burmese aid contacts, identified two small schools to rebuild and equip.
Bangkok Patana Magazine
The Philippines
Our first aid venture in support of another of our fellow South-East Asian countries, was to help re-stock a small school in the Manila region after Typhoon Onding in October 2009, through the local Springboard Foundation. This effort was to be dwarfed in 2013 by the response that was required when one of the world’s most powerful typhoons, Haiyan, ripped through the island provinces of Leyte and Samar. In collaboration with our Philippino parent community, a special whole school fund raising day was organised on which we raised a staggering 350,000 baht, a record for a single event. Boosted by donations from Primary and Secondary CAT groups, we were able to send 432,000 baht to the Philippine Red Cross. This action has been followed by donations from Primary CAT and the ICT Dept to purchase school packs for the children on their return to the restored classrooms, in collaboration again with the Springboard Foundation.
Haiti
The 10th January, 2010 earthquake which struck Haiti measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, may have killed up to 300,000 people, left 1.5 million displaced and affected nearly 5,000 schools. As always, Bangkok Patana was quick to respond and within days a whole school fundraiser was organised. One of the problems with this type of disaster is deciding upon the best organisation to support, without a substantial amount of funds raised going to admin costs. I had, fortuitously, read an article about the disaster which mentioned the work in Haiti of Dr. Paul Farmer and his organisation, ‘Partners in Health’ (PIH). After research and a ringing endorsement from Marc Gold of 100friends, this was the organisation we chose. They were on the ground already with a record of impressive work in that country. It turned out to be the right decision. Within a few short weeks of our donation, we received a report from PIH and, later, Dr. Farmer was chosen as Bill Clinton’s advisor in his mission to oversee the Haitian recovery project.
Japan The response to the earthquake and subsequent tsunami which hit Japan in March 2011 was another occasion on which we received tremendous support from members of our parent community, with our Japanese parents organising and running events within school to help boost our own donations. This certainly was a case of the Bangkok Patana community in action.
Overseas short and long-term projects In 2005, shortly after Primary CAT was founded, we began to work with Marc Gold and his 100friends organisation, a contact made after his splendid work providing aid assistance following the 2004 tsunami. Since then we have collaborated on many projects, mainly in Asia and through money raised on Busking Days, TERM 3/2014
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which have been relatively low-cost but have made a tremendously beneficial impact on the lives of countless children in the region. Here are some of them:
the compassionate and highly effective aid work of Marc and 100friends at first hand and it confirmed that this was an organisation Bangkok Patana could trust.
Tibet
Zanskar
In the summer of 2010, Marc and I travelled to Tibet to visit two schools in the province of Amdo for which we had provided libraries. Apart from giving me the opportunity to see the libraries in action and the enormous benefits they gave the children, I also had the chance to see
In 2012, with 100friends, we became involved in the Save Zanskar project, an initiative begun by a highly respected Zanskari monk, Geshe Yonten, with the aim to provide Zanskari Buddhist children with a true Tibetan education to help preserve and sustain this rapidly
dying culture. Our annual Busking Day became a ‘Busking for Zanskar’ day, with all money raised to pay for the education of a Zanskari child at the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala, India. That summer, I travelled to Zanskar with Marc and found, in Stenzin Norzin, a 8 year old girl, a very worthy recipient. I have since travelled to the TCV in Dharamsala to visit Stenzin and am pleased to report that she is flourishing, both educationally and socially, in her new environment. Her education will be funded until she graduates. We revisited Zanskar last year to help set up a winter school, enabling the children to continue their education during the snowbound months of November to February. In addition to the above initiatives, we have supported children’s education and welfare in a number of other Asian countries including Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Afghanistan. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the generous, ongoing support of the Bangkok Patana community – grateful thanks to you all. Related links http://www.100friends.org/ https://www.facebook.com/SaveZanskar http://www.pih.org/ http://www.springboard-foundation.org/
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CROSS CAMPUS
Greetings from Seoul: Elisabeth Addicks (Class of 2006) During her recent visit to Bangkok Patana School, we took the opportunity to ask Elisabeth a few questions: Nationality: German Current Location: Seoul, South Korea Favourite memories of Bangkok Patana School: Definitely International Day! Sadly back then we were only a handful of Germans; however, I enjoyed seeing and experiencing different cultures and customs. I guess Bangkok Patana’s internationality has influenced me a lot. I have worked with international students ever since and organised some events similar to International Day at university. Is there something that you learned at Bangkok Patana School that you took with you? Bangkok Patana provided me not only with a good English speaking level, but with a sense for multiculturalism and interest in cultures and linguistics. What have you been doing since you left Bangkok Patana School? My family went back to Germany due to my father’s job. There, I graduated from high school and finished my BA in Media Communication Science and English. I did several internships and acquired more language skills. Currently I am enrolled in an English Masters program of Social Anthropology. As part of my Masters, I am currently on field research in Korea to gain data for my thesis. What hopes, aspirations or plans do you have in the future? After my research in Korea I hope to finish my Masters and would really like go back to Korea for a longer stay. I intend to either enrol at a Korean university (second Master or PhD degree) or work as a German or English teacher, as I figured out that I like teaching languages. What was it like being back at Bangkok Patana School after almost 20 years? Some old memories arose, but also a feeling of regret for not having been able to attend Bangkok Patana longer. It has developed enormously and offers even more possibilities then back in my days. The student and his/her educational and social development is even more in focus and it seems that Bangkok Patana seeks every chance to provide its students with the necessary skills for their future lives. 24
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Elisabeth’s mother is a ‘PTG alum’ of Bangkok Patana School. Cornelia Addicks first came to Bangkok in 1982 and enrolled in the AUA language school and wrote for a German tourist magazine; also she also joined the Bangkok Community Theatre (BCT). She returned in 1992 with her husband, Gerd and daughter Elisabeth. She was involved in many community projects, including volunteering again with BCT and managing the ThaiGerman Cultural Foundation besides sitting on the Bangkok Patana PTG Committee. Cornelia is currently an editor theatre critic for Blick Punkt magazine in Germany.
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Bridging the Gap Between Physics and Music: Lamtharn (Hanoi) Hantrakul (Class of 2011) Hanoi has just completed his third year at Yale University in the United States and will be graduating next year with a double major in Applied Physics and Music. Recently, he was one of three students selected from the class of 2015 to be honored with the Joseph Lentilhon Selden Memorial Award for his “verve, idealism, and constructive contribution in the field of music.” You can view more of his projects through http://lh-hantrakul.com/
Hanoi with world-renowned orchestral conductor David Charles Abell YC’81, after the successful premiere of Kiss Me Kate. January 2013
Current Location: Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Kung” – I’m sure that doesn’t need explaining like it did during the premiere here in the States! During my second year, I discovered research at Stanford, Princeton and MIT that aimed to bridge science and music together. I had a little taste of this intersection at Bangkok Patana through my Extended Essay in Physics, but never imagined the connections between science and music to be such a large and exciting domain of scholarship. I began integrating physics, engineering and music together by building my own instruments, designing my own controllers for electronic music, building my own speakers and learning about signal processing and microcontrollers. At the same time, I was also juggling performances in Suite Spot, YJE, the smash-hit musical Kiss Me Kate directed by David Charles Abell (YC’81) and deejaying university events. Right now, I am working with handicapped patients to develop custom musical instruments for disabled people. I am
Favourite memories of Bangkok Patana School: Playing music with other students during the Patana Concert series – Jazz & Blues, Plugged, Unplugged and Classic. What have you been doing since you left Bangkok Patana? A lot! The last three years have been a journey of self-discovery. I graduated from Bangkok Patana with two distinct interests: nano-physics and music composition. At Yale, I worked in a nanotech lab where I was part of a team trying to use low-cost polymer nanoparticles to make color e-ink displays, essentially a “colour kindle.” At the same time, I was roomed with a group of science freshmen who were all incredible musicians and would later become my best friends at Yale. We formed an ensemble and since we lived in the same suite, we decided to name ourselves “Suite Spot.” We’ve been performing together through university funding ever since. I also auditioned in the Yale Jazz Ensemble (YJE) and have been playing and composing for the group for the last three years. I named two recent pieces “Tuk Tuk’n” and “Tom Yum 26
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Hanoi demonstrates his physics project to Dr. Guillaume Long, the Ecuadorian Minister of Knowledge and Human Talent during the President of Ecuador’s visit to Yale University, April 2014.
Bangkok Patana Magazine
Suite Spot, an ensemble consisting of freshmen living in one suite! February 2012
interested in using wearable sensors to overcome the limitations of acoustic instruments. If a patient can’t move their finger, why not use elbow motion to control musical expression? A paper I first-authored with a Yale professor on using motion
Hanoi running a full day of Physics workshops for low-income students in grades 5-8 at DeKalb PATH Academy in Atlanta, GA. March 2014
for music is being published this upcoming summer at a conference in France at IRCAM, Pompidou Center, Paris. For my senior thesis in Physics, I’ve been investigating a novel method of transmitting live concerts. We all know that listening to a concert through speakers never sounds like the real thing! Wouldn’t it be great to listen to say, a violin recital through the body of another “surrogate” violin? I’ve been developing ways to introduce artificial vibrations into a surrogate instrument body while preserving the original acoustics of the instrument. It’s interesting going through these projects because I feel like many of the things I love doing right now can be traced to a seed planted during my time at Bangkok Patana. With that in mind, I encourage current students to take full advantage of the extracurriculars, teachers and facilities at Bangkok Patana because these small self-discoveries will eventually form the foundation of what you do in – I am tempted to say “life”, but that’s a big word that I don’t fully understand yet, so I’m going to settle with: the near future when you graduate from Bangkok Patana, wave goodbye to your parents and start a new chapter called “university”. In a perfect world, what would you like to be doing in ten years: Establishing South East Asia’s first center dedicated to the convergence of Science and Technology, with Arts and Design. The hub will attract technologists, engineers, designers, thinkers and artists from across the ASEAN Community. TERM 3/2014
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CROSS CAMPUS
Season 3 Sports Round Up Michael Balo
Assistant Principal Extra-curricular Activities and Sports
S
eason 3 was extremely busy with 30 teams performing and it included our very successful Sports Awards Dinner. The Sports Awards Dinner was a wonderful evening and it was lovely to see 480 student athletes, parents and coaches. It was our largest ever Sports Awards Dinner and it was truly a memorable evening. Congratulations to all our award winners. Special mention to our Sports Boys and Girls of the Year: Sports Boy of the Year 2013/14 Ondrej Rylich Sports Girl of the Year 2013/14 Yasmin Salce
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Individual Sports Boy of the Year 2013/14 Arin (Ton) Kiangsiri Individual Sports Girl of the Year 2013/14 Thananuch (Password) Thepkanjana Contribution to School Sport Annebel (Sarisa) Nuboer Under 19 Sports Boy of the Year 2013/14 Akhil Balimane Under 19 Sports Girl of the Year 2013/14 Pim Vliegen Under 17 Sports Boy of the Year 2013/14 Bailey Sailes Under 17 Sports Girl of the Year 2013/14 Ellen Hagelauer Under 15 Sports Boy of the Year 2013/14 Lachlan Dibbayawan
Under 15 Sports Girl of the Year 2013/14 Jasmine Olds Under 13 Sports Boy of the Year 2013/14 James Ashford Under 13 Sports Girl of the Year 2013/14 Rhea Poonevala Bangkok Patana had a tremendous SEASAC Season 3. Boys’ SEASAC Softball finished a strong second place overall. Our boys beat a very strong UWC Dover in the semi-finals to advance to the finals but lost to a very strong UWC East squad. The Girls’ Softball team had good SEASAC finishing fifth overall. In Badminton, our boys had their best ever finish at SEASAC. The Boys
Bangkok Patana Magazine
came fifth and the Girls were fourth overall. In SEASAC Gymnastics we won countless medals and collected four team championships. This was a tremendous finish for our programme. In SEASAC Swimming, our Boys won for their third year running and our Girls finished fifth overall. In Season 3 BISAC sporting events, Bangkok Patana School again produced some wonderful results; in BISAC Swimming, we won overall as well as winning the Boys’ and Senior age divisions. Our Junior team did well but didn’t come away with the overall medal. In other Season 3 sports, each of teams except for two won medals. We won the Under 13 Girls’ Softball, Under 15 Girls’ Tennis, Under 15 Boys’ and Girls’ Softball convincingly. We achieved medals in Under 13 and Under 15 Boys’ Volleyball, Under 13 Boys’ Softball, Under 15 Boys’ Tennis, Under 17 Boys’ and Girls’ Softball, Under 17 Boys’ and Girls’ Badminton. This has
been one of our best seasons this year. The Under 13 FOBISIA Games were held in Singapore at Tanglin Trust School. We had another successful Games, returning to Bangkok with lots of medals and many happy children.
Athletics: Swimming: Basketball: Football:
Overall 1st Overall 2nd Girls 1st, Boys 2nd Girls’ 1st Boys 1st
Additionally, our year-long Golf programme has grown into a force for the future. We had over twenty golfers commit to a year-long programme where we regularly train at Thana City with golf professional Andrew Knott, working on our golf attitude, short game and course play. This year we competed in SEASAC Golf in Myanmar, FOBISIA Golf in Kuala Lumpur and numerous local tournaments. Our Girls’ team finished second overall at
SEASAC this year, which is awesome to report. Our very young team is poised to be a force in coming years. In Primary, our Tee-ball teams had another good BISAC tournament. Our Boys’ Tigers team came third and our Girls’ Tigers team finished second. Our Patana Orange and Black teams for both Boys and Girls also had a great day, winning their respective competitions. Congratulations to all our athletes and their parents. We had our BISAC Athletics and BISAC Gymnastics championships in late May and had some great results there as well. In June, after this magazine has gone to print, we have our Primary FOBISIA Games and we’re expecting a very strong showing there as well. Good luck to our student athletes who will be participating in those competitions. Congratulations to all our students, parents and coaches on another successful season and thank you for your dedicated support. TERM 3/2014
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RESIDENCES
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