Patana News Vol 18, Issue 6

Patana

NEWS

Mathematics‌ in 3D!

P. 4

Bangkok Patana is an IB World School, accredited by CIS and NEASC

The Secondary Principal’s Letter s part of the Secondary School Development Plan for 2015/16 we are continuing to focus on further refining our curriculum at Key Stage 3 to ensure the best possible experience for our students. This may be more difficult than it might seem on the surface. Key Stage 3 spans the tricky ground for students between childhood and young adulthood, when they are expected to quite suddenly become more mature and take more responsibility for their learning despite the fact that they are all growing at different rates and have confusing hormones raging through their bodies. Year 7 students, having just ‘graduated’ from Primary are now the ‘babies’ of Secondary. From a curriculum point of view it can be easy to simply see Key Stage 3 as the bridge between Primary and the challenges of Key Stage 4 and the IB Diploma, but if we accepted this we would clearly be doing a

disservice to our younger students. How do we get the balance right then between preparing students, particularly in Year 9 for the examination years that lie ahead, while ensuring that we build upon the strong pedagogical foundations laid in Primary?

We have worked hard over the last two to three years to ensure that we are proud of the curriculum in Key Stage 3; that it offers a broad, challenging range of subjects, which develop the skills, personal attributes and knowledge needed by our students later in school and beyond.

All teachers have contributed to this, refining assessments, changing foci, chopping away ‘dead wood’ topics, focusing on key skills and ensuring that absolutely ALL of our students will be challenged and supported appropriately. This year Tony Berghuis, Senior Teacher for Curriculum in Key Stage 3 will oversee the final

aspects of the implementation of all of these improvements. An interesting first step this year has been to ask each academic faculty to compare their subjects at Key Stage 3 to the new Framework for Key Stage 3 introduced in England last year to see how closely aligned to it we are as a British International School. As you can see from the graph there is a high degree of similarity in most subject areas, and even in music where we are committed to an instrumental music programme which isn’t a feature in the UK, we still have close to 70% alignment in terms of the number of National Curriculum objectives which we cover. The order that we do things may be different, as may content to illustrate key points in many areas but essentially there is alignment in terms of concepts and skills.

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Assessment is a whole school priority this year and the focus of much of our professional development. We have been using the extensive research of Professor John Hattie for some time and last weekend were fortunate to also receive two days of in depth input from Dr Dylan Wiliam. Hattie’s ‘Assessment Capable Learners’ and Wiliam’s emphasis on ‘Formative Assessment” (which identifies ways to make progress) both put the idea of students having a clear understanding of their

current strengths, knowing the areas that they can target to make progress and understanding the steps needed to be taken to get there, at the very centre of what should take place in school every day. Both provide practical strategies and tools for teachers that are proven through massive-scale research to have a high impact upon student learning. In Key Stage 3 Tony has led a discussion on the purpose, nature and benefit of assessment in this age group. This will lead to significant changes over the course of this year, especially relating to sum-

mative assessment (for example tests or exams) in Years 7 and 8.

Year 9 will see fewer changes but there too focus on assessment that informs future progress rather than measures learning made up to that point will be emphasised. Our increasingly effective use of assessment data in terms of setting and monitoring targets for each student, alongside mentoring for those students who may need more support in meeting them, sits alongside this to inform both students and parents of progress made and provide ways forward.

Dylan Wilam’s simple but powerful model for formative assessment

Shortly we will send out electronically a calendar of study for Key Stage 3 to provide a clear overview of what each Year group are studying in every subject on a half termly basis. Over the course of the year we will be able to add more information to this such as key assessments in specific areas.

The document will be ‘live’ so that changes and updates made by any subject area will be reflected immediately in the version seen by parents. Tony will share more de-

tailed information in this regard before half term.

We believe that Key Stage 3 is a critical time in our students’ lives.

Ensuring that the academic curriculum is exciting, challenging and rewarding in its own right rather than merely a stepping stone to study further up the school reflects this. It sits within our strong, values based pastoral system and curriculum which has the overall development and welfare of our young students to enable them to

become active, reflective, caring future citizens at its heart.

Have a great weekend and I hope to see many of you at the Fun Run on Sunday.

Mick Smith Principal. Secondary School

By Janice Jean, 13O tudents often struggle with complex topics that require skills, like spatial vision, and may find related mathematical problems more difficult. However, this academic year, our school’s Secondary Mathematics faculty has introduced 3D glasses to our course.

Students, especially those taking Higher Level and Standard Level Mathematics in the IB course, are able to use this device in their classes as it provides a visual context to the problems, aiding the student’s understanding. (The 3D glasses are also used by students in Years 8 - 11).

Year 13 Higher level and Standard level Mathematics students have had an early introduction to these new devices, using them in their vectors class. The students found the quality of the glasses “pleasantly surprising”, providing an “interactive” gesture to the course, making it more interesting for the students. With this

“different style of learning”, students do not only learn and memorise the concepts, but also are able to further understand the details they may have overlooked.

“I found the idea of introducing the vectors topic with 3D glasses quite interesting, because previously, when I learnt two dimensional vectors, the concepts were much simpler, but now, in the IB course, we have to consider three dimensional vectors, which is confusing at times. Personally, with-

By Stephen Murgatroyd, Teacher Librarian few weeks ago, we launched a book competition and invited children from Key Stage 2 to have a go at our Mo Willems book quiz.

The prize was an activity book by Mo Willems called "Don't Let the Pigeon Finish this Activity Book". There was a lot of interest, but not many children managed to get all 10 of the questions correct. Those children then had their names put into a box and the lucky winner was pulled out. We hope that the winning Year 4 student

enjoys the book and has many happy hours trying to finish the puzzles and activities!

out the ability to visualise the problem, I find it extremely difficult to solve, because I am not entirely sure what I have to solve.

But, when I used the 3D glasses for the first time, with the aid of the graphical software Geogebra, I was able to experiment with the different problems illustrated on the software, providing a clear contextual image of the possible solutions I may have to solve for in the topic.”

The calendar for this academic year is available on the front of the school website or click here to view it.

Click here for the Canteen Menu

By Jen Peppard, Head of Secondary World Languages elcome to the world of Home Languages (HoLa)! It is well documented how important it is for children to maintain and develop their home language(s) – and how easily young people adapt to learning multiple languages once they have opened up their brains.

Across both Primary and Secondary Schools, we offer a wide range of Home Language ECA (Extracurricular Activity) classes to enable your child to develop the language which you speak at home.

Sometimes it is very difficult to maintain a language in isolation, and these classes are a great opportunity for your child to use their language with others in both a social and academic setting.

We offer ECA Home Language

classes in Mandarin, French, Spanish, Dutch, Singaporean Mandarin and Japanese.

Please do consider signing your child(ren) up for one of these classes to enable them to develop their language skills and further their cultural awareness. The classes are available for Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2), Key Stage 2 (Years 3 – 6) and Secondary students. In particular we have new HoLa ECAs for Block 2 for Key Stage 3 Mandarin, Secondary Spanish and Key Stage 1 and 2 Japanese. If you would like to have a class in a different language from those which we currently run, please do contact us to discuss the possibilities further.

For more information please

Next Friday 2nd October

Visit the Tiger Shop for your Tiger gear!

Open daily from 7.30am to 9.00am and Wednesday 1.30 to 3.30pm

contact: Jen Peppard, Head of World Languages (Secondary) – jepe@patana.ac.th, or Ondine Ullman, Head of Language Acquisition (Primary) – onul@patana.ac.th.

CALLING ALL MALAYSIAN FAMILIES lease contact your Malaysian reps if you would like to be part of the Malaysian group for International Day: Eunice Flannery: flannery_3@yahoo.com.sg Shirley Tan: forget.me.not1688@gmail.com

Upcoming University Visits University/College

Representative

Location

Date / Time

American Education Exhibition

hosted by AEO Tour

Plaza Athenee Bangkok

26th Sep, 1.00pm

Hawaii Pacific University Ecole H么teli猫re de Lausanne Universiteit Maastricht Massey University NZ Baylor University Ghent University Global Campus University of Southern California The Chinese University of Hong Kong New College of the Humanities Northeastern University University College Roosevelt University of Bristol University of California, Irvine University of Warwick University Fair in Bangkok by EARCOS and CIS Boston University Tufts University American University Ryerson University S P Jain School of Global Management Carleton University University of Colorado at Boulder University of Exeter The University of Iowa University of Missouri Columbia School of the Art Institute of Chicago Merrimack College California Lutheran University

Brandon Fairchild Joshua Gan Felix Schulte-Stathaus Linda Oostenrijk Garrett Peery Taewan KIM David Park Paul K. Smith Jonathan Watts Darryl Tynen Denise Nijhuis Jo Phillips Pimjai Santatiwat Jeremy Burgess

2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies TBC 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies The Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies 2nd Floor, Senior Studies

29th Sep, 12.00pm 29th Sep, 12.15pm 29th Sep, 12.15pm 30th Sep, 12.15pm 30th Sep, 12.15pm 30th Sep, 12.15pm 30th Sep, 12.15pm 1st Oct, 9.15am 1st Oct, 9.15am 1st Oct, 9.15am 1st Oct, 12.00pm 1st Oct, 12.15pm 1st Oct, 12.15pm 1st Oct, 12.15pm

University of Southampton

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Anne Corriveau Jen Simons Julie Soper Soeun Outh Krishti Chatterjee Andy Raeburn Jim Myton Caitlin Shriner Joseph LaTorre Tracy Howtamfat Mr. Mohamed Torbati, 2nd Floor, Senior Studies Engineering Professor

3rd Oct, 3.30pm 5th Oct, 9.15am 5th Oct, 9.15am 5th Oct, 12.15am 5th Oct, 12.15am 5th Oct, 12.15am 6th Oct, 9.15am 6th Oct, 12.15am 6th Oct, 12.15am 6th Oct, 12.15am 6th Oct, 12.15am 7th Oct, 12.15am 8th Oct, 9.15am 9th Oct, 9.00am 15th Oct, 12.00pm

Race numbers and T-shirts can be collected at the venue from 6.15am on Sunday. The race start times are: 6.15am race pack collection opens 6.45am Aerobics warm up 7.00am 9km starts 7.10am 5km starts 7.20am 3km starts 8.20 1.3km starts

THE ROAR Produced by the Athletics Council

Athlete of the week Maria Bobic Lindstrand Year: 12

Team:

Upcoming Fixtures Monday 28th September Basketball – Girls’ U13A HOME Football – Varsity 2nd Team Away Football – Girls’ JV HOME Touch – Girls’ U15A HOME Tuesday 29th September Basketball – Girls’ U15A HOME Rugby Sevens – Boys’-U15A HOME Wednesday 30th September Football – Boys’ Varsity Away Football – Girls’ Varsity Away Football – Boys’ JV HOME Football – Girls’ JV HOME Volleyball – Boys’ Varsity HOME Volleyball – Girls’ Varsity HOME Volleyball – Boys’ JV Away Volleyball – Girls’ JV Away

Varsity Football Position: Centre Midfield or Defence Who is your sporting icon?

Charlotte Rohlin (Swedish football player)

What’s your favourite sport quote?

"I'm living a dream I never want to wake up from" ~ Cristiano Ronaldo What’s your favourite after sports snack?

A Banana How long have you played your sport?

11 Years

Thursday 1st October Basketball – Boys’ U15A HOME Basketball – Girls’ U15A HOME Basketball – Boys’ U13A HOME Basketball – Girls’ U13A Away Friday 2nd October U11 Basketball Invitational HOME Varsity Volleyball Olympic Training Saturday 3rd October Football – Boys’-U9 Away Football – Girls’ U9 Away Football – Boys’ U11A Away Football – Girls’ U11A Away Recent Results and Highlights

Coming up…

28 DAYS till

SEASAC Football/ Volleyball www.facebook.com/bpssports

Basketball Boys’ U15 v NIST – WON 57-40 Girls’ U15 v NIST –WON 29-2 Boys’ U13 v St. Andrews – Lost 20-23 Girls’ U13 v NIST – WON 18-14 Football Boys’ JV v RIS – Lost 1-4 Tennis Boys’ U13 v ICS – Lost 4-9 Volleyball Girls’ Varsity v RIS – Lost 1-2 Boys’ Varsity v HIS – Won 2-0

Team

Opposition

Venue / Pitch

Timings Meet Start Return

Saturday 26th September 2015

Boys' U13A

In-house Gymnastics competition Gym TigerPrawns Swimming 25m pool vs Invitational Tennis Doubles Home | Tennis Centre

Tennis Tennis

Boys' U13A Girls' U13A

vs Harrow International School Bangkok vs Invitational Tennis Doubles

Home | Tennis Centre Home | Tennis Centre

08:00 07:30 08:00

Tennis Football Volleyball Football Volleyball

Girls' U13A Girls' Varsity Girls' Varsity Boys' Varsity Boys' Varsity

vs Harrow International School Bangkok vs International School Bangkok vs ISB Invitational vs ISB Invitational vs ISB Invitational

Home | Tennis Centre Away | Main School Away | Away | Away |

08:00 08:30 08:30 09:45 09:45

Tennis

08:00 08:00 - 13:00 07:30 08:00

07:00 07:00 08:00 08:00

Sunday 27th September 2015 Cross Country Varsity XC Golf

Varsity Golf

BPS Fun Run vs Bangkok Patana Fun Run vs Harrow International School Bangkok

Ancient City Away | Ancient City Neutral | Riverdale Golf Club

06:00 - 10:00 07:00 10:30

12:30 17:00 18:15 18:00

By Genevieve Ahl, Services Manager arents are reminded that they are welcome to join their children on the school bus to and/or from school. Please make sure you book a seat in advance with the Transport Department to avoid disappointment.  Mobile phones, toys, iPods, wallets

and other items are being left on the buses when students get off.

Please remind your child to check they have all their belongings with them before exiting the bus. Any items used for the bus journey must be kept in their bag during the school day.  Please arrive to your morning bus

on time. The three minute waiting time should not be used on a daily basis as it can cause a problem, making the the bus late for the next stop. Please be mindful of other bus users.  A big THANK YOU to parents and

students in Secondary. For the first time in a very long time we had one day this week where no Secondary student was a 'no-show' for their scheduled bus, missed their bus or

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tried to change their bus at the bus car park without notifying in advance. Well done! We hope this becomes the norm.  Morning Drop Off – Can parents/

drivers please avoid dropping students off in the morning at the Uturn near Soi 39 and 39/1. This is a dangerous place to let students out and it causes traffic congestion. The safest place to drop students is the school drop-off zone by entering via Gate 1 or at the Sports Complex Car Park where students can use the foot bridge to get to school. Please ensure your child arrives to school safely when using private transport.  Please ensure that any snack pro-

vided on the bus is ‘non messy’ and healthy. Students should not be sharing unhealthy snacks on the bus as this can lead to problems. Candy, gum, sweets, large packets of crisps and peanut products are not permitted. Thank you for your cooperation.

Saturday 14th November, 7pm

PTG Evening Social for parents and staff at Snapper Sukhumvit Soi 11 Snacks provided by the PTG

The noodle bar serves on average 307 bowls of noodles per day.

The most popular days for noodles are Monday and Tuesday We now have three serving counters at the noodle bar.

The queue to collect your bowl will take a maximum of five minutes, if you are at the very end of the queue.

A vegetarian option is available, please use the entrance closest to the payment point.

On an average day 287 bowls are served between 12.15 – 12.40 (within 25 minutes) – that means that three bowls of noodles are served every 15.6 seconds!

ANAPANA MEDITATION COURSE FOR CHILDREN Anapana (Mindfulness of breathing) teaches children improved concentration skills and enhances calmness of the mind. This technique helps to relieve anxiety and is very useful at exam time to calm those nerves, but also for everyday life.

The next Anapana Meditation course will be given on Sunday 11th October for children aged between 8-16 years.

The course is completely free!

To enrol, please contact Eva at 081-8456153 or email to evasophon@hotmail.com for all further information.

You might find this site useful: http://www.children.dhamma.org/en/children/about-meditation.shtml

The weekly canteen menu is available here.

Please check the calendar on the Parents’ Gateway, Student pages and Staff Centre for up-to-date information on school events.

Visit www.patana.ac.th and click on the relevant icon to log in