Patana News Volume 18 Issue 34

Patana

NEWS

Congratulations to the Class of 2016

Pg. 2

Primary FOBISIA Round Up / Can Art Change the World? / Community Garden Bangkok Patana is an IB World School, accredited by CIS and NEASC

Letter from the Secondary Principal Last Saturday, what for most of us is the biggest single occasion of the school year and for the whole of Year 13, of their entire school careers, took place at school. It was of course the Graduation of the Class of 2016. At precisely 4:00pm 124 almost to be ex-Bangkok Patana students proudly marched into the Rosamund Stuetzel Theatre, ascended and

course academics. Highlights as always included the wonderful speeches made by each of our five Senior Delegates who always speak so eloquently on behalf of the whole Year group. This year they spoke of growing up together, the support of their families, their hopes and aspirations and the challenges that they have faced on their paths through school. Mr

walked the stage to the tumultuous applause of family and friends and began their final act as Bangkok Patana students.

In fact, this was the grand finale of a series of farewells for Year 13’s going back to their last regular day in school at the end of Term 2, followed by the agonies of the IB exams and their informal goodbye on Friday when tutors celebrated their time with their tutees in Senior Studies. This was the big one though; sharp suits, beautiful party frocks, sweaty palms, nervous laughter and in some cases very high heels, and that was just the parents!

If I do say so myself, I think that we put on a pretty good Graduation here at Bangkok Patana, through an enormous team effort led by Helen Thew, Assistant Principal for Student Welfare and Yvonne Brown, this year’s Head of Year 13, supported by a cast of literally hundreds including our wonderful six day staff, Marketing and IT teams, catering and of

Roff, IB Coordinator and Ms Brown, used the metaphor of the BTS skytrain journey to school to bring to life this ‘journey’ made by the students in a joint speech that was both funny and moving. We had beautiful renditions of the Thai and British national anthems by Rung and Rosie, excellent musical performances by our string quartet led by Mr Bien and a brilliant Year 13 all-star performance.

As always the biggest highlight was seeing each student have their own very special, personal moment in the spotlight as they came on stage once more to collect their Academic Diplomas from Deputy Chair of the Foundation Board, Laura Stamp supported by Head of School, Matt Mills.

After I had the great honour of closing proceedings by challenging students to take responsibility to do all that they could in the future to make the world a better place – no small task – the students and their families were able to enjoy the rest of the evening at

the cocktail reception and then dinner in the beautifully transformed Sports Hall. This is always a lovely opportunity also for teachers to congratulate families who are always very appreciative of the support that they’ve given each student here at school. By around 10:00pm our latest alumni had waved goodbye and headed off to their after-grad party, their very first event in their lives post-Patana.

On behalf of the entire school I would like to thank each of them for their contributions at Bangkok Patana, congratulate them on their Graduation and wish them the very best of luck with their results (5 th July) and in the future.

Graduation, collected richly deserved and highly coveted Gold Awards for their successful completion of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award. We enjoyed a lovely, intimate celebration ‘under the stars’ in the Black Box where we were wined and dined, serenaded by student musicians and treated to accounts of the very real trials and tribulations of monster kayaking trips and an unforgettable Everest Base Camp expedition. We were also fortunate to have guest of honour Mr Paul Bute, Chargé d'affaires from the British Embassy, who in addition to being a really good chap and an excellent speaker, is also a proud Gold Award holder himself. Many thanks and

I barely have space to comment on two other hugely significant events held last week, which richly deserve their own mention. On Tuesday evening Andrew Tatam, Acting Assistant Principal for Extracurricular Activities and Sports, ably supported by Laura Bebbington and representatives from the Student Athletics Council, hosted a wonderful evening of celebration of the whole sporting year at our annual Sports Award Dinner (read more on page 11). Highlights inevitably included recognition of the tremendous achievement of the Varsity Boys Basketball team who won a famous victory at SEASAC here at Bangkok Patana, upstaged only the very same weekend by our amazing Girls Varsity Tennis stars who won SEASAC for a remarkable sixth consecutive year. Many congratulations to all students involved representing the school this year.

Finally this week I would also like to congratulate the 24 students, who just two days before

congratulations to Sally Madden and her Outdoor Education team especially Kirsten Bennett and Khun Beau for a brilliant evening. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Sally for her inspirational leadership of Outdoor Education here at Bangkok Patana over the last six years as she leaves us at the end of this year.

Phew, still two weeks to go!

Have a great weekend

Mick Smith Principal, Secondary School

Click here for all the

Graduation 2016 information

T

he Community Garden, located between the Thai Sala and Senior Studies, is a beautiful area developed by Secondary students interested in growing their own, healthy, chemical free, food. The project was started by Henry Zoeller and Poon Vichinvanives last year.

The project emerged from an elective course on ecological farming called “permaculture” taught by Dr Heddle. In this course students learned how to use nature to design a garden that requires minimum inputs, but maximum outputs. They made compost from the waste in the canteen, learned how to get seeds to germinate and fermented different herbs such as chilli and lemongrass to make natural pest repellents.

Henry became increasingly interested in starting a garden particularly inspired by his sister’s experiences at the University of California where they had developed a community garden. He identified some areas of land in the Secondary school and then approached Dr Heddle about starting a garden, and was soon presenting his ideas to the leadership team in school along with fellow

student Peerat (Poon) Vichivanives. It was their passion and dedication that really convinced the school’s leadership team that this was a project worth supporting.

One of the features in the garden is our banana circle. In a larger garden setting a banana circle would enclose a trench for compost, as bananas love to get lots of nutrients, and mixed in with the bananas will be various plants such as taro and papaya. We have added papaya to our banana circle, but we only add finished compost. The Outdoor Classroom, across by the Sports Complex, gives us space to build compost, and we bring over the finished product for our banana circle and other plants. We also recently built a herb spiral. A herb spiral is a specially designed planting container, that provides lots of different micro-climates for plants to grow - plants grown in the shade of the spiral, near the bottom are those that prefer cool, dark habitats like mint, whereas those at the top of the spiral prefer bright sunlight and drier conditions.

Our herb spiral was built by students from Secondary and Primary as part of the ECA, as well as

by students in Year 11 as part of their Permaculture elective. It is made from old car tyres, with a mud and straw mixture called cob, put over the tyres to shape beautiful designs. It was then plastered with a mixture of fine clay, coconut dust and tapioca flour that acts as a glue. The herb spiral will remain under

lemongrass. Our lemongrass patch grows in old car tyres and into which we built a simple frame for long beans and winged beans that we harvested earlier this year. We have just planted more beans now that the rains have started, and have added a passion fruit vine to the garden that we look forward to enjoying next year.

Our future plans include growing and selling Italian basil (Genovese Basil) at the Patana Farmer’s Market to raise money to do more with the garden area, growing more vegetables such as morning glory and Chinese mustard, and developing a small aquaponics system to learn more about the cycles of nutrients and plants.

cover until we come back to school in August as it needs to dry over the winter.

Besides the banana circle and herb spiral, we have planted lime and lemon trees in the garden, interspersed with Thai and holy basil, and chilli peppers. Our limes have already produced fruit. We grew lemongrass from two stalks donated to us by the gardeners at the Outdoor Classroom. By taking a stalk of lemongrass, and planting it straight into the ground, it is possible to grow a huge bunch of We would love to involve more teachers, staff and parents into helping the garden become a true community. One of the best things about the Community Garden is that it belongs to everyone.

Even though it is exam leave, Henry and Poon have been visiting the garden every week to help and whenever there are a few people working there, more come to see what we are doing and join in.

This is what makes us a community and our greatest hope for the garden is that it not only continues to grow fruit and vegetables, but to grow friendships as well.

If you are interested in getting involved please contact Dr Heddle at amhd@patana.ac.th

F

or our art project this term, 8H, my class, created statues in the style of Keith Haring using Styrofoam. As an introduction to this topic, we looked at the rights of children and how we could show them visually, in a way that children and adults can quickly get the message. Soon enough we were introduced to Keith Haring and his style of drawing. He would create simple drawings, however powerful messages would show through, leaving the audience open to interpretation.

Keith Haring was an artist who wanted to express the importance or concerns of certain subjects such as; birth, death, sexuality, war and drugs. He started off drawing on plain black paper, with chalk, on the advertisement panels in the subway stations of New York. His art was significant as it was simple to understand and it was really different to the art at that time, which was graffiti. Our statue is similar to Keith Haring’s style, as the main shape of it is a human standing on a skateboard with its arms on its hips. Its simple shape represents a rather simple meaning if you look at it the way my group did. Our aim was for it to represent a child standing with its arms on its hips to show that children should be treated with similar

rights to adults and should be listened not ignored.

By having the child standing on a skateboard shows that children have the right to relax and play.

We based our designs on the rights of a child as they smoothly link with Keith Haring as his drawings are simple and easy to understand.

Child rights are very important today, and they always have been.

They are important so adults won’t treat them as adults and let them have a fun, memorable childhood. As well as that, the rights of a child protects them from any harm. We chose to design our ‘child’ based on the ideas that children have the right to eat and that children have the right to an education. We chose these ideas because we think they’re important as children need to grow and for energy and they need education to learn.

Our work is to be hung in the Science Centre corridors so each and every student can see them and explore their meaning. Our target audience are all the students, so they can really think about how lucky they are to be receiving these things and that they know and feel that they are protected and safe as a consequence of these rights

‘Can Art Change the World?’ Part 2 By Charles Golsby

W

e really enjoyed our first Patana United experience because we were able to see what other year groups and ensembles had been doing. We performed and were confident yet very nervous. We were tempted to look at our friends and what they were thinking, but we stayed focused and watched Ms MacRitchie conduct us. We all stayed in tune, used hand gestures and blended well, which made our performance quite exceptional. It was great to work together in a group with the other class, we had faced different experiences like this before; but we hadn’t seen the other ensembles perform before. Overall, Patana United was an incredible experience and we are excited to be in another performance like this once again in the future. Well done to all the wonderful performers.

University/College

Representative

Stanford Life and US Style Essay Tips Tita Kanjanapas (Alumni)

Location

Date

Time

Senior Studies, 2nd Floor 15.06.16 12:15

S

tudents from Years 5 and 6 began the journey to our Primary FOBISIA Games way back at the beginning of Term 2 as 65 children began trying out for our Under 10 and Under 11 age group teams.

With only 40 places available selection was certainly tough as we tried to gather the most balanced team to compete across all four sports.

The Games kicked off on Wednesday 25th May with swimming and athletics, this was followed by tee ball on the Thursday and football on the Friday — an exhausting three days of sport in which our students gave it their all with some superb performances.

The Games came to an end with the Gala Dinner on the Friday night and the much anticipated disco which gave new energy to tired legs (where do they get their energy?), the perfect end to yet another superb FOBISIA Games.

A huge thank you to all those who tried out for our teams this year as well as those who subsequently represented the school so magnificently. To all of our ever supportive parents a big thank you to you too, especially our brave parent reps Terri, Julie, Jam and Sara. Thanks also to all of the coaches; Miss Morris, Mr Liam, Mr Graham, Mr Walton, Mr Cooper and myself, as well as all of those who helped during the year at our ECAs to prepare and support the team. A final thank you to Mr Tatam and his team

for hosting a great event here at Bangkok Patana.

Well done everyone.

Swimming Team Award -

Champions

Athletics Team Awards -

5th

Tee Ball Championship League Cup League Plate League Bowl League –

Champions Silver Medallists Bronze Medallists Silver Medallists

Football Girls Championship Boys Championship Girls Cup Boys Cup –

Champions 5th 4th 5th

O

ne of our key aims during Waste Less Week is to develop school wide approaches to responsible food packaging.

This year, we have used some of our assembly and PSHE times to learn more about the negative environmental impact of singleuse, disposable plastic packaging.

During ‘Waste Less Week’, we will remove some of the plastic packaging in the snack bar, promote the use of reusable water bottles for everyone and raise awareness through displays.

Please encourage your child to check that they have their water bottle with them each day. Once this becomes an established part of their daily kit, we hope to see a significant reduction in our use of paper cups and throwaway bottles.

N

ext week, (13th-17th June), the school will be trialling some ideas at the Primary and Secondary snack bars in order to help us to consume less single-use plastic and enable us to create a more environmentally aware community. This will allow us to see students’ and adults’ reactions to the changes that could be possibly made in the future. Some of the changes will include posters to raise awareness about plastic straws (made by some of our SEC members); some foods not being wrapped in plastic (e.g. apples); other snacks wrapped in alternative materials and replacing the plastic fruit trays with biodegradable ones.

We also encourage everyone to bring their own water bottles. We hope that you look out for the changes, consider why we are trialling them and let us have your feedback. Many thanks.

Nara (Year 5) and Maitri (Year 6), Primary SEC

J

ust some quick reminders relating to the changes we are implementing at the Snack Bar: 1. The queues might be slightly longer as we adapt to more environmentally friendly solutions, so please bear with us.

2. The trays for the fruit may be slightly bigger than the contents, but the quantity and quality of the fruit is exactly the same as it is now.

3. You will find food wrapped in paper bags, so just look at the labelling system to see what it is.

4. Please email us any feedback to Madison at mafr17@patana.ac.th, we'd love to hear what you think!

Outside of school, do you find yourself being given tons of plastic bags at the store?

Well, all you have to say is: Mai sai toong. Khob khun kha/krub I don't need a plastic bag, thank you.

We hope these changes and tips will encourage you all to continue promoting a waste-free future and a sustainable school!

Madison (Year 12) and Vibhuti (Year 9), Secondary SEC

T

hursday 2nd June saw the culmination of a wonderfully diverse and passionate sporting year at Bangkok Patana School. Our annual Sports Awards Dinner was a celebration of all of our sporting community’s efforts across Secondary whether individuals were lucky enough to win personal awards or not. The message for the evening, enjoyed by over 600 students, coaches and parents, was one of the ‘collective’ being an essential ingredient for personal and team success. A timely reminder that we need to learn how to lose sometimes in order to win well and take disappointment as a tool to build future progress.

Please do take the time to look through the booklets (simply click on the covers) for seasonal reports from across the sporting year. The “Shut Up and Dance” video is well worth a watch too!

A huge thank you to all of the students who represented a team or attended a sporting ECA during the year as well as to all of the parents and coaches for their support.

What sports will you try, excel in, or simply enjoy in 2016/17?

#34: Windows 10 and a Free PDF to Word Converter Windows 10 has had some bad press lately with its alleged “optional” to “recommended” upgrade. The free upgrade from Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 will expire on the 29th July 2016 so I thought I’d share some of the built-in apps that are quite easy to overlook. For example, there’s a handy overview of the new features available in Windows 10, including the free Photos app that can do most of the editing we need on a day-to-day basis.

More and more I turn to Web 2.0 tools to do things for me.

Here’s one I use to convert PDF documents into MS Word.

Quite often you may find you’ve been sent a PDF document and you want to edit it. With PDF Online you can upload a PDF document and it will convert it to Word for you. I’ve found it works well, even with PDF documents containing quite complex tables and images. However, please take care not to upload documents containing personal information.

Have a great weekend!

Brian Taylor, Assistant Principal, Campus Curriculum Technology Integration

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If your children are staying in school to watch the Dance Extravaganza or other events please remember to cancel their bus home to avoid the bus waiting unnecessarily. All students taking part in the Dance Extravaganza have had their bus already cancelled.

If you would like to join the Transport Service or would like to make any changes to your child’s current transport arrangements for 2016/17 please contact th transport@patana.ac.th by Friday 24 June.

Did you know that School Transport fees have not increased for 2016/17?

Did you know that the Transport Information Office will have a ‘new look’ in 2016/17? Staff will temporarily move office after school breaks up and will be back in their new office area for the start of the new school year.

For all transport queries and requests please email transport@patana.ac.th or call 02 785 2470

T

he process of annual Bus Checks by parents has been in place since Bangkok Patana has been running the bus service. It enables parents to comment on and be aware of the safety of the older buses. This is a check that could easily be done by the school but many years ago parents wanted to be involved in these checks to ensure the safety of their children travelling on these buses and it is nice to see the school and parents working together on this important job. We would like to thank the parents who volunteered to participate in the inspections this year.

All buses that are contracted to drive for school undergo a number of safety checks and the PTG inspection gives parents the opportunity to look at the internal and external areas of the buses over six years old and check areas such indicators, seat belts, if it has the necessary safety equipment i.e. fire extinguisher, first aid kit, etc. We do not use

buses that are over 12 years old for our Transport Service.

The school buses are also required to visit a garage, that we select, at the start of the school year for a full service and safety check. All buses must pass this inspection to enable them to work for us.

We also do internal inspections by senior staff in our Transport Department as well as spot checks throughout the year. A checklist is provided by the Transport staff and any recommendations by parents will be looked at and buses will be asked to improve certain areas. We are often asked why these checks are done at the end of the school year. The reason is that in approximately four weeks time we will be looking to renew contracts of buses for the 2016/17 school year and if any buses over six years old are not up to our high standard they will be notified and given time to improve or look for alternative work.

If you have any questions in relation to the PTG Bus Inspections please contact Genevieve Ahl, Services Manager, geah@patana.ac.th

Due to changes in personal circumstances our Chairperson and Vice Chair have had to resign.

Please email ptg@patana.ac.th if you would like to nominate yourself or anyone else.

There has been no increase in the school set lunch programme fees, or for noodles, smoothies and canteen buffet lunch for 2016/17.

The daily 2016/17 fees are as follows: Secondary Canteen Buffet

90 THB

Primary Canteen Buffet

70 THB

Noodles from Chopsticks

50 THB

Smoothie

60 THB

Snack Bars

10 + THB

Termly Set Lunch fees (THB): Set Lunch Programme K2 – Year 2

Term 1 4,800

Term 2 3,500

Term 3 2,500

Year 3 – Year 6

5,600

4,100

2,900

Year 7- Year 13

7,100

5,300

3,800

If you would like to sign up to the set lunch programme for 2016/17 please email rabr@patana.ac.th by Friday 24th June.

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You can get your school uniform for the 2016/17 academic year prior to the end of Term 3 or at the start of Term 1. Please note if you do purchase in advance you will not be able to return items in Term 1 due to the 7 day return/ refund policy.

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The School Shop will be closed from 1st – 31st of July and will reopen on Monday 1st August.

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The Post Office services within the school shop will close on Friday 24th June and resume from 1st September onwards. The Post Office is closed for July and August.

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