Our mission is to ensure that students of different nationalities grow to their full potential as independent learners in a caring British international community.
Patana
NEWS
Friday 25th May 2020
Volume 22 Issue 32
www.patana.ac.th
CONTINUING STUDENT LEARNING IN PRIMARY Mark Verde, Primary Assistant Principal, Learning and Curriculum
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Also in this issue...
The Failures of Coronavirus; A Short Story/Breaking 500 Challenge/Maths Puzzle of the Week 29/05/2020
Bangkok Patana School News
Bangkok Patana is a not-for-profit IB World School accredited by CIS
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Continuing Student Learning in Primary Mark Verde, Primary Assistant Principal, Learning and Curriculum
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ince the middle of March Bangkok Patana School, like many schools around the world, has had to close its physical doors to ensure that we keep our children, families and staff safe and secure due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Despite the school being physically closed, the learning still goes on in the form of our Continuing Student Learning, (CSL). What it looks like, is very different to that of a typical classroom model environment, as it has been flipped and turned on its head. Learning remotely has required our teachers to use digital tools to help them communicate with their students and ensure that they don’t miss out on learning opportunities by providing lessons that can be completed at home. Our teachers, children and parents have adapted quickly to this change. The initial period of CSL was a time of adjustment for everyone, with the new learning tools and systems being established, family schedules implemented and learning shared. During this time parents and carers played a valuable part in supporting the children at home. The students adjusted to watching videos provided by their teachers and other multimedia materials that explained concepts. After Songkran, a more blended, learning approach was introduced, which brought together the elements of both traditional and flipped classrooms. This was where a combination of online, live lessons and well-being chats, were interwoven into the learning. The curriculum itself was adapted with the priority placed on the well-being of our children. Regular, weekly, small group chats have provided the opportunity to reconnect with friends, teachers and teaching assistants and talk together about things of interest. During the live lessons the children share their ideas and understanding. This helps the teachers to assess the learning and give immediate feedback. At the end of these sessions the children are encouraged to practise the concept and post their ideas for the teacher to respond to. How the children have adapted to such a new way of learning has been amazing to see. Homes have been turned into science laboratories where awe, wonder and exploration rule. Time has been shaped into the learning for our children to create music, art and drama with opportunities to contemplate and relax into their learning. A den becomes an escape into a fantasy world or a jigsaw a logical way of building pictures and stories. Now that the CSL has been running for some weeks, we are seeing success in learning attitudes during the live lessons, chats and through the feedback posts. Children are being given choices for their learning with the option to complete lessons in the order stipulated or when they want and to, developing independent learning skills. It has been amazing to see how well and quickly our children have adapted to learning through technology; uploading into vari2
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ous platforms, manipulating a chat-based collaboration tool and adopting a new learning system and regime. Teachers have had to let go and hand over control of learning to the children under the care and supervision of adults at home. This is a hard thing for many teachers to do, but with the support and collaboration from our parents, who have become a key cog in making this new educational learning machine work well, we can truly say that school and home partnerships are working hand in hand to make the CSL learning successful for all our children. Our aim is to continue providing the best learning opportunities to help our children continue to grow socially and academically in these very different times.
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THE FAILURES OF CORONAVIRUS Garam (Momo) Lee, 4K
A FOBISIA COVID-19 Silver Linings Creative Writing Competition Submission Hello, I’m Coronavirus. I’m sure you know my name, Infecting people is my scheme; you know I have no shame, People wonder where I’m from, but I won’t ever tell, My plan was finally working, it was going really well, Things are changing every day; some people even healed, They’ve started working as a team now that they know I’m real, As humans spend their time at home, they start to learn new things, Families are having fun, such happiness it brings, But people still need to go out, and that could be my chance, They’ve made it even harder, though, because they’re wearing masks, Hand gel is just terrible; it really, really burns, Everyone is being smart; it’s getting tough for germs, The world is looking for a cure; I wonder if they’re near, Every time I hear the word, I start to shake in fear, Cars and planes are on a break, and now there’s less pollution, I can’t believe that I’m the one who gave them the solution, Now that the humans know my tricks, they’ll be much more prepared, All future viruses and bugs will be extremely scared.
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Bitmoji Interactive Classrooms
Cindy Adair, Cross Campus Assistant Principal, Sports and Extra-curricular Activities
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ooking for ideas to keep you busy on the days you are learning @Home or during the Summer holidays? Check out two interactive Bitmoji Classrooms here - see how many active links you can find! The scenes feature lots of the most popular ECA offerings from during the CSL closure.
here
House Totals - Miles Lanta 257 Samui 259
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Chang 157 Phuket 172
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UNI COUNSELORS’ CORNER ALUMNI STORIES... Tem Mahadumrongkul, Class of 2015
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em Mahadrumrongkul spent his formative years at Bangkok Patana School, from Nursery through to Year 12 where he felt emboldened by his IB experiences at the school to make the leap to study filmmaking at Mahidol International University College. “Since leaving Bangkok Patana in 2013, life has taken me onto unfamiliar yet interesting paths. I made a leap of faith to leave before completing the IB in Year 12 (having always thought that I would end up graduating at Bangkok Patana), as I wanted to pursue my passion in filmmaking at Mahidol International University College. Spending most of my early years at Bangkok Patana shaped me into who I am today. The school encourages students to take risks and participate in classes, clubs and sports teams and that’s exactly what they should do. Bangkok Patana is one of the rare schools that actually encourage and support critical thinking and I found that skill very useful in my everyday life once I entered the real world after-Year 12. Film at Mahidol seemed like a perfect fit for me as I was one of the very few Thai internationals in my year to pursue drama in my IGCSE’s. I followed a childhood dream and managed to make five student films with my friends and also managed to direct the first musical short film at Mahidol University for my thesis. Being younger and less experienced than a lot of the students at Mahidol was a challenge, but I was finally pursuing something I had a strong passion for and I managed to graduate within three years with first honours, almost a year before my fellow classmates. After graduating, I immediately applied for my Master’s at Leeds University Business School, majoring in advertising and marketing after realising that I needed to educate myself on how to adapt to the current market successfully and manage both my family business and potential businesses of my own. Read abot Tem’s journey and how he ended up at Trocadero Time here.
Invoices for school fees for Term 1 2020/21 were emailed to families/companies on Wednesday 13th May 2020. If you have not received your invoice please contact the Accounting Department accounts@patana.ac.th. Please note that the due date for settlement is on Tuesday 30th June.
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UNI OFFERS... Elena Bien, Year 13 Congratulations on offers from
• Haverford College • University of Vermont
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will be attending Haverford College in the fall, joining the class of ’24. What motivated me most to commit to Haverford was the welcoming community, the school’s unique honour code and the abundance of opportunities offered at this small liberal arts college. Haverford trusts the students to be principled and honest with their learning and work. I feel these are integral qualities that I would like to develop and they would help me grow as an independent learner as well as preparing me to contribute to society to the best of my capabilities. This honour code also creates a trusting and collaborative atmosphere amongst students. I am excited to be part of this type of community. Haverford is a liberal arts college and I have applied with an undecided major. This provides me the time and opportunity to explore my interests and passions before deciding my major. When picking colleges, this was an important factor since my current interests range from biology and chemistry to education and psychology. In addition, Haverford’s close proximity and collaborations with other top universities (UPenn, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr college) provides a wide range of resources and a diverse selection of courses/classes to explore. Bangkok Patana has helped fuel my many passions from playing in orchestra, coaching Tigerprawns to spending time with Mercy Center children on weekends. I think the endless range of opportunities for extracurricular activities at Patana helps spark each students individual passion and happiness. As other students go through the process of applying to university, I would like to wish them the best of luck. My top tip would be to be patient and trust yourself!
IN THE SPOTLIGHT... London School of Economics and Political Science
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anked 27th in the world in the Times Higher Education Global Index, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is located in the heart of central London near Covent Garden. A highly international school, 70 percent of the some 11,000 students at the school are from outside the UK. LSE is considered one of the foremost social science universities in the world, specialising in a wide range of social science disciplines, including economics, politics, sociology, law and anthropology. LSE was founded in the late 1800s by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw. It boasted Nobel Prize winner Bertrand Russell as one of its lecturers and As of 2019, 18 Nobel Prizes in economics, peace and literature are officially recognised as having been awarded to LSE alumni and staff. LSE counts 53 past or present heads of state from alumni and staff. Other notable alumni include Pulitzer Prize winning historian Anne Applebaum, billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros and broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough.
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Aidan McDonagh he Puzzle of the Week features a new mathematics puzzle released every Monday and students have a week to answer. Do you know the answer to this week’s puzzle? Email it to Mr McDonagh at aimc@patana.ac.th and your solution might be featured in next week’s Patana News!
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View the puzzle here Submit your solution here
Solution by.. Veer Golechha, 6F
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#155: Timestamps and Chapters in YouTube
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or all of you budding YouTubers out there, here is a super simple tip I learnt today from a fellow teacher about adding time stamps and chapters to your YouTube videos – they realy help viewers quickly navigate to parts of longer videos that are relevent to them. Have a great weekend. Brian Taylor Cross Campus Assistant Principal, Campus Curriculum Technology Integration
2019/20 CALENDAR HERE WE CONTINUE TO FOLLOW THIS YEAR’S SCHOOL CALENDAR
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Desert Island Discs With Rajeev Ladva Foundation Stage Leader of Learning and Development
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his column follows in the style of the famed BBC podcast which features a celebrity every week – here we feature our own Bangkok Patana celebrities! What eight songs, one luxury item and one book would you take with you if you were stuck on a desert island? Today Rajeev Ladva, Foundation Stage Leader of Learning and Development is stuck on a desert island. MR RAJ, IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND WHAT EIGHT PIECES OF MUSIC WOULD YOU WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU? Your Hand in Mine – Explosions in the Sky Mountain at My Gates – The Foals Organ Donor – DJ Shadow Rideaux Lunaires – Chilly Gonzales Sleep – Godspeed You! Black Emperor The Bones of You – Elbow
Listen to Mr Raj’s playlist here
Joy.Discovery.Invention – Biffy Clyro The Day I Tried to Live - Soundgarden PICK ONE LUXURY ITEM YOU WOULD WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU. THIS ITEM MUST BE INANIMATE AND OF NO USE IN ESCAPING THE ISLAND OR ALLOWING COMMUNICATION FROM OUTSIDE. A piano WHICH ONE BOOK WOULD YOU WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU? The Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson Catch the real Desert Island Discs on BBC. Now that you are stuck at home, what are you listening to? Have a list of your own? Let us know! Contact SHKN with your favourites.
Click Here For Updates and Information on the School’s COVID-19 Procedures 10
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the m o r f t es The lat
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643 Lasalle Road (Sukhumvit 105) Bangna Tai, Bangna, Bangkok 10260 THAILAND Tel: +66 (0) 2785 2200 Fax: +66 (0) 2785 2399 www.patana.ac.th Email: reception@patana.ac.th 14
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