Appreciation Day
During the last week of the 2023-24 Academic Year, the Secondary School hosted its second annual MYP Service & Community Appreciation Day which helped showcase how important service is to the Concordian community through a variety of exhibitions, interactive activities, and displays of appreciation.
As was the case with the inaugural event, the day was divided into three clear, and different sessions - Action, Sharing and Fun. First thing in the morning, when the students were full of energy, we undertook Action.
During this session, MYP students rotated between four activities: sorting recycling, packing care packages to be delivered to a community in need in Bang Na, interacting with a service-centered art installation, and writing thank you notes to members of the Concordian community that help to create a safe learning environment for us year round.
The recycling activity saw students help teachers clear recyclables from their classrooms, as well as sorting out recyclable material from their lockers, and recyclable materials that had been collected throughout the year.
The care package activity saw middle school students help one of our high school service clubs, The Giving Club, pack bags with food and toiletries which were then delivered to
All the products that were packed had been bought from funds that The Giving Club raised throughout the year.
The art installation activities saw students create personalized paper butterflies which were then stuck to a frame. Students could write notes on the butterflies, or simply decorate them, but the final installation of a many different coloured paper butterflies creating a larger butterfly symbolized that we are all one community changing and developing in our own ways.
And the final activity of the morning saw students writing thank you notes to all members of the Concordian community working on campus, from teachers to administration, from security guards to gardeners, from technicians to drivers - all members were represented, and students had a chance to thank everyone for making our school what it is.
After the active morning session, it was time to move on to Sharing.
During this session, students rotated between three areas, with the showpiece being the Grade 9 Service Exhibition in which the Grade 9 students exhibited their service projects to all other MYP students. The Grade 9 service groups each had a booth to showcase their projects, and discuss how their actions impacted their chosen communities. In addition to the Grade 9 Service Exhibition, service projects from the other MYP grades (six, seven, eight and ten) were displayed throughout the exhibition area for everyone to see.
When students were not visiting the Grade 9 exhibition, they were able to visit two other rooms to listen to even more examples of service in our community: one where teachers shared their personal connection to service throughout their lives, and one where all of our high school service clubs could interact with middle school students to show them future service possibilities at Concordian.
The final activity of the Sharing session saw a special guest speaker, Mr. Dean Madeira, from Operation Smile Thailand. Mr. Madeira spoke to all of our students about how finding a passion and giving mentality early in life can lead to lifetime of compassion and giving even once he entered into the professional world. His speech also highlighted Concordian’s special connection to Operation Smile Thailand which has included many medical missions over the years.
After working and sharing all morning, it was finally time for Fun. During this session, the students took part in two sporting activities that were meant to show possible ways to fundraise for worthy causes. The first activity was a small ‘knockout’ tournament: a basketball shooting game the students are familiar with from their PHE classes, while the second was a dodgeball competition that included a students vs. teachers game.
As with the inaugural event the year before, our second edition of the MYP Service & Community Appreciation Day was a wonderful day that allowed our secondary students to share their service experiences from the academic year, as well as come together to give thanks to each other, and continue to make our community a giving, appreciative and caring place.
Mr. Ben Weil Service Coordinator