Newsletter 2016-2017 vol 3

TRILINGUAL CHRISTIAN EDUCATION  Member of association of christian schools international

ST. MARK’S

 Member of australian council for educational research

 Affiliated with hanyu shuiping kaoshi chinese proficiency testing

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

 Member of international schools association of thailand

2016-2017 Newsletter Vol. 3

Academically Aspiring - Caringly Christian - Experientially Enriching

In Memorial of King Bhumibol: International Relations  Magnet Maze Adventure Student Life “Candids” Editorial Advisory Board: John Ruangmethanon, Dr. Listati Liu & Tanyanun Subsompon

Featured items in Students’ S P A C E : Nazneen Ngan, Weerin Arunsakul Pannaruj Anantawittayanon & International Classroom Exhibition

Editor: Dean Leaman Writer, photographer & artwork : Keurkoon Phoomwittaya

Copyright © 2016 by St. Mark's International School Read Newsletters Online at http://stmarks.ac.th/

Over the past 70 years, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej had devoted his life to the people of Thailand. In remembrance of His Majesty, we feature an excerpt on international relations from the book titled ‗King Bhumibol: Strength of the Land‘ (see page 3-4). His Majesty wished to show the people of other countries the friendship

UPCOMING

EVENTS

of the Thai people and carried on royal diplomacy with other coun-

Assessment Week

tries.

Father’s Day (Holiday)

5 Dec 2016

Christmas Event

9 Dec 2016

St. Mark‘s International School is a truly international community where our students represent many cultures. One of our Year 8 students has recently received an award of excellence from My Dream

28 Nov - 2 Dec 2016

Scout week

12 - 15 Dec 2016

Parent/Teacher Conference Term Break

16 Dec 2016

19 Dec 2016— 10 Jan 2017

International Foundation for winning the South East Asia Youth Dream Presentation Contest in Vietnam . You may find out more on our International Classroom Exhibition, students work and St. Mark‘s stories in this newsletter.

Blessings, Editorial Team

St. Mark’s Joined a Mourning Ceremony for King Bhumibol Adulyadej

On Tuesday 25 October 2016, St. Mark’s International School held a mourning ceremony for His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the school gymnasium. Our students and staff participated in the ceremony together and were united in singing the royal anthem of Thailand. Afterwards, student representatives presented speeches in remembrance of His Majesty the King in both English and Thai, and we watched a video about the Royal Projects that the King initiated during his 70 years on the throne.

1

A Warm Welcome on Open Day On 7 October 2016 prospective parents were warmly welcome to our first Open Day of the school year.

Presented by Mr. Adam Buchanan our School Coordinator, the families who joined in the event learned about our unique trilingual curriculum and heard testimonials of the school‘s caring Christian environment.

After a coffee break the Open Day‘s participants took a tour around the school to see our facilities, including our Early Years, Primary and new Secondary classrooms.

Please contact admission@stmarks.ac.th or call (+66 2) 300-5463-4 for more information or to book a school tour.

Campus Development Updates In order to increase security within our school, St. Mark‘s is currently building a new entryway that will connect to the Administrative Offices. The new entrance will require students, parents and teachers to go through a finger scan security check. Once inside, there will be a designated waiting area for parents, which will also include a coffee shop. Beyond, there will be a second security gate, providing access to the rest of the school for students and staff.

This new system should make our campus a more secure place for our students.

Yoonjee Lee, from Year 8, received an award of ex-

Yoonjee (Year 8) Received Award of Excellence in the Southeast Asia Youth Dream Presentation Contest held in Vietnam.

cellence from My Dream International Foundation for winning the Southeast Asia Youth Dream Presentation contest held in Vietnam on 6 Oct 2016.

Each year My Dream International Foundation organises the Youth Dream Presentation Festival internationally where youth present their dreams in a speech competition format. Yoonjee was the youngest student among the 12 Korean nationals candidates living abroad from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh.

Her speech was about Nick Vujicic a best-

selling author and motivational speaker who was born without limbs and legs. Congratulations to Yoonjee for being recognised as an amazing young orator!

2

In memorial of King Bhumibol: International Relations His Majesty came to the attention of a world fascinated by the mystique of the Thai king as the centre of the nation’s spiritual and moral authority.

An internationally recognized figure, His Majesty has gained attention because of his rural development activities in Thailand. Asiaweek also described how since the 1950s, His Majesty had worked tirelessly, travelling

throughout

the

kingdom

launching rural development and public welfare projects.

―Jamming‖ with Benny Goodman in New York in 1960 Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images In the sixties Their Majesties travelled abroad together on goodwill state visits to Europe and the USA, and since then have also received many of the world‘s leaders and royalty in Thailand. His Majesty was able to state clearly his own reasons for going abroad in 1960.

“This overseas visit is undertaken to serve the country. It is my duty as Head of State. It is common knowledge that during this period every country, big or small, must depend on one another. The peoples of every nationality are related. We should therefore know each other’s characters and create mutual understanding. Normally, relatives will go to visit each other to keep in touch, but in Thailand it is difficult for millions of people to go to visit, so it is up to the Head of State to visit various countries. I shall show the people of those countries that the Thai people feel friendship for them. I shall try my utmost to let them know about Thailand and create goodwill towards Thai people.”

From an address to a joint session of Congress to meeting Elvis Presley on the set of G.I. Blues the royal couple impressed with their vigour and sincerity. To President Eisenhower His Majesty was able to establish a point of contact immediately,

“I was born here in this country, so I can say that the United States is half my motherland. This visit is somewhat of a sentimental journey and I feel a quite genuine emotion in coming back here.”

His Majesty‘s wish to show the people of other countries the friendship of the Thai people was also the desire of several of his royal ancestors, who had carried on royal diplomacy with other countries hundreds of years previously.

Excerpt from ―King Bhumibol: Strength of the Land‖ Published by the National Identity Office, Copyright 2000 by Secretariat of the Prime Minister This book is available in the St. Mark’s Library.

3

The future king of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej, right, in about 1934 with his mother, Princess Srinagarindra, elder sister, Princess Galyani Vadhana, left, and brother Prince Ananda Mahidol during a visit to Switzerland Photograph: Thierry Falise/Getty Images

The king addresses a joint session of the US Congress on 29 June 1960 Photograph: Bettmann Archive The king greets one of his subjects in the central region of Thailand Photograph: Royal Household/EPA

On a visit to the UK in 1960, Bhumibol rides in an open carriage during a royal procession Photograph: Keystone-France/Getty Images

Photography captions from: www.theguardian.com

4

Class Activities Focus Flash Memory Card Game

Prep students played a flash memory card game in English class. We played a little bit more advanced by flipping two cards to match a word card and a picture card.

Ms. Jeralyn not only tested whether we could remember

where the positions of images and words were, but she also let us have fun playing and helped us review the vocabulary that we had learned in class.

D.I.Y Magnet Maze Adventure Year 2 students helped each other in their Science group project – creating a magnet maze. We drew a road from the starting point to the finish line. The little cars were attached with paper clips and we used magnets to drive the cars. Each team competed by moving the cars to the finish lines in our own mazes. Thanks Ms. Gigi for coming up with this game idea! We can have fun and be creative in Science class too!

‘Run Kinder Run!’ Bubble Run At first a few of us were not sure why our Kindergarten classmates were running and laughing happily. When we turned around we found that Ms. Elmer had a surprise for us.

She had

blown soap bubbles all over the football field! We reached our hands to the sky trying to pop the bubbles. Our teacher blew bubbles again a second time and a third time. Finally we ran around the football field. We are always happy when we exercise and run with our friends.

5

Extra-Curricular Activities Table Tennis Club Members PRATICE HARD PLAYHARD

If you remember our story last year when our Table Tennis club was just formed, we began to practice our skills with an automatic Ping Pong machine. Since then, we have been playing together every week to build a capable team of table tennis players.

This year we practiced and learned

bouncing tips in the new activity room. We took turns joining matches on big and small table-tennis tables.

During recess,

after each of our matches ended, we enjoyed playing table football.

6

Nursery Students Playing Angklong We all love moving and making melodies! As a warm up, Ms. Ae played music on the Ranad and we danced along. We mimicked the actions of different animals matching our dance steps to the rhythms of the songs.

When we heard slow music all the animals went to sleep.

Upbeat songs

woke us up to jump and move around.

We grabbed clappers, counted and made

sounds.

After

practice

with

rhythm the teacher gave us angklongs.

Each of us got one note – but all together we can play a song. If Ms. Ae pointed at any one of us we had to shake our angklong as if we were the children from ‗The Sound Of Music‘!

Thai Cultural Immersion Through Music St. Mark’s students have a privilege to make friends from diverse cultural background at our school as well as experience original Thai culture through learning to play musical instruments including the Kim and the Ranad.

7

STUDENTS’ S P A C E Place for free writing and creativity that lets your imagination spark

Student Life Candids “Going Home”

Photographer: Pannaruj Anantawittayanon Year 8

The photographer took pictures of his friends after school hours.

His work portrayed the idea of high school students in everyday life. The focal perspective was close, in intimate connection with the youth culture in the photographs.

International Classroom Exhibition Embrace Cultures and Diversity!

International Classroom Exhibition on 26 October 2016 Decorations in the themes of Japan, Germany, Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia, Sweden, New Zealand, Italy, Brazil, Hungary, Spain and France

8

Student Voice

Should we wear a school uniform?

Some people say that we should wear uniform to school, some people say that we don’t need to wear uniform to school. I think that we should wear uniform to school.

The first reason is, if we wear uniform to school, they can know what school I am from. For example, if we are going to fieldtrip and we are not wearing our uniform and if we get lost, how could other people know what school we are from.

The second reason is, if we wear normal clothes they will not last long because we also wear normal clothes in the weekends and holidays.

The third reason is, if we wear uniform the teachers can know that I am the student of my school.

The fourth reason is, some students cannot afford the best clothes to go to school.

Author: Nazeneen Ngan Year 5

Written Work 2

In nearly every school, students need to wear school uniforms to school every day, but some schools allow students to wear ordinary clothes to school. For me, I think we should wear a uniform to school every day.

My opinion is ―we should wear a uniform to school,‖ because uniforms help people know me as a student of my school. There are lots of reasons why we should wear a school uniform to school.

The first reason is, some of the students like to wear ordinary clothes and compare them with others, but if we wear a school uniform everyone will be equal.

The second reason is, if students wear inappropriate clothes to school, it‘s not good and not polite.

The last reason is, if we get lost, we can ask other people for help but if we‘re not wearing school uniform other people may think that we‘re thieves and not trusted.

In conclusion, we should wear school uniforms because everyone will be equal, the students aren‘t going to wear inappropriate clothes to school and when we get lost we will be trusted for the person who helps us because we wear a school uniform not the ordinary clothes.

Author: Weerin Arunsakul Year 5 Year 5

9

Less Is More The Perils of Over-Parenting Adapted from the article written by Debbie Pincus*, MS LMHC

When things aren‘t going right, particularly with your kids, your automatic reaction is to do more of something—not less. If they are not listening to you, you most likely raise your voice, rather than lower it. If they are struggling with something difficult, you jump Photos Illustration by Larry Ruppert / www.bostonmagazine.com

in with loads of ideas, rather than keeping quiet or offering only one or two ideas. In truth, however, a softer voice would probably be more effective in getting their attention, while offering fewer of your own ideas would motivate them to devise their own solu-

Be there for your kids in the ways they actually need

tions…

you, but move out of their way otherwise. And learn to know the difference.

Even though we react this way out of love, we can be causing the very opposite result of what we intend.…

Letting Go

We have unwittingly encouraged dependence rather

When you are told by others that your kids seem to

than self-reliance. Kids get addicted. And sometimes

need more from you—attention, time, focus, acknowl-

we parents get our own validation by feeling useful

edgement, approval—stop and think hard about it. Do

and necessary through over-doing for our children.

they really? Are you actually neglecting them? If so,

But in the end, they learn helplessness rather than

then of course you should do more of what they need

resilience…

from you.

However, in the more likely scenario, they are getting

When More IS the Answer

more than enough from you. So it‘s best for them if

Do more for yourself and less for your child. In this

you cut back and let them struggle to find their own

case, doing less empathizing, less ―meeting her

legs. Letting go will leave you feeling wobbly at first,

needs,‖ and less focusing on her is actually a more

but with practice and time, you will find your own

caring and responsible position for a parent to take.

strong legs to stand on.

Think less about fulfilling your kids‘ needs and more

*Debbie Pincus, MS LMHC, has been a therapist and

about helping them be responsible for their own. For

coach in the Greater New York area for more than 25

instance, ―I am not running back to school so that you

years. She is a renowned expert in the art and sci-

can get the homework books you forgot—you will

ence of parenting calmly, not anxiously and works

have to find a way to find out what is due tomorrow or

with children, individuals, couples, and families.

make it up…‖

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace — Ephesians 4:2-3 10

900 Rama 9 Rd,Suanluang Bangkok 10250, Thailand Email: info@stmarks.ac.th Phone: + 66 -2-300-5463 www.stmarks.ac.th

Guided by Christian philosophy, St. Mark's International School aims to provide quality Early Years through Secondary education, enabling each student to achieve their fullest potential by becoming confident, motivated, optimistic and responsible young citizens.

Connect With Us

StMarksIntl

Stmarksbkk