Newsletter
2015 - 2016
Primary Edition 4 Term 1
This week in the Primary School
World Animal Day Art Competition winners How was this year’s competition different to the previous ones? All winners, including runners up ...
Diary Dates Friday October 23th
Chulalongkorn Day (school holiday)
Monday October 26th to Friday October 30th Half-term break
Monday November 2nd What makes a world changer? What a big question! Year 4 sat and pondered it, and pondered it deeply ...
First day of Term 1.2
Tuesday November 3rd
Parent Information Meeting re Year 6 Australian Exchange Trip. 3.15 in Year 3I with Mr Mulford
Wednesday November 4th Global Campus Parent Workshop, 8.40am
Thursday November 5th Young Round Square Conference, Tasmania The saddest day had come and that day was leaving day. Everyone felt like crying but we couldn’t ....
New House System at Regents Regents International School has introduced a new whole-school House system this year ...
PRG meeting, 9am
Friday November 6th
Middle School ISTA Festival group departs for Bangkok
Dream Big and never be scared of failure!
Nord Anglia Education encourages every student in its family of schools to Be Ambitious. Each and every one of us has the potential to be ambitious but being ambitious is a skill that you develop over time that requires a great deal of hard work and persistence. Having dreams is essential to achieving success but you will certainly not get there by dreaming alone. The ability to reach for your dreams and overcome obstacles that you may face along the path to success is a key element.
The problem with successful figures we study from the past or inspirational people from the present day is that the epic failures that they have encountered along the way are rarely publicised. You may not know this but when Thomas Edison finally created the light bulb, he stated, “I didn’t fail; I just found 2,000 ways not to make a light bulb.” It is natural that when you try lots of new things that you will fail but failure is only permanent if you then stop trying. Persistence is a key factor in achieving your dreams.
Having spoken to a number of students about ambition this week, it is apparent that whilst one may be ambitious in some aspects, there are certainly areas in everyone’s life where they lack motivation. Without doubt, these are the fields in which we feel less confident.
Regents International School Pattaya is bigger than ever before and we have recently been ‘bigging-up’ the little things that often go unnoticed. So, I thought that I would continue with the ‘big’ theme and urge all students to dream big if they wish to see big results at the end of their hard work.
There is a belief in some that ‘successful’ people have gained their success through sheer intelligence and that the road on which they have travelled has been smooth. In the article written by two Year 6 students later in this newsletter, you will hear more about the ambitions of one of our teachers. However, I am going to steal a quote from that article which I feel is fairly pertinent at this point: ‘The key to learning is failure’, Mrs Juliet Perrin. We should think of failure as a process of elimination rather than the end result of your efforts but, as a child, this is often hard to accept.
‘Big results require big ambitions.’ Heraclitus
Hannah Naowasuk
Hannah Naowasuk Assistant Head of Primary, Year 2 - 6
Sharing and Celebrating our Learning By Nonie Adams, Head of Primary demonstrate their understanding. Next Year Three invited parents to come to school and find out about ‘What’s Inside You?’ Following a very informative assembly led by the Year Three children, parents and children then participated in a carousel of activities based in the Year Three classrooms which saw them labelling skeletons, building giant Food Pyramids, creating still paintings of fruit and vegetables and much more.
This year Primary staff and students were presented with a challenge – what new, original, creative yet informative ways can we come up with to show parents, teachers and each other what we have been learning about in school? In the past we have had Learning Looks which were great but did not really capture the excitement of the learning which the children experience in the classroom every day. Needless to say, our teachers rose superbly to this challenge and already this half-term we have had two very engaging, interactive and informative ‘Learning Looks’. Year Four children invited their parents to come and visit their World Changer Museum. This event was very well attended by parents who were able to appreciate the time and effort that the children had put into their creative presentations. Visitors to the museum were challenged to take quizzes and solve puzzles to
So what can we look forward to next half-term for our Learning Looks? Here are some upcoming highlights: a Fairy tale Ball in Year One, Wow Science in Year Five and Design Technology in Year Six. Do keep an eye on your child’s Weekly Contact Sheets for further details. These are wonderful learning experiences for parents and children and we do strongly encourage parents to come along to find out more about how and what their child learns at school.
Y3 ‘What’s Inside’ trip to the hospital By Ben Willoughby, Year 3 Class Teacher
Y3 took their learning out of the classroom and into the hospital for a fascinating morning on 1st October. Year 3 have learnt an amazing amount about what is inside their bodies this half term. They’ve found out what exercise does to their body, why bones are so important, how muscles are in the strangest places and the importance of having a balanced diet to keep healthy. On 1st October we decided to put all this learning into practice and go and meet the experts on staying healthy at Bangkok Pattaya hospital. Lots of the children had already visited the hospital when they needed treatment or were visiting someone who did but they found it very different when going on a school trip. We were welcomed with big grins by the hospital team. We assembled in a big meeting room. We watched two fascinating presentations; one on the importance of regular teeth brushing and the other on how are muscles worked. The children took a very active part answering
question and showing their understanding. The hospital kindly provided us with our morning snack. Then we had an amazing tour. Our students were fascinated to visit the imaging department where they were able to see the room where the x-rays are taken! We also went to the rehabilitation centre. It looked a little bit like a cross between a gym and a playground! Patients go there after they have hurt themselves to practice movement. We tried to imagine what it was like being rehabilitated by using their equipment ourselves. After a goodbye photograph we trundled back onto the coaches. A big thank you to all the children and adults who made it such a successful day.
A wonderful prize for the World Animal Day Art Competition winners By Hannah Naowasuk, Assistant Head of Primary, Year 2 - 6
On Wednesday 7th October, the children in the Primary School celebrated World Animal Day and World Animal Day would not be the same without the traditional Art Competition in Primary. With a different focus in each year group, the children went away and planned their masterpieces. I always think that creation is the easy part, for me anyway as I do not have to get involved, and the real difficulty comes when trying to decide from the many, many wonderful entries who should be given the prizes for the top three in each year group! This year, we were extremely lucky to have Mrs Garnett-Spear, a Secondary Art teacher, offering her expert opinion and choosing each of the winners. In some year groups it was so hard to choose that more than one child received a prize! Congratulations to Fuka (Year 2), Jade (Year 3), Joy (Year 4), Vianca (Year 5) and Doy (Year 6), who all won first prize. How was this year’s competition different to the previous ones? All winners, including runners up, received an
invitation to a special art class in the Secondary Art Department; courtesy of Mrs Garnett-Spear. The 18 excited children walked, rather swiftly, on Thursday 15th October to receive their prize. They were treated to an hour and a half of intense art teaching and learning, where they looked at colour mixing in the first instance and then moved onto looking at a variety of different, and ambitious, paint techniques. The children thoroughly enjoyed their prize and learnt a great deal from the experience. I was asked a number of times ‘Can we come again next week?’ How else are we developing this yearly event? In the technological world in which we live, we are going down a different route with our art display. Instead of hanging each of the entries outside the Primary library, this year we have moved towards a ‘virtual art gallery.’ As there have been so many entries, this is quite a lengthy process but please look out for further details regarding the opening of the gallery after the half term break.
Art Attack! By Joanne Smith, Head of Year 3
Fruit and Veg keep us fit and healthy.
The children in Year 3 were lucky enough to experience a master class in observational drawing with the specialist art teachers from the Secondary school. The art lesson was part of Primary’s Green and Healthy Week which tied in with Year 3’s What’s Inside? topic. As part of their topic work, the children have been learning all about their bones and muscles as well as how to keep their bodies healthy and fit for life. The children headed over to the Art department
with enthusiasm and high hopes of producing some great art work and they weren’t disappointed. They used their observational drawing and painting skills to produce pictures of fruit and vegetables. Mrs Spear and Mr Simpson then talked to the children about focusing on accurate colour mixing, using tints and shades to model form and painting in a Pointillist technique. A few weeks later, the children had the opportunity to demonstrate their new skill set for their parents during the Year 3 Learning Look. A very special thank you to Mrs Spear and Mr Simpson for giving up their time and their art studios for Year 3.
What makes a world changer? (Year 4 ponder the imponderable) By Jon Crew, Head of Year 4 So this is our list ON HOW NOT TO BE A WORLD CHANGER
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
1) Do not persevere. If you give up when you encounter
a problem, you have no chance of being a world changer. If you give up on the second, third or fourth problem, you will also never be a world changer. Be laid-back, don’t work hard – this is the way to never make a difference at all, and never be a world changer.
2)
Have no ambition. Dream small, think small, well within what usually happens around you, and you will never be a world changer. What a big question! Year 4 sat and pondered it, and pondered it deeply. After what seemed like ages, we still had no idea. So, we looked for inspiration within the lives of different people who went out and tried to change the world. We looked at an immense range of people from wildly different ages and countries, people like: Gandhi-ji; Bob Geldolf; Malala and Rosa Parks. We commented on the courage and determination these people all showed, the inspiration they managed to convey, but still could not agree with a definition of what makes a world changer. What we could agree on is how NOT to do it.
3) Accept no challenges. Do what is easy – if you do what
you know you can already do, you will never be a world changer.
4) Never fail. If you follow all the advice above you will never make mistakes or fail. You will also never be a world changer.
5) Be really jealous and ignore people who do well. If
you see someone succeed; ignore them – do not go over, congratulate them and ask how they did it! No, be jealous and resentful. Stay away from team work! Do this and you will never be a world changer.
What we did learn is that being a world changer is more of a lifestyle choice. There are always new horizons and new goals, always ways to improve and achieve, and always people to inspire you on your way. It’s not a fixed end but a continual process that continues throughout your life. So armed with this knowledge the children went forth and prepared a museum exhibit on a world changer of their choice. The range was both inspiring and surprising: from Gandhi to Frank Whittle, from Boyan Slat to George Washington, from Benito Juarez to Steve Jobs. The variation was huge, but the underlying characteristics were the same. Our list was correct – each and every one
of our world changers was united by the fact that they had completely ignored it. We invited parents into school to see our exhibits and we shared our knowledge, but we hoped that we would share something bigger, something less tangible than facts, dates and inventions. A lifestyle choice; to be ambitious, accept the big challenges, stick with it however tough it gets, to fail and fail again, but keep persevering. To realise that any big change in the world begins with smaller changes in ourselves, or put more poetically by Mahatma Ghandi: “We must become the change we wish to see in the world. “
Young Round Square Conference, Tasmania By Mehar, Year 6 student
“We had a great experience overcoming our greatest fears.”
The day we were waiting for was here… the day that we went on a long flight to Australia for The Young Round Square Conference. Thinking about what Tasmania was going to be like, Doy, EJ and I were so excited, that we couldn’t be silent for a second! Finally, tired but excited from a lot of travelling through some beautiful scenery, we arrived at Scotch Oakburn College. When we saw the boarding house we were amazed at how beautiful it was. All of the children from the College were very welcoming. We said to ourselves that this trip was going to be heart touching. During the two pre-conference days we made close friends with the delegates from other schools whilst experiencing some of the sights of Tasmania. At Trowunna Wildlife Park, we were able to feed kangaroos and stroke two wombats and a Tasmanian Devil! We saw Tasmanian Devils eat a possum carcass and an echidna eat dead bugs! We also visited Cradle Mountain, Marakoopa Caves and The Gorge. The Valley Campus is where we stayed overnight and took part in adventurous team-building and leadership
activities. We took part in high ropes and low ropes, the giant swing and night activities. We had a great experience overcoming our greatest fears. To learn more about the local history and culture, Dr. Nick Clements came to the Valley Campus to talk to us about the Black War which was a fight between 218 Colonists and around 600 Aborigines. Nobody had ever seen such different people come into contact with each other. We also participated in activities to do with the Black War, the Colonists and the Aborigines. Back at the Elphin Campus, we listened to keynote speakers and discussed issues in Barazza groups. We learned about democracy when we became players in a huge simulation of survival on different islands and throughout the week, we collaborated to produce a show for the final night. The saddest day had come and that day was leaving day. Everyone felt like crying but we couldn’t. The three of us realised that we were finally going home. The trip was really fun and it was a great experience to me and I will definitely try to do a lot of alone travelling in my life now that I have succeeded in this adventure.
Swimming Gala - A Splashing Success! By David Collins, Head of Primary PE On Thursday 15th October our Primary School swimmers travelled to Garden International School to compete against three other local schools (St. Andrews, ISE and GIS) in a swimming gala. The Regents swim team comprised of pupils from Years 4 to 6 and was the largest team on show at the event. Swimming teachers Miss Meena and Miss Parkin have been
working hard with our Primary swimmers this year and this effort culminated in some fantastic results across all age ranges. Our young swimmers competed in over 30 races on the evening and were boisterously cheered on by the travelling Regents parents. We had a host of winners and high finishers but the most notable results are listed in the table below. Huge congratulations to all of the swimmers who took part and did us proud. #LoveSportforLife
Name
Event
Age
Place
Maddy
100M IM
U9 Girls
1st
Sam
100M IM
U9 Boys
1st
Paloma
100M IM
U10 Girls
1st
Federico
100M IM
U10 Boys
1st
Young Seo
100M IM
U11 Girls
1st
Jasmine
25M Freestyle
U9 Girls
1st
Tin Tin
25M Backstroke
U10 Boys
1st
Nicole
25M Backstroke
U11 Girls
1st
Doy
25M Backstroke
U11 Girls
1st
Dong Han
25m Breaststroke
U9 Boys
1st
Jenny
25m Breaststroke
U11 Girls
1st
Sam
25M Butterfly
U9 Boys
1st
Paloma
25M Butterfly
U10 Girls
1st
Leon
25M Butterfly
U10 Boys
1st
Zia
25M Butterfly
U11 Girls
1st
Young Seo
25M Butterfly
U11 Girls
1st
Jasmine
50M Freestyle
U9 Girls
1st
Sam
50M Freestyle
U9 Boys
1st
Joy
50M Freestyle
U9 Boys
1st
Paloma
50M Freestyle
U10 Girls
1st
La Toussaint By Stephanie Mourand, Modern Foreign Language (French) teacher November 1st is coming soon and in France it is called La Toussaint. It is a public holiday and cemeteries will be full of flowers. But wait, is La Toussaint a French Halloween? La Toussaint is a Christian feast day that celebrates all saints, in English it is All Saints Day. Even if it is not as big as Christmas or Easter where families reunite altogether, it is still a public holiday in France, in the middle of les vacances de la Toussaint, a week and a half off for French students. On November 1st, families go to the cemetery to put flowers on the tombs of their deceased loved ones. We call this fleurir les tombes. The flowers we buy are the flowers de La Toussaint. Be careful not to offer them to someone in France as they are the flowers of the deads. They are called chrysanthèmes. And they look like on the picture above. This tradition developed with World War I, when the flowers
where used to decorate the tombs of the dead soldiers. But what about Halloween in France? In the last twenty years, Halloween has been commercially imported in France. And now you will see teenagers throwing parties with Halloween themes and going to the cinema to see scary movies. People willing to participate give sweets to children knocking at their door. But let’s be honest, it does not go any further. It is not rooted in the French culture. And even if we would all love to celebrate Halloween like in the US, it is not such a big deal in France. After we learnt about the tradition of La Toussaint in France, we decided to celebrate Halloween in our French lessons this week, drawing terrifying monsters while revising body parts vocabulary. Here is how a few of our monsters turned out!
Incredible Inaugural Informal Concert By Kristen Callaway, Head of Primary Music
An atmosphere of anticipation and excitement was in the air of the Primary Music Room on the afternoon of Tuesday 13 October for the inaugural Primary Informal Concert at Regents International School Pattaya. After many weeks of rehearsals, twenty musicians from Years 2 – 6 were preparing to play or sing for a large audience of family, friends and teachers. All students participating had volunteered to perform a piece of their own choice and what a selection of fantastic music we were treated to! Pianists, vocalists, violinists, drummers and guitarists entertained us with enthusiasm
and confidence. From Beethoven to Beverly Hills, Pachelbel to pop, a Christmas carol, traditional melodies and even a hit song from The Sound of Music performed in both English and Hindi, the wealth of talent on display was really exciting and uplifting to behold. Huge congratulations to all participants for their hard work in preparing such excellent performances and many thanks to Mr. Ting, Mr. Motsi, Ms. Sandee and the music staff for their technical and musical support. No doubt we are in for many more treats at the next Informal Concert in Term Two!
Can YOU be Ambitious? By John L and Nina, Students in 6R
“There’s more in you than you think.” Kurt Hahn Mrs Juliet, a teacher in Early Primary at Regents, signed up for a 21km race, in Khao Yai (like running from our school to the Sanctuary of Truth and back)! We met with her last week to talk to her more about this impressive challenge. Six months ago, she could only run 5 km and she was happy with that. Prior to this race, the furthest that she had ever run was 10km so she could have signed up for that distance but she then thought one day that she could do more if she pushed herself to the limit and didn’t just accept what she was used to. As you know, our school’s moto is ‘Be Ambitious’ and we thought this was a perfect example of it. Going back to Mr Crew’s assembly about ‘Growth Mindset’, Mrs Juliet proved that she is definitely one of those people who has a Growth Mindset attitude. Every week she ran a little further than she normally would. On her last training session, prior to the race, she pushed herself as far as she could and ran 19km. Mrs Juliet reminded us that we are a Round Square school and she said that one thing she always remembered whilst doing this challenge was the founder of Round Square, Kurt Hahn, saying “There’s more in you than you think.” But, she thought, ‘There were 2 more kilometres to go,’ and started doubting herself. “Failure is the key to learning” which we thought was a
great quote to use from Mrs Juliet and couldn’t be truer in her case. She encountered ‘failure’ in an Adventure Race previously, by puncturing her bicycle’s tyre, and missed the cut off time. At this point she could have given up but she said that she definitely learnt from this experience. Whilst doing the 21 km race, she doubted her own ability to finish the race although she was already running 17 km, but, with a sore body she still finished it, not even out of breath. Her sister flew to Thailand from another country just to take part in the run with her. This was a great example of teamwork. The most encouraging thing was when Ms Juliet’s 3 year old son was there at the finishing line to cheer her to the end. This was what made her feel truly great. Mrs Juliet told us that the most important thing is to believe in yourself, be positive and also show determination. She also said that having a big dream is not enough, you actually have to practice and probably fail a few times to before you succeed. Mrs Juliet was really inspirational so we are going to sign up for a 10km race at Khao Mai Kaew in January. We hope that a lot of children, parents and teachers take part too to show that we can all ‘Be Ambitious’. Are you up for the challenge like us and the admirable Mrs Juliet?!
New House System at Regents By Roslyn McConnell, Director of Sport
‘Continuity and Opportunity’
Regents International School has introduced a new wholeschool House system this year. This collaboration will provide more opportunities for our students and staff to represent their House in a variety of events throughout the school year in Early Primary, Primary and Secondary. As well as earning house points for participation in the House events, all Primary students’ global campus and achievements in each subject area will also be collated and added to the overall points scored for each House. Individual Bronze, Silver, Gold certificates will be awarded for student’s achieving 300, 500, 700 House points over the course of the year. Our Early Primary students will receive a certificate at the end of the year that highlights all the house events they participated in and enjoyed. Elections were carried out these past couple of weeks to decide the student House captains in Primary for each House and congratulations to all those who campaigned for these positions. The list of all House captains are below and the staff leading these students are Mr Crush (Fire), Mr Collins (Earth), Mr Hart (Water) and Mrs Parkin (Air). .The full list of House events can also be seen in the table below and the new House names of Fire (red), Earth (green), Water (blue) and Air (yellow) are represented in the emblems below and new House t-shirts will be available to purchase in November.
Results of the 1st House event of 2015/16 - Cross-Country
Primary 1st - Fire 2nd – Blue 3rd – Yellow 4th – Green Parents can keep up-to-date with all the House Competitions and overall scores on our Moodle page. I am sure it’s going to be a very close and exciting House competition this year and look forward to keeping you updated of the progress of each team. Good luck to all Houses.
Regents International School House Events 2015/16 Early Primary House Events 2015/16 Term 1 Sept Oct Nov Nov Dec
Green and Healthy Week World Animal Day Maths Week Loy Krathong Christmas Singalong
Term 2 Jan Jan Feb Feb Feb
Literacy Week Round Square Week Chinese and Korean New Year Sports Day International Day
Term 3 June
Swimming Demonstrations
All year
Community Partners
Secondary House Events 2015/16
Term 1 Sept Nov Nov Dec
Cross-‐Country History Week Loy Krathong Sports Day
Term 2 Jan Jan Feb March March April
Basketball Theatre Sports Dance at International Day Debates Football Songkran
Term 3 June June June
Battle of Bands Swim Gala Regents Race
All year
Academic Commendations
Primary House Events 2015/16 Term 1 Sept Oct Nov Nov
Cross-‐Country World Animal Day Art Competition Maths Week Loy Krathong
Term 2 Jan Jan Feb Feb Feb March
Literacy Week Theatre Sports (Yr 5+6) International Day Sports Day Music Festival Football
Term 3 May May June June
Science Week T-‐Ball Swim Gala Regents Race
All year
Global Campus participation
Red House -‐ Fire
House Captains: Junior House Captain – Reese Jovellanos
Senior House Captain – Fareeda Suwannarang
PRIMARY
Neeraj 3S
YEAR 7
Zia 6T
YEAR 8
YEAR 9 YEAR 10 YEAR 11 YEAR 12 JUNIOR SENIOR HOUSE HOUSE CAPTAIN CAPTAIN Hong Yok Reese JinJang Fareeda Aaron Jovellanos Suwannarang Kinsella 8.1 9.3 10.3 11.3 Seobin Scott Moon Emson
Gorn
7.3 Seojin Moon
BLUE HOUSE -‐ WATER
House Captains: PRIMARY
Ben Ananya 3R 6P
YEAR YEAR YEAR YEAR YEAR YEAR 7 8 9 10 11 12 JUNIOR SENIOR HOUSE HOUSE CAPTAIN CAPTAIN Seb Frick 7.1
Jodie Nickerson 8.1
Eoin Guiney 9.1
Charu Bisht 10.2
Aryut Shrestha 11.3
Julia Ebertzeder 12.3
YELLOW HOUSE -‐ AIR
House Captains:
PRIMARY
YEAR 7 YEAR 8 YEAR 9 YEAR 10 YEAR YEAR 12 JUNIOR SENIOR 11
HOUSE HOUSE CAPTAIN CAPTAIN ELLIS EMI SEAN DIMA NEHMAT MARISSA JOHN LUKE BARRETT SHILKOV PARMAR TAUBER BARANSKI DALY MCCONNELL 6I 12.4 3R 7.2 8.2 9.4 10.5 11.1
GREEN HOUSE HOUSE -‐ EARTH House Captains:
PRIMARY
LING LING 3P
GABBY LOVICH 5R
YEAR 7
YEAR 8
YEAR 9 JUNIOR HOUSE CAPTAIN
ROSS SOPHIA NAE NHAE WHITEHOUSE LOVICH 7.3 8.2 9.3
YEAR 10
YEAR 11
MARK BURCHELL 10.5
OSMAN 11.2
YEAR 12 SENIOR HOUSE CAPTAIN RUBEN 12.4
The PRG is for all Regents parents to stay informed, get connected and show support. Please come and join us at our next meeting: Thursday November 5 at 9am EP building room 217
All Welcome For questions please contact: Maggie Elms at PRG_Chairman@regents-pattaya.co.th Sarah Collie at PRG_Secretary@regents-pattaya.co.th New families please contact: Sarah Daly at PRG_Welcome@regents-pattaya.co.th
Connect: www.Regents-Pattaya.com /RegentsInternationalSchoolPattaya /RegentsSchool /RegentsPattaya /TheRegentsSchool