KID’S CORNER
HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

IB students present scientific findings at Garden International School

St Andrews children enjoy their new playground!

An educationalist with a vision, looking towards the future

Science Week opens at Sattahip School

IB students present scientific findings at Garden International School

The school year at GIS has got off to a flying start with year 13 students delivering presentations about ‘the value of Koh Samet as an educational resource’. Year 12 students from GIS spent 2 days staying at the park headquarters on Koh Samet, completing a range of investigations for biology, physics and chemistry classes.

Students presented their findings in the form of a poster and presentation to staff and senior students in an assembly.

The field trip was a great success with students collecting data for projects including buoyancy and acceleration in submerged ping pong balls, making and flying kites, the amount of calcium carbonate in different sea shells, the size and distribution of crab holes on the beach and leaf litter sampling from the island interior. The group project is a collaboration between the three sciences studied at IB level. It is designed to encourage teamwork and the sharing of ideas between scientific disciplines.

Added to the logistical problems of making sure all equipment was taken to the island, students also had to prepare for a night out under the stars in the school tents! They all refused to stay in the air conditioned buildings occupied by the three staff members, in order that they could be at one with nature. This was a decision they later came to regret when the tents got hotter and the mosquitoes were only too pleased to join them.

When the sun finally came up the students were raring to get on with the remaining practical work. A speed boat had been hired to take physics teacher, Mr Fraser, along with his students Bobby and Rayner to investigate buoyancy in ping pong balls. All was going well until the breeze picked up and Rayner finally understood what sea sickness really was!

The biology students, Nick, Misha and Sonia, along with Mr Gray, had braved yet more mosquitoes to go in search of invertebrates in the leaf litter of the forest floor. Mr Gray later realised that trying to resurrect the art of biological drawing was perhaps too ambitious.

As a culmination to the project the students had to present their findings in the form of a poster and presentation to staff and senior students in an assembly. The project is a key part to the IB science group and helps pupils to gain an insight in to the research process carried out in institutions around the world.

Already plans are underway for next year’s project, with 14 science students taking IB this year, it should be another success.


St Andrews children enjoy their new playground!

Written by Year 2

We came back from our holidays and our playground at St Andrews had changed! There were so many new things to play with. There was a new water tray and a brand new sand pit. We were so excited, we wanted to jump in and play straight away. We also saw balance beams and a great ramp that you could climb up one way, and slide down the other. The best part is the sliding down part.

The famous Thai ‘wai’

We also had new stepping stones made and there were these big colourful shapes we could climb through. There was so much to do, we didn’t know what to play with first!

 

 

Thai traditional dance

Here are some of our favourite things to do in our new playground:

Stephane and Nick likes to make tunnels in the sand pit, Mary S and Yi Ting love to paint and draw on the artist easels, Michael and Maxim wants to slide down the ramp all day, Saki and Nara likes to run through the big shapes, Paulina and Mark are happy to play with the glitter water in the water tray, Mary W and Gla likes to defend in their new football goals, and Im and Craig enjoy swinging on the climbing frame.

Students in Thai national dress

The playground is so much fun. And guess what, we are even going to get stepping logs and new ball targets soon! Wow! We have so many things to do and so many friends to play with at St Andrews.


An educationalist with a vision, looking towards the future

George Benedikt

International School of the Eastern Seaboard (ISE) is a beautiful place, filled with great art and wonderful music, overlooking the immense serenity of Burapha golf course. The school recently underwent a successful International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) authorisation process and now delivers the Diploma Programme in Grades 11 and 12 (the pre-university years). Ron Schultz, PhD, superintendent of ISE, is highly qualified, experienced and an extremely nice man. He has the air of someone who has seen and done an awful lot but is eager to do and see much more. His door, it would appear, is always open. I arrived and walked straight in, where I was greeted with a warm, wide smile, a joke and great conversation.

Our kids are pretty special but they’re also very lucky to be here.

GB: Can you give me a brief history of ISE?

RS: It’s a beautiful place for a school. The golf course was built about twenty years ago, then the housing. The school is about ten years old.

GB: Do you have a boarding facility?

RS: We’re starting one. There is a demand and I think it’s a great area for boarding, for the golf, for getting away from the city. It’s a potential growth area for international schools.

GB: Why IB?

RS: Primarily because it’s international. Although the AP (Advanced Placement Programme) is a high level programme, we don’t have many students looking towards American universities. Part of our philosophy is that whenever our students move on, we want to be able to help them out and right now most of them seem to either go to university where the IB is more accepted or back home to other IB schools.

GB: Would you consider going further down the IB road and implementing the Middle Years (MYP) and Primary Years Programmes (PYP)?

RS: Not yet. We want to get the Diploma Programme in place and strong before we move on to MYP and PYP. We’re not going to jump into all three programmes straight away.

GB: Can you describe the process of authorisation? Was there a consultation process with parents and other interest groups?

RS: Yes. This is my second year. We started the year before I arrived with parent and student meetings, then the board made a decision that we would apply and so all last year we worked hard making the application and sending all the teachers for IB training. Having accomplished all that, we met students and parents again (prior to authorisation), going into detail about what it would mean and exactly what subjects we were going to offer.

GB: How would you describe the role of the IBO in the process?

RS: They have a very well defined process that you go through. They came and spent two days with us, interviewed all the teachers, myself and the coordinator and so on, which was very effective. They came back and said, ‘this is great, we need more information here’. They were constructive all the time. As a matter of fact they were selling a product! (laughs)

GB: Yes, sure. The IBO have a very precise and idealistic philosophy which they encourage you to advance throughout the school. How do you reconcile the IBO Mission Statement with your own?

RS: We thought that they go hand in hand because our mission statement says that we are educating “International students for International life”. We didn’t have any trouble reconciling the two at all.

GB: Can you tell me something about your CAS programme?

RS: Just getting started. One of the things we are doing is requiring all 11th and 12th graders to be part of a community programme. In other schools I’ve been in (he was previously in Qatar and Ethiopia amongst other places) I’ve wanted all kids to give something back to the community in which they live and that’s what’s happening here. Our CAS director has selected 8 or 10 projects, Fountain of Life for instance. The in-school CAS is slightly different of course. (They have the best kept sports field I have seen in Thailand.) In my experience, students do learn as much from community service as in the classroom. Our kids are pretty special but they’re also very lucky to be here, so part of our job is to say, ‘there is another world out there and you’ve got to know about it and go back to help when you get the chance’.

GB: Do you find that all the staff are on board the IB ship?

RS: About 95%. One or two are hesitant, who are not sure it’s right for our student body, because most of our students were at one time or another ESL (English as a Second Language) students and that makes English Higher level courses for instance, pretty difficult.

GB: That’s a common issue in countries like Thailand.

RS: Yes it is.

GB: Where do you hope ISE will be in 5 Years from now?

RS: 400-500 students, an IB programme that’s successful. We like our mix – about 25% Japanese, 25% Korean, 25% Thai, 10% American and 15% other groups. We don’t have one predominant group and we’d like to maintain that. We believe that our ESL programme is very important. (ISE have fantastic ESL facilities). I would like to see more kids look at universities in the US and Canada and elsewhere as well as Thai universities.

GB: Do you have an international faculty and do you think it’s important?

RS: We do. We probably are 60% US, 10-15% Canadian and we have some Thai teachers, some Brits, Australian, and a New Zealander. Yes, I think it’s important. We also try to have a mix of cultural backgrounds - all North Americans don’t come from the west coast! I think our parent body likes that. They want international schools and that’s why they come to us, so the faculty reflects that. I think the strength of any school is its faculty. We have people who are trained, experienced, teachers who have successful careers built on dedication to kids, who don’t just come to Thailand to travel!

All ease and charm, is Ron Schultz, PhD. I’ve visited two schools so far and they’ve both been great (they lived up to their reputations!) I’ll keep prying…


Science Week opens at Sattahip School

Pacharapol Panrak

Suwit Thaptomthong, Sattahip School director recently opened the school’s Science Week. The school director explained that the special project was organized for the students to learn to appreciate science study, especially astronomy.

Students from Sattahip School look through a telescope as part of their Science Week activities.

Suwit said, “This proposal for the students to gain knowledge and press onward in science was organized so they could love to learn science. Developing students’ interest in learning about the planets and stars in our universe can increase their knowledge, and that will be useful for the country’s development in the future.”

Students were shown a science video, participated in science technology studies including star gazing; played games geared for science study, and were quizzed on astronomy.

Participators in the demonstration included 948 students, teachers, parents and members of the local community.