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.
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.
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 11
th 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…
