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Dulwich celebrates best results ever
This year’s IGCSE students at Dulwich International
College have reached an outstanding level of achievement. The students
recorded a very impressive 82% pass rate at grades A* to C, improving on the
overall pass rate for the fifth consecutive year. A third of all the results
were achieved at A* or A grade, and nearly 60% of all results were awarded
A* to B grades. There were also several outstanding individual performances,
which were highlighted at a recent Brilliance in Thailand award ceremony in
Bangkok organised by the University of Cambridge International Examinations
(CIE). Dulwich International College had the second highest number of award
winners amongst schools in Thailand.
 The
average number of points scored by Dulwich’s IB candidates was 33 points,
the best results to date.
Special mention must go to Dulwich student Ella Micheler,
who holds the distinction of having come top overall in Thailand, as judged
by CIE who took the average of the candidates’ top four marks. Ella also
received individual subject awards for coming top in Thailand in History and
English Language.
A talented all rounder, Ella has now started her IB
studies at Dulwich and has been awarded an academic scholarship in
recognition of her achievements.
Brilliance in Thailand awards also went to Dulwich
students Chaninan Kulvanich and Chanuth Karnkorkul, who came joint top in
Thailand in IT.
Other high achievers at IGCSE included Ines Narvaez and
Tara Prades. Tara also took part in the prestigious Global Young Leaders
Conference (GLYC) in Washington D.C. and New York during the summer. This is
a unique development programme for students from around the world who have
demonstrated leadership potential and scholastic merit. Tara has been
awarded an art/drama scholarship for her IB studies at Dulwich.
It wasn’t only at IGCSE that Dulwich achieved excellent
results. At IB level the College continues to go from strength to strength,
with the top score this year being an extremely impressive 42 points from
Michelle Gow, out of a possible total score of 45. This was the highest
score ever achieved by a student at Dulwich, and is a testament to the
success of the school’s IB programme.
Michelle, who was Deputy Head Prefect at the school, is
currently taking a Gap year, working in Japan and Chile, and is applying to
study English at Cambridge University next year.
The average number of points scored by Dulwich’s IB
candidates was 33 points, the best results to date. Nuno Ribeiro scored an
impressive 40 points and has been offered a place to read PPE at York.
With the recent introduction of its academic scholarship
programme, Dulwich International College hopes to improve on these results
still further in the years ahead.
For more details on the scholarship programme, please contact Mr Graham
Dewey, the Registrar, on [email protected]
St. Andrews International School Nursery and
Reception hold Blue Day
Part of the Early Years curriculum includes children learning their
colours. To aid this, Nursery and Reception classes at St. Andrews hosted a
‘blue day’. For this, children and teachers were asked to wear blue
clothes. Activities were organised so that exposure to the colour was
maximised. These included:
1. Playing in blue water, sparkling with blue glitter.
2. Making play dough and using food colouring to make it
blue. Using blue accessories.
3. Painting, roller painting, finger painting,
stencilling, tracing, sorting and cutting.
4. Mixing blue paint from powder.
5. Being exposed to and seeing the difference between
light blue and dark blue.
In the afternoon session both classes went outside to the garden and
using the school parachute had great fun trying to burst blue balloons
filled with water. This proved to be much more difficult than anticipated
depending on the amount of water in each balloon. We discovered that
balloons with little water are harder to burst than balloons full of water.
PM Thaksin reveals how Catholic education played
a formative role in his youth
Offers to host “ASEM Youth Games” in June next year
Mike Nelson
What many people don’t know is that Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra, raised in a Buddhist family, is a product of Catholic
education. And he is proud of it.
The PM revealed some interesting details of his private
life when he gave a keynote address at the opening session of the world
congress of international Catholic journalists and media specialists at
Mater Dei School in Bangkok on October 13.
About 400 participants from the International Catholic
Union of the Press, that has its general secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland,
met at the private girls’ school run by the religious order of the
Ursuline Sisters.
PM Thaksin told his audience, which included Catholic
archbishop of Bangkok Cardinal Michael Michai Kitbunchu, “Mater Dei School
is, of course, highly familiar to me since my two daughters graduated from
this very fine institution. I am well aware of the important role that the
Catholic Church has played in the promotion of education in Thailand for
over three centuries, through the establishment of many outstanding schools
and universities.
“I myself am the proud product of Montfort College
(founded by the Roman Catholic Brothers of St Gabriel) in my hometown of
Chiang Mai.” Here he received not only a very sound education but also
exposure to many noble values.
“I also found that all religions have the same
objective in common: to teach their followers to be the best people they
possibly can be, and to serve as a valuable member of society,” he said.
Turning to the theme of the world congress, “Media
Challenges amidst Cultural and Religious Pluralism”, the PM continued,
“In carrying out our respective duties, respect for different cultures,
religions and freedoms is indispensable in today’s world.”
He had stressed this point at the recent Fifth
Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) held in Hanoi, Vietnam, he said.
“Indeed, we must make serious efforts to promote
cultural dialogue and cooperation since many ethnic and cultural differences
have been exploited to sow the seeds of religious and cultural conflict.
These are among the root causes of much of the violence and terrorist acts
that we see in the world today.”
That was why Thailand had pledged to do its part to
contribute to cultural dialogue within ASEM by offering to host the “ASEM
Youth Games” in June next year.
“I believe that sports is a very effective medium for
promoting understanding and goodwill among our youth,” the PM said.
The media also had a significant role to play.
“Virtually everyone, whether monarchs, prime ministers, religious and
business leaders, or the common man-in-the-street, rely on you to some
extent for their daily information and knowledge. You can therefore play a
central role in building a healthy and caring society in which people are
brought up in mutual understanding and harmony,” PM Thaksin told the
journalists from Thailand and the rest of the world.
Nobel Laureates to visit Asian University
The excitement is mounting at Asian University as
preparations are underway to welcome three Nobel Laureates to the
university, who will speak on their specialist subjects.
 Dr.
Douglass C. North
On Thursday December 9, 2004, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji will
come to talk about “Manipulating Atoms with Light”.
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji is a professor at the College de
France in Paris, and he conducts his research at the Ecole Normale
Superieure’s Laboratory of Physics in Paris. He was awarded the 1997 Nobel
Prize for Physics, jointly with Prof. Steven Chu and Dr. William D.
Phillips, for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser
light.
 Professor
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
Born in Constantine, he underwent his high school studies
in Algiers, which was then a French city. He left for Paris in 1953 to
attend the Ecole Normale Superieure. In his first year he studied
mathematics but then changed to physics, fascinated by the lectures of one
of his teachers, Prof. Alfred Kastler.
He continued his studies until 1962 when he earned his
Ph.D. degree in physics and accepted a teaching post at the University of
Paris. In 1973 he was appointed Professor of Atomic and Molecular Physics at
the College de France. There he developed new methods of laser cooling and
trapping atoms in laser light. These methods have contributed greatly to
increasing our knowledge of the interplay between radiation and matter. They
have allowed scientists to study atoms and molecules in gases at a much more
detailed level and have opened the way to a deeper understanding of the
quantum-physical behaviour of gases. This may lead to applications such as
more precise atomic clocks and atom lasers, which, for example, may be used
in space navigation and in the developing field of quantum information.
 Professor
Riccardo Giacconi
On Friday January 14, 2005, Professor Riccardo Giacconi
will be here to speak about the “Development of X-Ray Astronomy”. Prof.
Giacconi is the 2002 Nobel Laureate for Physics and a research professor at
John Hopkins University, Baltimore.
On March 4, the university is expecting Douglass C. North
who was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences jointly with
Prof. Robert Fogel. His presentation is entitled “Beliefs, institutions
and the control of violence”.
If you are interested in attending any of these morning
talks, admission is free, but please contact the university early at
uni_info@ asianust.ac.th to register your name and contact address before
seats run out.
The talks are being hosted through the International Peace Foundation,
and further information can be found on their web site at
www.peace-foundation.net/
St. Andrews International School receive
generous donation
On Friday 10 September 10 during the Key Stage 2 assembly,
a presentation was made to the Primary School. This was a gift from Mr. and
Mrs. John Kershaw whose two children, Millie and Annabel, attended the
school for 3 years.
 The
Kershaws have finished their stay in Thailand and returned to England where
the children are now attending school in Reading.
Mr. and Mrs Kershaw donated a set of excellent music CDs,
‘Musical Mystery Tour’, which they felt would be put to good use by the
teachers right across the primary age range.
Both children and staff would like to take this opportunity to say a BIG
thank you to them for their very kind thought. We all hope they have settled
back to life in England and are not missing Thailand too much!
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