Breaking business ground at the Regent’s
GoldFish Garden so far.
Louise Jenkins
The Regent’s continues to show off their entrepreneurial
skills with students of all ages organizing and getting involved in their
own businesses. Originally an after-school activity for students interested
in doing something practical and outdoorsy with a beneficial outcome, The
GoldFish PLC’s Garden project has cultivated its first vegetables.
The combined effort of the school’s senior students
(Years 10-12) and a group from Primary has produced a 20sqm garden filled
with tomatoes, dill, coriander and basil (they expect pak choy and cabbage
to be ready in the next couple of weeks).
With the dedication of the students (particularly a group
from Year 12), the garden has been well maintained outside of activity times
and the entire group is hoping to extend their produce to other vegetables
and herbs.
Link, Denis and Hugh making
sure the plants are watered.
The Garden project gives students invaluable
horticultural skills for growing their own organic food and hopes to educate
them about good nutrition and caring for their environment.
In parallel footsteps follow a group of business-minded
Year 7 students with their smoothie business HealtheDlite. The entire
concept, from planning which drinks to sell, how to make them and whose turn
it is to buy the ingredients, to setting up the business and promoting it,
has been devised and executed by this group of entrepreneurial girls.
The profits have been used to purchase equipment for the
business, such as blenders and utensils, as well as to further research to
meet consumers’ needs and wants. All in all the company is a staple of
cooperation with no girl taking a CEO-type position but each having
individual responsibilities.
The enterprises of the Regent’s School students continue
to grow, expand and educate, and we hope you stay tuned for more tasty,
healthy and reasonably priced products from both HealtheDlite and the
GoldFish Garden.
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Mechai Viravaidya
visits Regent’s School
Mechai Viravaidya talks to
Regents students about the School-Bird project.
Katrin Puutsa
On Friday 23rd January we were privileged to have Mechai
Viravaidya from the Village Development Project at The Regent’s School. He
spoke to all the students from Years 6, 7, 8 and 9 in the Globe theatre. He
came to talk about the School-Bird project which is aimed at moving the
rural poor out of poverty through educational programmes and the support of
local businesses. The idea is to set up social enterprises which focus on
skills and profits.
We are fortunate to have been selected as a beacon school
in our area to trial and develop a school based farm. This will run as a
business enterprise, which the students will lead and make all decisions as
a group. This will eventually lead to these students training others in the
setting up and running of a farm.
Initially 27 students have volunteered to take part in
training which is being offered by the Birds and Bees Resort in Pattaya.
They will then design a programme for growing limes, cantaloupes, bean
sprouts and mushrooms, initially. These will hopefully be sold to our own
community (the school canteen and parents). This is an exciting long term
project to be involved in that hopefully will help develop many skills for
own students and also help maintain our close links with other local
Community Partners.
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St. Andrews attends Fobissea Model United Nations Conference
Year 8 students who took part in the Maths
Challenge.
Brendan Phillips,
St Andrews International School
Between the 19th-21st of January, 20 student
delegates and 4 teacher advisors from St. Andrews International School,
Green Valley attended the 2nd Fobissea Model United Nations in Bangkok.
Students successfully prepared position papers
related to human rights, the environment, economy and society politics
and Security Council issues. St. Andrews delegates worked with 275
students from various Asian nations to debate and ultimately create
resolutions for the committee issues. They were very successful in
maintaining the perspective of their assigned nations which included
Greece, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Portugal, Romania, New Zealand,
Liberia and Mexico.
This was a fantastic experience for the students
which will certainly stand them in good stead in their future careers.
Regent’s team at Fobissea MUN Conference
Regent’s Pattaya staff and
student delegates (Y12 and Y13).
Mrs. Sarah
Travis-Mulford
Students from Fobissea Schools and non-Fobissea
Schools across Asia were invited to attend the Fobissea MUN Conference
recently. Preparations for the conference actually began in June 2011,
but were interrupted by the floods. In the end, 12 schools attended
bringing over 270 student delegates together to debate current global
issues in the same manner as the United Nations General Assembly and
Security Council membership.
As this was the first time the 7 Regent’s Pattaya
delegates had taken part in a MUN style conference, they were extremely
nervous, not knowing if they would match up to the skills of seasoned
debaters from other schools. All 7 student delegates held their own and
contributed resolutions and debates to all of their committees.
Batya’s resolution was accepted after much debate -
this was the product of a very late night’s research and drafting in the
comfort of our Bangkok hotel! It was clearly well worth the effort!
Jisu Chae from Year 12 commented on the conference,
“It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life! I never thought
it was possible to gain so much in just 3 days.”
Future debating conferences abound for any keen
students. For details of these, contact Mrs. Travis-Mulford (Head of
History). For those of you who cannot wait for these conferences, don’t
forget to sign up for the Inter-House Debating competition, which is
being run during lunchtimes from 2 – 6 April in the Round House.
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St Andrews’ students learn to be
risk-takers and problem-solvers
“I liked everything at the
sleepover!” said Felicitas.
Mara Cary and Toni
Hayden, Year 3 teachers
On the night of the sleepover at St Andrews School we
were all super excited. We put up our tents, with the help of teachers
from around the school, and then we played team-building games and
participated in a challenging ropes course.
For dinner we ate pizza, chicken, sticky rice and
ice-cream (with some healthy food on the side!) After dark we gathered
around the fire to sing campfire songs and roast marshmallows, then
finished our night with our teddies, listening to a bedtime story while
drinking hot chocolate.
On Friday morning we were all a bit tired (especially
the teachers) so we tucked into a healthy breakfast of cereals and toast
to give us some energy. We then had a fantastic time at the swimming
pool, before continuing with our normal school timetable.
“My favourite part of the
sleepover was playing games because it was fun and made me healthy! And
everything was wonderful, that was the best sleepover ever!” said Katee.
This was an extremely important experience for all
the children where they learnt to be risk takers, problem solvers and
communicators. They really developed their independence and, above all,
had loads of fun!
Berdy, one of the year 3 children, summed up the
experience: “It was my first time to leave home and I went camping at
school. I took many things to school for this camping. At night I saw a
campfire burning. I had hot chocolate at story time. At last I went into
the tent and slept in my sleeping bag. What a nice camping day!”
“The best part of the
sleepover was when we did the rope challenge,” said Megan.
Mr Cary let us have a lot
of fun on the ropes course.
“My favourite part of the
sleepover was sleeping in a tent. It was my first time to sleep away
from my family but I enjoyed it. Jake was sending signals with his
torch. I sent back ‘ok’ with my torch,” said Chogoon.
“My favourite part of the
sleepover was when I had cocoa with my friends and sleeping with my
friends… and I liked to sing at the campfire,” said Gracie.
“I liked the part when I
played games with my friends,” said Fiat.
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PILC throws belated Children’s Day party for Fountain of Life Center
(Above) The celebration
continues with a birthday cake for students and who had birthdays in
January.
Vittaya Yoondorn
The Fountain of Life Center celebrated Children’s Day
a little late, returning from a school holiday for a party thrown by
volunteers at the center, along with members of the Pattaya
International Ladies Club.
The Jan. 27 event saw musical and stage performances
from the children. PILC volunteers and Fountain of Life Center staffers
handed out awards and brought out a birthday cake for students and
volunteers who had birthdays in January.
Then it was the volunteers’ turn to sing and dance,
delighting the kids.
Little ones are happy and thankful for the gifts they
are receiving on this special day.
Parents, staff and children are
having a great time at the Fountain of Life Center’s Children’s Day
celebration.
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