Principal's Blog

Greetings from the UK! This week I have been based in Shrewsbury School, the institution from which our world-class Shrewsbury education began over 450 years ago. 

What a privilege it has been to work alongside Ben Keeling (Principal at Shrewsbury Hong Kong), interviewing outstanding candidates for both of our growing schools. It is very exciting to be expanding our teaching teams with such a great choice of high-calibre motivated professionals.

Alongside this we have had the opportunity to meet with Leo Winkley, the Headmaster of Shrewsbury School, and members of his senior leadership team and Governing body.

In addition, Carlien Shelley and Rachel Qiu from Shrewsbury Huangpu (opening in August 2021) were also visiting the UK and getting to meet the wider Shrewsbury family of school leaders.

This connectivity and working together to provide an outstanding British education with a shared clear vision for the future is a unique and exciting position to be in. 

I can't be in England and not talk about the weather…..all I can say is it has been very cold, and very very very wet (with one morning of sunshine which we managed to capture below)!

I’m looking forward to returning to the Bangkok sunshine early next week in time for our vibrant and colourful Chinese New Year celebrations.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Happy New Year to you all.

It was wonderful to welcome all our families return with a Merit Making ceremony. 

Merit-making is a beautiful Buddhist tradition, often celebrated in Thailand to mark the New Year. 

For us at City Campus, it is our opportunity to offer gifts and supplies to monks for our local Wat Phraram 9 Kanchanapisek temple. It was a serious yet uplifting occasion, as we reflected on what are grateful for, and the things that are truly important in life. 

It was my personal privilege to welcome the Venerable Robert Apirojano through our school gates. Our visitor addressed our entire school community, and spoke of the hope we can hold for the future after meeting our very happy and very positive students here at City Campus. A humbling affirmation for our value of the month ‘Hope’. What a wonderful start to a new year and indeed, a new decade.

We welcome 8 new families to City Campus as we continue to grow as a community. On this note of growth, I will be based in Shrewsbury UK next week where I will be interviewing teachers for new classes which we will be opening in August 2020. 

I have my woolies packed and I am looking forward to interviewing some outstanding candidates alongside Ben Keeling, the Principal from Shrewsbury Hong Kong. Very exciting times ahead as we continue to resource our ever-growing schools with exceptional people.

What a fabulous end to Term 1.

This week, students at City Campus performed their first pantomime ‘Aladdin Trouble’ in front of two ‘full house’ audiences in our auditorium. I was so proud of every single one of our children from Year 1 through to Year 6. They were so professional, polished and passionate. The singing was particularly outstanding, especially the many soloists. 

As one of our parents said over coffee afterwards, "The children were brimming with confidence and the team spirit was contagious." I couldn’t agree more.

Parents in our Early Years enjoyed singing carols around the Christmas tree, getting in the mood for the festivities.

A perfect note to end the year on after such an amazing term where so much has been achieved and celebrated across the school.

Our parents have given their continued support in building a wonderful and proactive school community. Our teachers have enjoyed watching our students develop in confidence and embrace new and growing opportunities. 

The expertise of our staff and the ongoing support from our parents across all our events glues our community together and adds to the richness of our children’s experiences. Linking school and home is truly a strength at City Campus. 

It is now time for a well earned rest and family time to enjoy the holidays, Christmas and the New Year.

I wonder what 2020 will have in store?

Watch this space...

READ TERM 1 REVIEW 2019-20 HERE

This week the children have enjoyed many more cross-campus opportunities.

The cooler weather was appreciated during our four topic-themed sports days. Each of our Key Stage 2 classes joined their House Teams and had lots of fun, team spirit and physical exertion!

EY2 children enjoyed play dates with their Riverside friends, Year 1 children had a ‘Christmas Day’ celebration, while Year 2 children were superheros for the day. 

A team of Year 6 children took part in the Bangkok Maths Competition which was held at KIS. I was delighted when our children came to tell me that we came joint 5th with our Riverside campus (out of 12 teams).

All these activities build and strengthen our community across Shrewsbury Bangkok. 
 
In between all of this fun, rehearsals have been in full swing for our Christmas concert ‘Aladdin Trouble’,  showing next week. Voices are warmed up, the lamp has been shined, and the magic carpet is charged for what is sure to be a fantastic production by our children. 

December’s value of the month is ‘Peace’ so it was perfect to be able to take time out of our busy schedules this week to spend time with family. In Thailand, Father's Day is on December 5th, (a public holiday) as this is the birthday of His Majesty the Late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Rama IX. Our children had the opportunity to write special messages to their Dads this week, and we recognised again the wonderful fathers we have in our Shrewsbury community. 

This week we had an ‘Introduction to Riverside’ event for our Year 6 parents. 

Our first City Campus graduates will take up their guaranteed place at our successfully established Riverside campus, to continue their Shrewsbury education for Year 7 in August 2020. A very exciting time in our history.... A first....

Members of Riverside’s senior management team, Mr. Chris Seal (Principal) and Ms Sally Weston and Mr Rob Miller (Vice Principals) joined myself and Ms Betts for an informative presentation and plenty of time for questions and discussions.

We shared our carefully crafted bespoke transition plans, that have already begun, to ensure that we:

• Forge great relationships across both campuses for students and indeed for parents
• Support children pastorally by addressing any concerns and introducing them to teachers and tutors 
• Ignite children’s enthusiasm for learning different subjects with different teachers
• Provide many practical ideas to help with the new routine

Our programme has been designed after studying key phases of transition and feedback from staff and studentsAn explanation of life in the senior schools and all that entails was greatly received. We discussed not only the curriculum and academic side of life but also a great introduction to the extracurricular - the great music, sporting, arts, science, outdoor adventure, drama performance, charity work and many more, opportunities that our children can continue to build on.

We know it is not only our students who are transitioning but so are our parents...We have key dates throughout the year for an exciting programme for them too.

Since the start of term, we have enjoyed some wonderful cross-campus events for all ages including the Year 5 residential to Khao Yai, a Greek themed day, Last Night of the Proms, a talk on endangered species from Freeland Foundation Bangkok, the Big Sing with Ex Cathedra.

This week has seen a continuation of this collaboration in full gusto. Year 6 had a joint World War 2 day hosted at City where they took part in a carousel of activities which ended with a great British wartime sing-a-long.

Our house system connects us horizontally across the campuses. House football matches took place at Riverside for all the children in Year 5 & 6 - a great opportunity for children to come together in their respective houses and compete in teams.

As part of the Neilson Hayes Bangkok Literacy Festival, Year 1 & 2 from both campuses met the well-known author and illustrator Mike Currato. Mike introduced the children to Elliot the Elephant and brought to life his beautifully crafted books. After being inspired by Mike’s stories, the children used their imaginations to write their own.

We will enjoy more cross-campus links before the holidays, including the sharing of our Christmas production, a special ‘Christmas Day’ at Riverside for Year 1, and playdates in EY2. 

Next week, the teaching staff from Riverside will join us at City Campus to have planning meetings to discuss next term’s topic-based curriculum and further embed our strengths within Shrewsbury. #WeAreShrewsbury

We began our week celebrating Loy Krathong. The whole school community, children, parents and staff all dressed in traditional attire filling the playground with sparkle and colour.

Loy Krathong is one of the most beautiful festivals we celebrate here in Thailand. It is when respect is shown to the goddess of water by releasing  lotus-shaped rafts, decorated with candles, incense and flowers onto the water.

This year our younger children performed  traditional elegant Thai dances. I was extremely proud of their professionalism and style on stage. The older children presented eco- friendly krathongs which they linked so well to our value of the month 'Environmental Awareness’.

Year 5 have been away all week on a residential trip to Khao Yai with their friends from our Riverside Campus. They have had a fabulous time surrounded by nature being creative in the outdoors with a particular  focus on one of my favourite artists, Goldsworthy. They have enjoyed treks in the National Park, fun team building activities, campfires and marshmallows to end the day…...memories that will last a lifetime.

Our new value for November is ‘Environmental Awareness’. It was a real pleasure for this to be introduced to the children by Steven R. Swinburne. Steve is the author of many popular children's books about the environment and how we can protect and care for our world.

He was such a motivating speaker and the children, staff and parents enjoyed hearing about his family, where he lives and how he finds inspiration for his stories. We were lucky enough to be shown a photograph of his home surrounded by snow drifts - a far cry from our climate here in Bangkok!

Many members of the City Campus community attended ‘the ‘Last Night of the Proms’ concert at our Riverside campus last night; a truly spectacular evening. The theme was ‘Circus and Celebrations’ which was diverse and exotic, with musical treats including, ‘Entry of the Gladiators’, ‘Send in the Clowns’, City Campus favourite ‘ A Million Dreams’, ‘Superman Returns’ as well as the traditional 'Pomp and Circumstance' and 'Jerusalem'.

It was wonderful to see and hear our outstanding musicians perform, a real credit to our committed music department and the Shrewsbury community. Bundit Ungrangsee was our special guest, returning for the second year to conduct the orchestra in his unique passionate style.

It has been absolutely wonderful this week to have Ex Cathedra working with us once again. Ex Cathedra are a leading British choir who have been partnering with Shrewsbury Bangkok for over 12 years.

It is the week I look forward to the most...... we sing, we sing and we sing some more! The energy and enthusiasm for singing is fired up enough for the whole community (children, teachers, parents and even our Governors were involved this year!) to keep singing until the following year....

The Ex Cathedra musicians complemented City Campus for developing such an amazing singing culture within the school across all year groups. In addition, they believe we have the most enthusiastic singing staff team they have encountered; strongly recommending we harness this talent and have a staff choir…..watch this space!

Music and the performing arts are fundamental to developing and nurturing the confidence and creativity in everyone. This is why they are at the heart of all we do here at Shrewsbury.

Even though this week has just been 4 days in school, we have been incredibly busy. We enjoyed Year 2’s Pirate day; our inter-house cross-country competition where Schweitzer House ran their way to victory; exceptionally positive individual parent meetings; colourful Diwali celebrations; our official launch of DEC (Design Engineer Construct!Ⓡ); cross-campus partnership meetings with Riverside, and a successful Year 3 bake sale to raise money to save the tigers.........

As we come to the end of this busy week and indeed to the end to a wonderful first half term, a well-earned holiday for everyone is about to begin. I have seen many of our children visit the library this week, stocking up with books to enjoy and relax with. I intend to follow their lead and do the same. It is important we take time to relax and look after ourselves.

I am very excited (although a little cautious, I have to say) to be heading back to Koh Tao for the first time since I spent a few months there 25 years ago.  At that time the only way one could travel to the island was by an overnight fisherman's boat, and the only accommodation was a simple hut on the beach...how times have changed. 

This time I will be making new memories; my son is enrolled at a diving school and will learn at the exact same dive sites as I did all those years ago. We will be able to enjoy some diving together, providing I haven’t lost my nerve!

I hope you have the opportunity to enjoy family time, read, relax and make wonderful memories this holiday!