Principal's Blog

This month we have Optimism as our focused Value.

At the start of any New Year we always reflect on the year that has passed, and we look to how we can move forward either personally, professionally, globally (or a mixture of all of these) into the future.

We look for hope and inspiration to journey through the year positively and productively.

We launched this Value of the Month by introducing the children (live via Zoom) to author Scott Riley, who read and discussed his debut book ‘The Floating Field: How A Group of Thai Boys Built Their Own Soccer Field’. We were lucky enough to also have Khun Prasit Hemmin on the Zoom call too - it was his true story that was being told.

The story is set in Koh Panyee, Thailand. When Khun Prasit was a young boy he loved to play football with his friends. But they could only play twice a month when the tide was low enough for a sandbar to be used for the pitch. The small island of Koh Panyee, didn’t have enough open space for them to play on. So they built their own pitch to use…….I urge you to read the story to find out how they achieved this!

The story is a celebration of ingenuity, determination, and hope…moving into 2022 we all need some of this…..
Our value of Optimism continued this week with a whole-school ‘Sing and Dance Along’. We were given some top tips on being optimistic from our talented in-house teacher DJ’s. 

Year 5 were invited to enjoy the assembly safely in the Auditorium. The rest of us were apart in our own classrooms, with the singing and positivity strongly connecting us……

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." - Helen Keller, author & activist.
 

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

What a fabulous week we have had with all our festivities to round off the year of 2021.

The week started off with a cross-campus Library Christmas Stories & Songs. Over 120 families from both City Campus and Riverside joined in this virtual evening event, to get us in the festive mood. 

Parents joined us for our virtual Christmas celebrations at the Early Years Concert, with musical performances from all our students from Nursery, EY1 and EY2. Santa also visited our Early Years Hub this week, much to the delight of all the children.

From Year 1 to Year 6, the festive spirit flourished, as we had our virtual performances from the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ concert, which was creatively directed and orchestrated by our outstanding Music department, and performed by our talented children.

It was ‘safe bubble party time’ across the whole school on Thursday, with both traditional and modern fun and games being enjoyed by all.

The staff team also got in role for a staff panto production of Cinderella, which we performed and recorded for the children to enjoy and to raise money for our charities……..

With Christmas songs and twinkling lights at our entrance and indeed throughout the whole school, City Campus is truly filled with the joy of Christmas spirit.

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and an optimistic peaceful New Year!

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One week to go before we break up for our Christmas holidays. It has been a busy term for students, staff and parents alike. I am sure we are all looking forward to relaxing with family and friends over the festive period, and recharging for 2022.

What a challenging, unusual and unique term it has been!

We had a full-half term of excellent online learning followed by a full half-term of a carefully planned safe return to onsite learning for all our children and staff.

What has amazed me through all this time is the sheer resilience, flexibility, creativity and determination of our children, our staff and our parents to simply make this work - find the silver linings and ‘get on with it!’

We don’t know what the new year will bring but we do know we’ll get through it together as a community.

I’m looking forward to our final week of Christmas cheer with a wonderful Christmas concert, an abundance of festive activities …… even a staff pantomime…… all hosted safely through virtual means...

Let’s begin to say goodbye to 2021, accept what it has taught us, and look forward to whatever comes next…..

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Christmas has arrived at City Campus this week with our traditional decorated trees, sparkly lights in abundance, creatively designed Christmas cards and homemade paper chains adorning our communal spaces.

This morning children were greeted at the gate by beautiful singing as our Head of Music, Ms Young and our talented interns, Justin and Natalie sang a selection of traditional Christmas Carols. 

All week we have been filming children singing their songs for our virtual (and safe) end-of-year festive concert.

We are truly beginning to feel Christmassy - even the temperature in Thailand has dropped to a chilly 29°C, and we are long socks and fleeces creeping into the children's daily attire along with the antlers...

All we need is a sprinkling of snow…!

Our new value for December is ‘Peace’, where we will focus on how we can promote this in the world, in our community and within ourselves.

‘Peace begins with a smile….’ - Mother Teresa

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Today’s assembly came live from our Design and Technology Studios, and was led by Mr Perry, our outstanding expert in this field. 

We were first inspired by hearing the true story about William Kamkwamba - who is known as ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’. William was just 14 when he had an amazing idea to save his town from famine by constructing a windmill to provide water and electricity.

We then celebrated our very own designers right here at City Campus. Nearly 100 of our students entered the Primary Engineer® Awards this year, achieving Pass, Merit or Distinction for their excellent designs, which is absolutely fabulous news.

Our young engineers invented solutions to problems and designed a new product. They came up with both creative and logical solutions using new technologies and ways of working. They also thought of the environment when they were designing, and how their product can be made sustainably. 

The four children who achieved a Distinction designed:

• A solar-powered Vitamin D storage generator to improve our strength and keep our immune systems healthy when we are having to stay indoors at home.
• A smart seat for cyclists which includes a light projector and USB charging port
• A rescue protector wristband that connects to a drone to save people in water
• A ‘useful owl’ with remote control laser eyes designed to protect your home from intruders

As we are the only primary school outside of the UK to enter this competition, we were sent a special video message from Mr Chris Rochester, the UK director of Primary Engineer® to congratulate all our winners and to personally say how impressed he was with our young designers, who he described as ……"truly exceptional".

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We had a wonderful end to a great week here at City Campus by celebrating Loy Krathong.

Loy Krathong is one of the most picturesque festivals we celebrate here in Thailand. It is when respect is shown to the goddess of water by releasing lotus-shaped rafts, decorated beautifully and with great care.

Our whole school community, children and staff and even some parents at drop-off this morning were all dressed in traditional attire and filled our school with sparkle and colour.

We enjoyed watching a virtual Loy Krathong assembly, safely in our bubbles. Each class from Year 1 to Year 6 contributed so confidently,  the meaning of Loy Krathong was explained and how it is celebrated in different ways all around Thailand

We also had music from Thorfran in Year 3 and our Librarian Mr Patrick, who both played a traditional Thai instrument - the khim. To accompany this, we saw some and great singing and dancing, along with creative artwork from Year 1.

Two of our Year 4 students confidently MC’d the whole event and were fabulous hosts.

After the assembly our children enjoyed making  biodegradable krathongs to float with their families at the weekend.

We may not have been able to celebrate in the usual way, but our 'new normal' ensured we certainly created the spirit of this important festival and its importance in the Thai calendar. We did this in a safe and sustainable way.

Happy Loy Krathong!


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It has been an amazing two weeks on campus with nearly all of our children back on site. Our school site is vibrant and filled with life and laughter once again. The children’s energy and excitement in reuniting with friends and teachers has been priceless to see. It is truly wonderful to have them back in school after 7 months of online learning. 

Our value this month is Kindness and as always I have seen this in action in abundance  around City Campus - it is one of our core focuses all year round.  It is World Kindness Day today - this is a day celebrated around the world to promote the importance of being kind to each other, to yourself and to the world - compassion and kindness bind us together. 

This morning we held our assembly around the Year 5 and 6 Kindness Tree in their Learning Base. I read the story ‘Kindness Grows’ by Britta Teckentrup. It is a simple and beautifully illustrated book that shows the value of kindness and how kindness grows when each of us can share kind actions and words towards each other. Year 6 students shared their pledges for the year, inspiring the other children to do so too…...

Why not show a random act of kindness this weekend?


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This has been a fantastic week as we have received news from the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority  that we can open our school for children to have onsite learning.

The whole staff team is so excited about this - we are fully prepared with our modified learning environments, robust safety procedures, hybrid learning options and beaming smiles on our faces (behind the masks!)

It is extraordinary to think that it has been over 6 months since we have had our whole community on the campus.

This has been a very tough half term indeed, the toughest yet; with the uncertainty of what will happen next and when. We want to support our children to ensure they continue to grow strategies and resilience to cope with the changes and adaptations they have been through in such a short space of time in their lives.  

Over the past 18 months, the teaching community has adapted to teaching and learning in 5 or 6 completely different ways to the ways in which we were trained or to the ways we knew. 

Each of these ‘educational reforms’ would in normal circumstances each take years to plan, introduce, pilot, collate evidence, reflect and improve.

It is therefore amazing what has been achieved while navigating a pandemic at the same time - we simply cannot underestimate the impact this has had on us all. 

I therefore feel thankful, lucky and privileged every day to work with such a dedicated, resilient team of professionals across the board; a team who have truly pioneered these educational reforms that have kept our students learning at the highest possible standards during these extraordinary times.

We cannot wait to welcome our students safely back onto site on Monday 1st November. 


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Our end-of-week community assembly was so energetic and fun, it was led by Ms Cath who focused on the ever-important wellbeing. 

All the children (on Zoom) and staff (some who joined us safely in our Auditorium) were up dancing and exercising and enjoying life on a Friday morning! We had top tips on how to look after our wellbeing from our House Captains and Heads of School, fun exercises to choose “Would you rather?’ and a high-energy singing performance from our talented Music department.

It was World Mental Health on Sunday 10th October. As a way of supporting our children’s mental health, our Wellbeing team here at City Campus initiated a ‘Low-Tech Day’ for Monday 11th October.

All our year groups decided how they could realistically navigate this, given that we are currently learning online at the moment. The main aim was to have limited screen time during the day. We had  Community Learning Times to discuss mental wellbeing and gave more opportunities for more social activities/games. We provided more audio instructions rather than heavy information and wellbeing activities as the tasks. 

Some great takeaways for us all to bring into the weekend. 

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This week has been a great week on campus as all our fabulous staff returned to onsite teaching in preparation for what we are all hoping for - the children’s return. There is still no definite news but we are feeling  optimistic that this will be soon.

It is important to get back into the routine of physically being in school and reconnecting safely in person with teams - the buzz around school is fantastic.

Congratulations to Jai-Sai (6KH) and Amp (6KH), who have now been announced as Students Heads of School for 2021-22.  I made a special visit to their respective family homes earlier this week to personally present the ties that Student Heads are given to wear. My thanks go to the parents of Jai-Sai and Amp who helped us to arrange these surprise visits. 

We are delighted to have Jai-Sai and Amp in these positions of student leadership this year. They are both founding pupils who have always been committed to their studies and walked the values of our school.


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