PRINCIPAL'S BLOG

It was the UN’s International Day of Happiness last week. We celebrated this day at Shrewsbury City Campus to remind the children of their right to lead a happy life and our duty as a school to provide a space for their happiness. 

What makes us happy? What makes a happy child? 

Love and support from friends, teachers and family, feeling safe and cared for, and a space to express themselves. 

Last Friday, we had a non-uniform day for our community to come to school in whatever clothes make them happy to represent this freedom of expression. We saw children in their sports clothes, such as Muay Thai shorts and football and swim team shirts, in costume as their favourite superheroes and movie characters, and a few children (and some staff!) in their pyjamas.

As you can tell, there were a lot of variations on what makes every individual happy. What is important is to create a caring, safe space for people to express themselves. 

We had a very happy occasion this week; the Floreat Awards! The presence of Mr Leo Winkley, Headmaster of Shrewsbury School UK, at these awards during his family’s visit from England, made it all the more special. This tradition began at our UK institution, and Mr Winkely was delighted to meet our Floreat winners. Reading out our teachers’ nominations of each child, was, as always, a reminder of the unique, kind and hardworking students we have in our school.

As a parent and teacher, my heart bursts with pride when I see children thriving and happy as individuals. It's a beautiful thing to witness, and we all should cherish every moment of it.

Amanda Dennison

Principal

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We celebrated International Women’s Day last week. To emphasise the importance of this day, we adopted the Embrace Equity campaign. It was a reminder to all our students that we must provide everyone with not only equal opportunities but also the support and inclusion required for them to grab these.

At Shrewsbury, we recognise the need to counter any bias and provide young girls with the attention, tools and support they need to reach their goals. This is what the International Women’s Day #BreaktheBias campaign calls for: identifying how women can be subjected to bias and helping them break through any obstacles in the way of their dream opportunities. 

We encourage all our children to believe in themselves and become the best version of themselves every day. This day gave all of our students a moment to value and respect the efforts of our City Campus girls to reach their full potential. Women and girls alike at City Campus struck the #EmbraceEquity pose to commemorate this.

In keeping with the theme of the power of women, I want to reflect on an experience from last year when Fiona Betts - our Vice Principal, Cath Okill - our Assistant Principal, and I participated in the FOBISIA Senior Leaders Art competition. Together, we recreated the famous artwork "We Can Do It!" by J Howard Miller, which was created during World War II to inspire female workers. Our artwork won us a star which we named Shrewsbury City Campus!, and made us proud as women working together in leadership roles to manage our school and community to be the best we can. We were proud of ourselves, our children, our staff, our parents, our community, and how strong we are as Shrewsbury City Campus.

To everyone, regardless of gender, I want to emphasise the importance of believing in oneself; if you put your mind and heart into it, you can do it! As our school motto says, "If the heart is right, all will be well."

Amanda Dennison

Principal

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This week it was time for our long-awaited and much loved Fully Booked Week, with the theme for this year being,  ‘Let Your Imagination Soar’. 

As a community of exceptionally enthusiastic readers, this is such a momentous week for everyone at Shrewsbury City Campus. Every day, we see our children’s love for books in our lessons, in the popularity of Library Lunchtimes, in Book Club You-Time, and even on the playground at break time! It is impossible not to hear children’s creative minds effortlessly making up new games based on their latest read during playtime.

Fully Booked Week celebrates and promotes reading for pleasure. Simon Mole, the children’s author of “Kites” (2019), “I Love My Bike” (2021), and “I Love My Cat” (2022), came to visit us from the UK to teach students about storytelling and writing poems. He held a workshop for each of our year groups and taught them how to concoct whimsical characters and recite them as a poem. We even created a whole-school poem about a bright pink alien and an intergalactic tuk-tuk in outer space! The children loved our author's visit; it was the perfect inspiration to begin a week of fantasy and fun. 

This week was truly fully booked with our Book Fair running all week, Book Swaps between students and between staff, the Bookmark and Young Author short-story competitions and story chain-writing from Early Years to Year 6. The grand finale on Friday morning was when the school was filled with the full range of weird and wonderful book characters  from Harry Potter, Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland to Matilda, Cleopatra, Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf and Granny and even our very own Social Media Icons. Children, staff and even our wonderful parents joined in for our annual celebratory Book Character Parade. 

Our UK Governors were also visiting this week, so they too experienced the Book Week magic and were fully immersed in ‘Come Read with Me’ and with storytelling during our Early Years focused Open House event.

We, of course, also had our formal Board Meeting which was exceptionally positive and productive; we pride ourselves on maintaining our close ties with Shrewsbury UK through our regular termly visits  to ensure high standards and consistency in education and management across our family of schools.

Happy reading, happy learning!

Amanda Dennison

Principal

As educators, we understand that supporting our students' well-being is critical to their success and happiness. We believe that schools have a vital role to play in teaching students how to make healthy lifestyle choices and understand the impact of these choices on their well-being. 

Recently, we celebrated the UK Children's Mental Health Week, during which we organised mindfulness activities, such as process art and bubbles blowing, to help our students relax and connect with others. A super fun Zumba dance was also held for the whole school to remind us all that maintaining good mental health requires taking care of our physical health as well.

But well-being at Shrewsbury City Campus goes beyond just one week. We encourage our students to be kind to themselves and others, and we have a story about "Starfish" that has become a symbol of our community. This story teaches our students that small acts of kindness can make a big difference, and now we even have a song, "Save the One," that was inspired by this story. Thanks to our friends from Ex Cathedra - the UK's leading choir and early music ensemble led by Ms Rebecca Ledgard and her team, who visited us a few years ago, and have now written this original song for us.

We also celebrated International Mother Language Day, which highlighted the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity. We welcomed lovely guests from the National Association of Deaf Thailand to our campus. Their community cannot utter a word but their silent presence spoke louder to our hearts.

They taught us sign language and reminded us that despite our differences, we all share a common humanity, and that it is possible to communicate and connect with one another in meaningful ways.

The experience was truly touching, and it left a lasting impression on all of us. Our students learned so much from our guests, and they were eager to put their new knowledge into practice. It was heartwarming to see them interact with our visitors with such warmth and openness.

As I reflect on this experience, I am reminded of the incredible community we have at Shrewsbury City Campus. We are a place where kindness, compassion, and understanding are not just words, but values that we live by every day.

I am so grateful to be a part of this wonderful, caring community, and I can't wait to see where our journey takes us next.

Amanda Dennison

Principal

It is incredible how much we have already accomplished as a school in just a few weeks of our second term. Community Spirit has certainly been in the air here at City Campus.

Our Year 5 students have learnt more about social service while working hard to organise a ‘Sponsored Day’ to raise money for charity. Most year groups came dressed in a different funky theme; we had pyjamas, crazy hair, sparkles, spots, half and half and twins and triples. Our dignified Year 6’s opted for a day of Sponsored Silence, which proved to be a fun challenge for both students and teachers! It was great to see our school working together to raise over 180,000 THB for our charity partners. Well done to Year 5 for orchestrating this day and the assembly last Friday, where they performed a short musical on the value of community spirit for the whole school and their proud parents.

On this theme, I would also like to mention the hard work that went into the Chinese New Year assembly a few weeks ago. I know the Mandarin Department and our dance intern had worked with children from all years in Primary since last term to make sure the poetry, dances, acting and music were as beautiful as we witnessed. This event was another whole-school achievement for which I would like to congratulate all our young performers.

I now write to you all from the rather chilly but beautiful town of Shrewsbury in the UK while I am on a trip to interview and recruit new staff for City Campus. I will be hand-picking experienced teachers and great interns for our school, and I look forward to all of us giving them a warm welcome next academic year. This trip has also enabled me to connect with our wider Shrewsbury community and meet with our UK based Governors and to also meet with the Headmaster and other members of the Senior Management team at our Shrewsbury UK School; to discuss and plan future connections with students. 

I look forward to returning ‘home’ to City Campus in a few days…

Best wishes,

Amanda Dennison

Principal

Happy New Year! 

What a treat it has been to welcome all our returning community back  to school for a brand new term and also have many new families join us who have settled in brilliantly with high, hopeful spirits! 

On our first day back, we invited local Buddhist Monks to hold a Merit Making Ceremony to start the new year positively. We had the opportunity to present our offerings, following the Buddhist teaching of giving to practise generosity. We gathered in the auditorium to listen, meditate, reflect on our hopes and wishes and receive the monks' blessings. 

Learning about the beliefs and cultures around us is a fundamental part of education and personal development for both students and staff. I thank all those involved in the ceremony for such an uplifting and generous beginning to the year. 

Our new value of the month is HOPE! In our assembly, our children discussed what 'hope' really is, and together as a school, we concluded that we need hope and hard work hand-in-hand to make our goals come true. We agreed that hope keeps us going when we cannot yet see the results of our work. I believe every student at City Campus has a goal they hope to achieve this term and beyond, however big or small, and I look forward to seeing how they make the most of their opportunities to make these hopes and dreams a reality.

This week, we are also celebrating Chinese New Year and have welcomed the Year of the Rabbit. Our children performed amazing dances, recited poems and played traditional Chinese instruments. This year we also had the support of the Confucius Institute of Chulalongkorn University, they  led authentic Chinese cultural activities for us and even brought us a professional dragon and lion dance.

It was an exciting day hosting celebrations for one of the biggest holidays in Chinese culture. 

Very best wishes to all.

新年快乐 

Amanda Dennison

Principal

Shrewsbury City Campus became a Winter Wonderland this last week to celebrate our oncoming Christmas holidays! What a lovely sight to witness our community gather for yet another cultural celebration. All around us, students, parents and staff have been enjoying the Christmas spirit.

Our Early Years parents joined forces to decorate the EY hub in an explosion of Christmas-themed decor; I recommend you take a look before we break up for the holidays! We hosted the Winter Wonderland Fun Day, an extraordinary event where our campus was transformed into a land of fair rides, bouncy castles, games, family activities and an amazing talent show.

Once again, thank you to our Shrewsbury Parents Committee and volunteering staff for making this such a successful day and surpassing expectations of what 'winter' could look like at City Campus!

We have also taken Christmas as another opportunity to let the children show off their musical talents in our EY2 Christmas Show, our Christmas Wish Concert, our Year 1 Christmas Show and our Nursery - EY1 Christmas Singalong. There is no better way to spread Christmas cheer than with beautiful music and carolling.

Over the past couple of weeks of this holiday season, it has been uplifting to see all of our students and staff within different years and departments show their esteem of one another in small acts of kindness and tokens of appreciation. I am sure we all feel part of a very special community. 

I wish everyone a happy holiday and a very Merry Christmas! 

Until the New Year,

Amanda Dennison

Principal

At Shrewsbury City Campus, our November value of the month was Confidence .

At the beginning of this month, I introduced the value to the school during our Assembly; we talked about being our own biggest supporter and shared strategies for developing self confidence. We wanted this month to be about encouraging students to have confidence in what they do and the bravery to proudly showcase their talents and abilities to the school.

I gave the example of Symphony, our EY1 student and violinist, who gave her first-ever musical performance in front of our whole school. We wanted  our students to be inspired to perform or compete for the first time with their skills and interests. 

In sports, our swim team showed confidence at the International School Swimfest, they competed against 22 other schools; a daunting challenge, but our team was confident in their abilities and came out with many new Personal Bests, placing City Campus 5th in the under 11 competition!

Our under 9 Boys Basketball and Football teams have also been super confident facing their first-ever games as City Campus teams this month! We have seen our U9 Boys' Basketball team play in the BISA Basketball Tournament, and this week both our U9 Boys' and U9 Girls football teams played their first friendly match against Bangkok Prep. Confidence is all about taking on that first challenge and trusting your own and each other's abilities as a team.

Our U11s Boys' Basketball Team is a great example of how going into each game with confidence after hard work and training can lead to incredible results. They are taking Bangkok under 11 Boys basketball by storm, winning all 4 competitive games they have played so far! 

Our musicians always display outstanding confidence in their performances. Our recital last week was wonderful, with several City Campus children playing the violin, piano and singing pieces they so carefully prepared and practised for us. Our show choir always astounds us with their powerful presence on stage, especially at the Family Fiesta Proms this month in front of all our Shrewsbury families and teachers from both campuses. 

Finally, I must mention how confident our Year 6s were on their residential trip to Kanchanaburi. This was a  fabulous opportunity for outdoor education; our children bravely faced their fears and participated in all the activities, including hiking to the beautiful Erawan falls, visiting Hell Fire Pass and exploring the bridge over the River Kwai through art while spending three nights away from their families. 

Students and teachers alike have done an exceptional job in promoting and showing how confident we can be. 

Amanda Dennison

Principal

What makes Shrewsbury City Campus such a special school is our family-like, supportive community. Our staff work together to ensure the happiness, safety and well-being of every child and each other. We enhanced this by holding our first Inclusion and Diversity Week to reinforce key values with our students.  

This was an important, memorable week of learning for our students.  Our elected student council met a couple of weeks ago to brainstorm their ideas, plan the activities that were then put into action this week. 

First, we  introduced and explored the meaning of these two words to the children. 

What is inclusion? 

What is diversity?

After much reflection during discussions with every year group, Ms Betts and our students came up with an answer for the kind of inclusion and diversity we want to see at our school.

Inclusion is to make everyone in the community feel welcome, safe, relaxed and happy while celebrating each other's differences. 

To introduce this idea, we had Odd Socks Day! Students and teachers alike came in their oddest, odd socks - symbolising that differences and diversity among us is what makes us interesting and fun. The student council also decided that friendship and kindness should be the focus of our week, identifying that inclusion in school has a lot to do with being a good friend.

Together, we went over the importance of being a good friend, learning how to resolve disagreements and how to focus on continuing to be kind to each other. We had our beautiful Buddy Benches and Friendship Circles, a reminder that there is always a quiet space in school to support your friends. We had Kindness Post-Boxes in each base, to encourage students to use kind words and make random acts of kindness.

Most importantly, we spoke and reflected in our School Assembly, inspiring children to take action if they ever see anyone not being inclusive and to remind themselves every day how important it is to be kind.

Amanda Dennison

Principal

This week we  began celebrating our 5th year of operation and what an amazing 5 years they have been. I remember vividly standing on the school site when it was still totally flat with rubble under foot. We had a special ceremony led by Monks to bless the land and the first Pile was driven into the ground. Our fabulous school took just over two years to build and we were ready to open our doors in August 2018. Our school then grew the most  precious thing…a wonderful supportive kind community.

This week our community came together to celebrate our anniversary. We held the ‘Sparkling Star Art Auction’ in our beautiful school grounds with a tunnel of sparkling lights, delicious food and drinks and outstanding music performances by our very own talented students. Parents, students, teachers, school Governors, staff and special guests  all dressed up in their finery and contributed to the bubbling atmosphere of the evening - what a success.

One of the reasons we named our event the Sparkling Star Art Auction is because City Campus has its very own star - how amazing is that!

Myself, Ms Betts and Ms Okill actually entered a FOBISIA Senior Leaders art competition.

School leaders from around Asia were asked to recreate a famous piece of art. We based our piece on J Howard Millers art titled ‘We Can Do It!’

We Can Do It!" is an American World War II wartime poster produced in 1943 as an inspirational image to boost female worker morale.

The judges were impressed and as a result we won a star, which we decided to name "Shrewsbury City Campus", the star shines brightly in the Leo Constellation, the month in which Shrewsbury City Campus opened.

The Sparkling Star Art auction was given its name in recognition of our City Campus star. 

At the auction we showcased 28  fantastic pieces of ‘Process Art’  (a form of art that focuses on the process of thinking and expressing emotions) from every class from Nursery up to Year 6. Our guests were invited to place silent bids for each piece with some fierce competition going on!

The total amount raised was over 300,000 THB with the highest bid being 60,000 THB! What great support for our chosen charities: UNICEF Thailand, SOS Scholars of Sustenance Foundation Thailand, and Second Chance Bangkok who will benefit directly from our fundraising. 

Our Governors both Thai and UK based who have been visiting us for the week, expressed great pride in what they saw - a friendly, spirited, talented, generous community. This week they have also held the formal Board meetings at both City and Riverside Campus; an evening event with the City Campus teaching staff; lunch with our student Heads of School; afternoon tea with prospective parents; and they even made time to join in our Loy Krathong celebrations.

We have achieved so much in the last five years despite all the challenges. I look forward to planning and seeing what the next five years hold for us here at City Campus…very exciting times ahead!

Amanda Dennison

Principal

In addition the results of the basketball matches we hosted at City Campus were exceptional. Last week and this week, we won all our games against two local  international schools. We are proud of our teams who have shown great  teamwork and dedicated hard work under the direction of our committed  Shrewsbury coaches.

Another example of parent involvement is this week's Come Dine with Me event, in which parents were invited to have lunch with their children at our ‘Kandinsky Curve’ dining space to learn more about their children's school lives on a daily basis. It was heartwarming to see our school packed with families - a place we can truly call our children's second home.

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As we continue to focus on 'Respect', our core value of this month, within our Shrewsbury City Campus community, the children have been thinking deeply about the meaning of the word.

This morning we held our annual Wai Kru/Teacher Appreciation Day ceremony during which the students were able to honour and pay respect to their teachers. Our teachers were also able to express their appreciation to their students for being special, independent, resilient, and hardworking.

My words of advice for the year ahead were to focus on 3 R’s

Respect - this is one of the most important values, so I wish us all to continue to respect ourselves, others and our environment throughout the whole year and have it at the forefront of our minds.

Resilience - keep building our resilience - students have shown how they can recover quickly from difficulties. I encourage the students to continue to  accept challenges and reach new heights knowing if it is a struggle or is difficult, they can recover. 

Relax - our students work hard at school and I know many have outside commitments but it is also important to find time to relax and reflect - they need to find a balance…

We also asked the students to show respect to their first and lifelong teachers…their parents and grown ups who surround them at home.

With the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, marking one of the most saddest days in the history of the United Kingdom and across the world, I feel it is very fitting to share the following quote from her.

 “But let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly of wisdom and we must always be ready to listen and respect other points of view."

Rest in Peace, your Majesty. 

Amanda Dennison

Principal

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A very warm welcome back to Term 1 of the 2022-23 academic year.

It has been wonderful to welcome back our returning students and families and all our brand new children and families to City Campus. 

This academic year marks our 5th year anniversary and we promise it will be an exceptional year. Since our official opening in 2018,  we've grown from strength to strength from 168 to now over 425 students. Our staff team has also grown as additional classes have opened year on year. We have a fabulous team and have exceptionally high staff retention rates, and some teachers even returning back to us!

Our first week has been eventful and lots of fun. On the very first day, Year 4 had a surprise Magic Show. This inspired their first theme of learning ‘Yesterday’s Magic, Today’s Science’. Our children were dazzled by the magician's ability to produce a variety of items with his bare hands, including a rabbit, a chicken and some birds!

City Campus celebrates a key value each month, our new value for September is ‘Respect’. During our assembly, we discussed the importance of respect - to respect ourselves, to respect others and to respect the environment. At City Campus, we know the importance of treating others with kindness and showing good manners. We also learnt about ‘Ubuntu’ which is from Southern Africa. Ubuntu is essentially about togetherness, and how all of our actions have an impact on others and on society. We look forward to exploring this concept more during this month.

We understand the excitement and anxiety that new parents experience when starting a new school, as always, we held our ‘New Parents Coffee Morning’ enabling families to connect, meet key members of staff and  learn all about our wonderful library - the most important place in our school. 

It’s going to be another magical year at City Campus. 

Amanda Dennison

Principal

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This week we had another very special moment in the history of City Campus… We hosted our very first Piano International Prize Winners Formal Recital which was our first musical cross-campus event and our first formal black tie event. It was a spectacular evening which brought together 18 extraordinary musicians from Year 1 through to Year 13 from both Riverside and City Campus.

I was especially delighted to welcome back Baimon, one of our City Campus alumni who played Scherzo by Chopin so beautifully.

It was also wonderful to hear Pam play again. Pam is a Year 13 music Scholar who I have known since she was in Year 2 when I was Head of the Primary School at Riverside - it has been a privilege to watch her musical journey; I was delighted to hear she will continue her studies in the UK at The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Exciting times ahead for her…

I'm also looking forward to this Saturday's Peace and Harmony Charity Concert at Aksra Theatre Bangkok, where our ‘Show Choir’ will be performing ‘Believer’ by Imagine Dragons by themselves, and also will be accompanied by the Bangkok Charity Orchestra and Harmonies Ladies Choir for other pieces.

Our value of the month is Reflection and was the focus of our Friday School Assembly. We looked back on the year and each year group and department shared the moment they were most proud of; so many to mention.  

We have had a challenging academic year due to COVID-19, but we  can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

As I type our very first Parent Reps Bake Sale is in full swing…….a lovely end to another busy week at Shrewsbury City Campus. 

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As the penultimate week of Term 2 draws to a close, I look back on a series of events - both on and off site - that reminds me of how proud I am to lead City Campus.

Last weekend, we joined forces with Riverside at the Bangkok Education Fair. I had the honour of presenting Shrewsbury International School Bangkok to a large group of interested parents, before joining Ms Okill, Angie from our Admissions Team and staff from Riverside on our joint exhibition stand to meet prospective parents and tell them more about City Campus. We are so fortunate to have such a beautiful site that is filled with talented and passionate staff who nurture each of our students as individuals. 

On Tuesday, we were excited to launch our City Campus Lecture Series. It is always a delight to open our doors to the wider Shrewsbury community, and as we continue to place safety at the top of our priorities, it was refreshing to be able to offer this opportunity for parents and friends to enjoy our inaugural lecture.

Dr Patcharin Trijaksang, a specialist in Paediatric Critical Care Medicine at Samitivej Hospital gave an engaging talk on Accident Prevention for Children at Home. Attendees had the rare and valuable opportunity to speak directly to an expert in the field of paediatric medicine, and this was both fascinating and informative.

Naturally, we take the safety of our students incredibly seriously at City Campus. Our children are encouraged to be adventurous and learn through trial and error, but always within the safety net of our purpose built, age-specific facilities. All members of our teaching staff are first-aid qualified and we are fortunate to have our own state-of-the-art medical centre, with a staff of medical professionals always on hand.

We are looking forward to the next City Campus lecture on the 10th May, which will focus on Music & Child Development. I encourage you to join this wonderful series of specialist talks that we have commissioned for parents of young children. For information about future lectures and to book your place, please visit the 'Events and Community' tab on our website. 

To bring the week to a close, we held a fundraising day for UNICEF Thailand. As pioneers in children’s education, safety and wellbeing, UNICEF’s mission is one we fully support. UNICEF functions to lessen the suffering of millions of children in over 190 countries and territories, to defend their rights and help them fulfil their potential, from early childhood through to adolescence. They work for every child, everywhere.

To show our support for the work of UNICEF, the children brought in a donation and wore their house shirts to represent the colours of national flags from around the globe, demonstrating our solidarity with the fight for equality and peace.

This support for UNICEF, and for the work the organisation does with children facing hardship, is a clear example of one of our school’s values - Care and Compassion - in action. Yet another reason to be proud of our City Campus community!

This week we held our very first Science Fair at City Campus; it was a huge success.

Our Science Lead, Miss Harries, drove the event from start to finish. Her passion for science is infectious, and her inspiration encouraged over 30 budding Scientists from Early Years through to Year 6 to participate.

As part of their project, the children had to design and conduct an experiment, record their findings and then create a presentation of their project in a visually interesting way.

What a stunning array of projects greeted our guests (children, teachers and a special parent viewing opportunity) as they arrived at our three-day exhibition.

Just a few examples of the questions investigated included:

• What creates a volcanic eruption?

• Which materials float and sink?

• Can black light find lost items at home?

• Will more dry ice make more or less gas than less dry ice?

• Can you create electricity from a lemon?

• What is the colour of sunlight?

• How does electrical conductivity change in different concentrations of Sodium Chloride Salt in water?

• How can you make an egg go into a bottle?

  

What inquisitive students we have, dedicated to independently researching their own interests and discovering fascinating results.

It is learning events like this that make City Campus such a special place for its community. This engaging Fair gave our students the opportunity to bring Science alive and to showcase their knowledge and skills to their friends, teachers and parents. This will definitely become a regular event in the annual City Campus calendar. I’ve overheard children already discussing and planning their investigations for next time…

I have always believed that Shrewsbury City Campus is a truly special place. Anyone who sets foot within our grounds can feel it almost instantly. 

We have a beautiful campus, but what makes a school special is the individuals who fill it. Our staff are like-minded with shared values and a passion for providing the very best, enriched and varied education one can find. In a city where staff retention percentages are low, City Campus stands out in the crowd with a staggering 97% of staff choosing to stay this year. 

Our students are provided with countless opportunities to flourish - each day they arrive at the gates with beaming smiles and leave in the afternoon with tired, but content, faces after a busy day of learning. Celebrating each other’s achievements and hobbies are actively encouraged through interest-led learning, producing empathetic and supportive individuals. 

We saw this support in action at this month’s Studio Music Recital. These fantastic musical events provide an opportunity for any student of any ability to get up on stage and perform in front of a supportive and appreciative audience. 

Children as young as four-years old performed, and for some of them, it was their very first time on the stage. As they climbed the stairs to take their place in front of the crowd, the loudest supporters were their peers. The Auditorium was filled with loud claps and words of encouragement from their friends and from the other performers, some of whom the young musicians had never even met before!

This City Campus generosity has also been seen in the preparations for our Open Morning this Saturday. Over 100 members of staff and pupils have volunteered their time to represent City Campus. With the support of Specialist and Class Teachers, Show Choir singers, Subject Leaders, Lifeguards, Teaching Assistants, Student Heads of School, Swim Team members, Maintenance, IT and Sport Coaches, the Campus will be truly brought alive. 

I was especially proud when one of our Year 6 students approached me directly to ask if he could volunteer to be a “School Ambassador” and speak to prospective families about our school. What an inspiring and supportive community to be a part of.  

If you would like to experience the magic of City Campus for yourself but were unable to join us on 21st May, please visit the ‘Events’ section of our website and register for our next Twilight Open House on the 29th June.

We hosted the second specialist talk in the City Campus Lecture Series this week which focused on music and child development. Miss Young, our Head of Music, led this fascinating presentation and reinforced my belief of the importance of Music in education. 

Music, as we know, is a universal language which has many benefits. It has the ability to conjure many different emotions within us, from happiness to sorrow, reflection and everything in between. Perhaps most commonly, we feel joy when we listen to Music. We all have our favourites and everyone has a band, a singer, a piece of music or a song which will instantly put them in a good mood. Some of mine include pop hits from the band ‘Abba’ and hearing our talented City Campus children play the piano or sing so beautifully on the Auditorium stage. 

Research has shown that the vast majority of Musicians are high achievers - academically, within leadership, on the sports field and socially. Musicians are able to manage busy schedules, are observant, hardworking, confident in public speaking, and most importantly, are happy.

This is unsurprising as Scientists have found that Music stimulates more parts of the brain than any other human function. Music alleviates stress, improves our sleep and our memory capacity. Music is healthy for us.

Whilst scientific evidence does suggest that starting to learn an instrument at a very early age is advantageous to brain development, it is never too late to start… Food for thought. 

Miss Young is an exceptionally experienced professional and is currently the Musical Director for the Bangkok Music Society, opening up more and more musical opportunities for our students.

One of these opportunities has included the Shrewsbury City Campus Show Choir being invited to perform with the Bangkok Music Society Orchestra in a charity concert. This fundraising event will be held here at City Campus on the 25th June 2022, and I look forward to sharing more details about this performance with you in the very near future. 

Music is central to a Shrewsbury education. Every student at City Campus is encouraged to pick up an instrument and take part in various choirs and ensembles for the reasons we have been discussing this week. There is truly something for everybody here. 

Why not join us and reap the proven benefits music provides…

We have a new Value of the Month - Honesty, such an important quality for everyone to exhibit.

In our first live and interactive assembly (much like pre-Covid days) I discussed with Years 3, 5 and 6 why it is so important to be honest. The children shared some of their thoughts, including; “if you tell the truth people trust you and want you to be your friend”, “being honest allows you to relax”, “if you tell the truth, even if it is admitting to something bad, you can learn from it”, “if you tell the truth, you won’t get in a muddle with your story” and, of course, “honesty is the best policy”.

One of the children shared a story about a time when they blamed their cat for spilling a glass of milk on the floor, but when their parents found that they had actually spilled the milk, they were reprimanded - not for spilling the milk, but for not being honest about the accident. They soon realised that if they had told the truth, they would have been in less trouble. I think this is a lesson that many of us learned during our youth! 

I read a beautifully illustrated book called ‘The Empty Pot’ by Demi; a story about a child who was honest, with a clear message that honesty is indeed the best policy. The combination of conversation and this story will have planted the seeds for further discussions, both in school and at home. 

Our Value of Month is one of the many ways we grow and develop a moral compass in our children. We aim to create not only academically strong students, but also individuals who are well-rounded and are kind, empathetic and recognise the importance of endeavours outside of the classroom. 

This week we saw these characteristics in action. Children in Year 1 spread joy all around our campus on Thursday when they visited members of staff and gifted handmade flowers. This act of kindness was inspired by their Literacy book ‘The Extraordinary Gardener’. Yet another inspiring story that we can learn so much from. 

The delighted expressions on all of our faces as we were presented with these beautiful handmade gifts showed how far a small act of kindness can go. Thank you, Year 1, for making our day even brighter.

We also celebrated the achievements of both Schweitzer House and Theresa House with ‘Pizza and Play’ parties this week. Through high-quality work, notable progress, and displaying fantastic attitudes towards learning, the children in these Houses had worked incredibly hard to secure the most House Points in terms 1 and 2.  

It was fantastic to recognise the efforts of these children with such well-deserved rewards. Through continuous and repeated conversations about our school values, we hope to see many more of these celebrations in the future. 

As you know our Nursery, Early Years and Key Stage 1 & 2 curriculums set the pathway for success in so many ways. 

On Saturday 21st May we will be welcoming prospective parents to an Open Day at City Campus where they will learn more about our curriculums, meet our School Leaders (including our fantastic children), tour our purpose-built campus and experience first-hand classes and activities with our Specialist Teachers. 

If you have any friends or family members who might be interested in learning more about City Campus, please encourage them to visit the ‘Events’ section of our school website, or alternatively use the QR code below to register their attendance. 

I am looking forward to sharing our wonderful community with the Open Day visitors.  

What a fantastic first week back and a great start to Term 3.

Science and Sustainability were the key focuses of this week, bringing a real sense of excitement across the whole campus. It was wonderful to dedicate a whole week to nurturing our students' natural curiosity through countless Science experiments and interesting discussions on topics surrounding the environment. 

It is so important for our children to understand the concept of sustainability and what they can do to create a better future for the world. The numerous environmental campaigns that our Science and Sustainability leads organised this week have certainly encouraged this type of thinking. From considering more meatless options at meal times to recycling our batteries and turning off our appliances, there are plenty of small changes we can each make that will make a big difference long-term for everyone. I will certainly be trying to adopt some of these suggestions and play my part in making the world a more sustainable place.  

On Tuesday, we hosted our second Floreat Award Afternoon Tea. Nominated for outstanding achievements, both in and out of the classroom, the Award recipients had demonstrated exemplary commitment to Shrewsbury values. Spending the afternoon with these inspiring individuals was truly a highlight of my week. It never fails to amaze me how remarkable our children are and I send my congratulations once more to these truly impressive students.  

This week, we also hosted some very special meetings in the Shrewsbury City Campus Boardroom. We have recently entered the F1 (Formula 1) in Schools Challenge, and Year 3 have worked very hard preparing their pitches over recent days. On Thursday, the children presented to the Senior Management Team to secure sponsorship for  ‘pitcoins’ that will be used to buy further resources. It was simply wonderful to see how our students have grown in confidence under the guidance of their Class Teachers, speaking clearly, concisely and with purpose. I can’t wait for Race Day! 

Thursday saw the recommencement of our Shrewsbury Starfish Playgroup. It was fantastic to welcome both familiar and new faces to our campus to play in our Nursery classroom and outdoor spaces. From splash play to scooters and arts and craft to story-times, there was something for every child to enjoy. 

If you and your family would like to attend one of our Starfish Playgroups, please sign-up for the next session via our website, or make contact with our Admissions team at: admissions-city@shrewsbury.ac.th

Staff have been busy planning sports fixtures, class trips, music recitals and a variety of parent events; our Term 3 Calendar looks fuller than it has been for two years and this really makes me smile… So many wonderful, enriching and fun opportunities for our children and community to look forward to as we race towards the end of this extraordinary academic year.

Exciting times ahead…

As we reach the end of the second term of our academic year, I look back with enormous appreciation and genuine pride in the way our wonderful City Campus community has worked together and supported everyone. 

Of course, the highlight of this week has been celebrating Songkran, the Thai New Year. Our Thai Studies Department organised an array of celebrations during this final week of term. Bamboo weaving, pagoda flag making and kite flying have all been included in our festivities and it has been wonderful to see the children’s sheer delight as they enjoy all that has been organised for them. 

We all enjoyed a very special Songkran assembly this morning. Years 4, 5 and 6 joined us in the Auditorium to participate in the palm watering ceremony, whilst the rest of the school watched from their classrooms over Zoom. We sorely miss having the whole community together in our Auditorium for our weekly assembly, but we remain connected through positivity and a shared sense of hope as we bring in the Thai New Year. 

Our students once again displayed their generous spirit by participating in our Sponsored Songkran Swim that was in aid of our school charities; Second Chance Bangkok, Thai Scholars of Sustenance and UNICEF. As always, we were delighted to see such generosity from our parents and the extended Shrewsbury community for supporting our children to support others. With our parents in partnership, we are developing kind, compassionate and thoughtful children who will go on to do great things in their futures. Our students once again displayed their generous spirit by participating in our Sponsored Songkran Swim that was in aid of our school charities; Second Chance Bangkok, Thai Scholars of Sustenance and UNICEF. As always, we were delighted to see such generosity from our parents and the extended Shrewsbury community for supporting our children to support others. With our parents in partnership, we are developing kind, compassionate and thoughtful children who will go on to do great things in their futures. 

We had the pleasure of hosting a visit from the Council of International Schools (CIS) for our Preparatory Evaluation earlier this week. The CIS accreditation process supports a structured opportunity for reflection, evaluation, future development and also ensures that we, as a school community, systematically and continuously improve. As always, it was a pleasure to show our beautiful campus to the evaluators, provide opportunities for them to speak to our students, parents and staff, and show them what a Shrewsbury education truly offers.

We also enjoyed fantastic performances from our talented young musicians at our April Studio Recital on Thursday. Beautiful renditions of Terzibaschitsch and Gossec, as well as family favourites from Aladdin and our school’s favourite, The Greatest Showman, delighted the audience. A very well done to all of the students who performed so professionally, and especially to those who took to the stage for their very first time! 

The Thai New Year brings change, transformation and hope for what is to come. Let us take these feelings forward into Term 3 and face the future together with optimism…

As the penultimate week of Term 2 draws to a close, I look back on a series of events - both on and off site - that reminds me of how proud I am to lead City Campus.

Last weekend, we joined forces with Riverside at the Bangkok Education Fair. I had the honour of presenting Shrewsbury International School Bangkok to a large group of interested parents, before joining Ms Okill, Angie from our Admissions Team and staff from Riverside on our joint exhibition stand to meet prospective parents and tell them more about City Campus. We are so fortunate to have such a beautiful site that is filled with talented and passionate staff who nurture each of our students as individuals. 

On Tuesday, we were excited to launch our City Campus Lecture Series. It is always a delight to open our doors to the wider Shrewsbury community, and as we continue to place safety at the top of our priorities, it was refreshing to be able to offer this opportunity for parents and friends to enjoy our inaugural lecture.

Dr Patcharin Trijaksang, a specialist in Paediatric Critical Care Medicine at Samitivej Hospital gave an engaging talk on Accident Prevention for Children at Home. Attendees had the rare and valuable opportunity to speak directly to an expert in the field of paediatric medicine, and this was both fascinating and informative.

Naturally, we take the safety of our students incredibly seriously at City Campus. Our children are encouraged to be adventurous and learn through trial and error, but always within the safety net of our purpose built, age-specific facilities. All members of our teaching staff are first-aid qualified and we are fortunate to have our own state-of-the-art medical centre, with a staff of medical professionals always on hand.

We are looking forward to the next City Campus lecture on the 10th May, which will focus on Music & Child Development. I encourage you to join this wonderful series of specialist talks that we have commissioned for parents of young children. For information about future lectures and to book your place, please visit the 'Events and Community' tab on our website. 

To bring the week to a close, we held a fundraising day for UNICEF Thailand. As pioneers in children’s education, safety and wellbeing, UNICEF’s mission is one we fully support. UNICEF functions to lessen the suffering of millions of children in over 190 countries and territories, to defend their rights and help them fulfil their potential, from early childhood through to adolescence. They work for every child, everywhere.

To show our support for the work of UNICEF, the children brought in a donation and wore their house shirts to represent the colours of national flags from around the globe, demonstrating our solidarity with the fight for equality and peace.

This support for UNICEF, and for the work the organisation does with children facing hardship, is a clear example of one of our school’s values - Care and Compassion - in action. Yet another reason to be proud of our City Campus community!

As another week draws to a close, we have so much to reflect upon and celebrate.

We celebrated World Maths Day this week with an abundance of creative learning opportunities taking place across the whole school and across all departments. The children were engaged, having fun and exploring their topic everywhere! In the Library, they enjoyed the challenge of using the Dewey Decimal System to find their books, whilst in Swimming, the children had a wonderful time playing Maths-based games in the pool. In Design & Technology, robots were programmed to draw different shapes, and in Music, an array of Maths themed songs were sung. The children even learnt how to do Maths calculations on ancient Chinese abacuses in Mandarin. A huge well done to our teachers for instilling such a love for this important subject.

This week, we also received the results from the 2021 International Dubbing Competition that was held by The Chinese Bridge Organisation. It is my absolute pleasure to announce that all 18 of our participants won ‘The Great Performance Award’. Shrewsbury City Campus also won ‘The Award for the Best Organisation’ and Mr Michael, who advised and supported our participants throughout the process, was quite deservedly awarded ‘The Outstanding Teacher Award’. This is an incredible achievement and I am very proud of our Mandarin team.

In our last assembly of March, we focused on our Value of the Month, ‘Creativity. We saw a whole range of talents showcased by our inspirational staff team including roller skating, painting, drumming, singing, sewing, tap dancing, robotics, and recorder playing to name but a few! As well as spotlighting some of the creative talents possessed by our teachers, our extremely talented student pianists (who have received over 50 international Awards between them) were also celebrated.

Shrewsbury City Campus is filled with truly outstanding individuals!

This week we have been surrounded by a sense of growth at City Campus.

It was wonderful to host our Parent Consultation meetings via Zoom this week. Our teachers are always excited to speak with parents about their child’s academic progress as well as their social and emotional growth and development. Our children are incredibly resilient and have achieved so much despite the challenges.

We have now moved into “Phase 3” of Covid protocols, meaning that year groups are allowed to safely mix outside. The children have loved being able to play with new and old friends, and have also enjoyed a range of You-Time activities after school. It almost feels like the pre-Covid days at times; we know we still have some way to go but we remain optimistic and very thankful for the opportunities and facilities we have at City Campus that allow us to enjoy this sense of normality.

Also moving forward, we have successfully launched a programme of Twilight Open House events for prospective families. It has been exciting to once again showcase our wonderful campus and community of staff, students and parents. The families that visited us this week were particularly interested in our pedagogy and were impressed by what they saw and heard. There is so much to talk about at City Campus; the architecture and design of our spaces, all purpose built with the younger learner in mind; the natural light that floods through the buildings, inspiring creativity and radiating positive energy, to our colourful year group bases and bespoke specialist areas. The list truly does go on.

Sometimes through the challenges of each day, one forgets to see the beauty right under your nose… so I thank everyone who visited this week and allowed me to once again talk passionately about our amazing school community and our unique and energetic campus.

If you do have friends or family who are interested in pursuing a Shrewsbury education for their children, please do invite them to register for a Twilight Open House event by visiting https://bit.ly/3oW0DNh. 

This week at City Campus we have enjoyed a series of events to celebrate remarkable individuals who have had a positive impact on our lives.

We began by marking International Women’s Day on Tuesday, inviting all students and staff to wear purple clothing to celebrate and honour inspirational women and their impact on the world we live in. It was a pleasure to see so many people join this initiative.

We also celebrated our first group of Floreat award winners this week. The Floreat award at Shrewsbury is designed to recognise the efforts of students from across the City Campus community who have flourished in their activities and achievements both within school and beyond, and in doing so, have helped to inspire fellow students to do the same. This award celebrates the very best of our sporting, music, design and technology achievements, as well as shining the spotlight on those whose efforts might otherwise go unnoticed. Thus, the Floreat honours a wide variety of students, not just those that excel in the classroom, but also those that embody Shrewsbury values.

The Floreat winners enjoyed an afternoon tea with Ms Okill and myself, and were also given a handwritten card to acknowledge their accomplishments. Being kind and empathetic; making incredible progress and staying resilient; being a committed sportsperson who is motivated and passionate and a valued member of various teams; displaying the school spirit and being 100% positive; showing good leadership skills and a real sense of optimism; were all notable traits in this month’s winners.

Children from Year 2 to Year 4 also had the chance to display their brilliance this week at an intimate Music Recital. It was a delight to see our students take to the Auditorium stage to showcase their talent and hard work. Whilst we are all missing the large recital performances we hosted in the pre-Covid days, having more regular and smaller music events has allowed children to feel even more special and have the chance to be under the spotlight for a little longer. 

It was wonderful to see some of our children performing on stage for the very first time, and do so with such confidence and grace. These students are truly inspirational and I send my thanks to the music department for providing opportunities for all our children, no matter their age or experience, to be seen and perform so beautifully.

Our main goal at Shrewsbury City Campus is to produce well-rounded children who will strive to be the best they can in all realms of life. Our school motto, Intus si recte ne labora (“If the heart is right, all will be well”), is at the very heart of all we do.

The future will be in secure hands…

What a wonderful time we have had celebrating Fully Booked Week!

We love to read at City Campus and this focus makes the week one of our favourites of the year! Thanks to our hard-working library team, we have had a jam-packed week filled with reading challenges, detective work to find a missing book character, virtual author visits and a book character dress-up day.

It has been a real pleasure to be in a different classroom each day to read some of my favourite short stories to the children whilst they enjoyed their snack prepared by our catering team. The children have been so attentive and inquisitive which has been a real highlight each day.

Both staff and children enjoyed various interactive workshops with visiting author, Sanprapha (Mimi) Vudhivorn. Early Years students had a fabulous time creating their own story book characters, whilst older children enjoyed asking Mimi lots of questions about what it was like to be an author and illustrator. I send my thanks to Mimi for taking the time to inspire us all at City Campus!

It was a joy to see all of the children dressed as their favourite book characters this morning. Ms Okill, Ms Betts and I greeted the children at the school gates dressed as Oompa Loompa’s from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was great fun! We had some golden tickets for children who had gone the extra mile with their outfits and recipients included students dressed as Jack and the Beanstalk, Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter, astronauts and pirates, to name a few. Mr Patrick and the library team gave a wonderful assembly and it was a pleasure to have some of our parents join us as well.

The second board of Governors’ meeting for this academic year also took place this week. It was a breath of fresh air to focus on future developments and opportunities for our children and our community - a sense we are pivoting into a new phase, edging into the future with optimism and purpose. I look forward to sharing how we will continue to immerse our students in all that a Shrewsbury education has to offer in the near future.

This week we have welcomed parents to two 'safe' events on site which has filled us hope for the coming months that we can only slowly and carefully begin to resume some normal activities... 

To see and hear our International Prize Winners perform at our very first recital in our auditorium for over a year brought tears to my eyes. Our talented pianists as young as 6 took to the stage with confidence and style to play pieces from Prokofiev, Burgmuller, Heller, to name drop a few, was simply delightful. The hours and hours of practice and dedication could be heard and shone through the outstanding performances; the selective audience of parents felt  very proud and privileged to be there. 

The hours and hours of practice and dedication could be heard and shone through the outstanding performances; the selective audience of parents felt  very proud and privileged to be there. 

'The Importance of Childhood Nutrition' was next on the agenda with an informative and clear presentation from Christina Sophonpanich. Christina is our nutritionist who advises and supports our catering team in ensuring our children have healthy balanced options to select at meal and snack times. Choosing what children should eat, managing nutrient deficiencies, navigating supermarkets, tips for home snacks and home cooking were discussed and debated.

One of my passions is enabling children to have a full understanding of the importance of nutrition. We have regular assemblies promoting the importance of a 'Rainbow Plate' which includes plenty of vegetables and fruit and a balance of varied foods with the appropriate ratio of food groups.

At City Campus we also have specially designed Food Technology spaces, one for both Early Years to access and one for our primary aged children. We believe it is important for children to learn to cook, as this covers many subjects - maths, language, science, creativity, well-being and sustainability. In addition, cooking enables children to understand food ingredients - where they come from, how it is grown and to also feel excited about the social function of food as it is a powerful means of connecting people and cultures.

This week was Children’s Mental Health week. The theme for the week was ‘Express Yourself’. Through this theme, we promoted an understanding of how self-expression can relieve us of stress whilst helping to free our minds. 

It is all about communicating our individuality which can be through words, clothing, hairstyle or through art forms such as writing, drawing, music and dance.

Classes across the school celebrated in their own unique way.

Instead of the usual timetable, specialist and non-specialist lessons were replaced with opportunities to build on children’s wellbeing e.g. mindfulness, active/outdoor learning, social Zoom calls with hybrid learners, team building games and more…

We also had two main activities to connect us together:  

Firstly we had an interactive art installation for children, parents and our Shrewsbury community. The project asked six questions relating to wellbeing, which are represented by different coloured threads:

What makes you happy; angry; think; create; change; and hopeful?

We chose which question to answer and used the corresponding thread to hook around the words that were relevant to us.  

Secondly we held a ‘Dress to Express’ Day. Children and staff were invited to dress however they like in order to express themselves.

Choices included superheroes, leather jackets, feathered sleeves, sequins, a favourite colour, onesies, cultural costumes and rollerblades. 

We have had a fabulous week on campus celebrating Chinese New Year. 

Our Mandarin team organised a wonderfully informative assembly where the children shared New Year traditions, played traditional Chinese instruments and explained the meaning of the zodiac signs.

Dragon dances and singing ensured we were all in a celebratory mood…. we even had a glimpse into a student's home in China as she prepared for her celebrations while learning with us remotely.

Our assembly was professionally introduced by our confident MC’s from Year 3 to Year 6 (together via green-screen technology while in their safe class ‘bubbles’ - amazing)

The school was decorated so beautifully and created a vibrant atmosphere…..a very uplifting and special occasion.

2022 is the Year of the Tiger, which represents strength, courage and bravery. Those born in the tiger years, according to the zodiac system, are said to be brave, passionate and eager to take on challenges – but sometimes rebellious, overconfident and stubborn.

In this Year of the Tiger, let's follow the tiger’s lead and be brave, strong, smart and most importantly, seize opportunities.

This week, our wonderful Mandarin Department have been preparing our campus and children for  Chinese New Year. The school is adorned with beautiful red lanterns and a celebration wall reflecting the year of the Tiger…..we are looking forward to our celebrations next week.

We also awarded our Chinese New Year Card competition winners with a special prize containing their designs…well done to Ryu (pictured), Sineh and Emika. 

Also this week, the children have been discussing their hopes and dreams for the future. We have received some wonderful thoughts and ideas that we shared in assembly…..a number of themes shone through. 

Personal ambitions included being an artist, a designer, a scientist, a professional and famous pianist, a teacher, a gymnast, an actress, a firefighter, an author of non-fiction book, a professional footballer, and to be a kind hero.

As with all of us, the children also said they are hoping for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, so they can play with all their friends freely, they want to travel and be healthy and look after the planet; they want to be able to fly and reach the stars, go camping, read more books, care for their mums and dads, help people make friends, grow fruits, encourage people to be satisfied with what they have, a hope that everyone can be who they want to be……..I am relieved that our future is in such creative and caring hands.

You can hear more of the children’s hopes and dreams via our social media platforms. 

Have a happy and safe weekend, everyone.

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.

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!

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…..

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

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".

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!

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?

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. 

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. 

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.

This week, we’ve been helping our City Campus parents to take time out of their busy lives to invest in their own wellbeing.

During this week's Tea & Topics event for parents, the main piece of advice was to ensure that we carve daily wellbeing activities/time in for ourselves as parents - if we don’t do this for ourselves, how can we provide it for our children? 

A bit like advice given on airlines when we are asked to secure the oxygen mask on ourselves first. This always makes me smile and it can seem counter-intuitive, but it's true!

We also focused on the importance of our connection with nature. This is so important. Even in our fantastically urban city of Bangkok, we can all find ways to enjoy the benefits of the natural world around us. 

For decades, nature writers have advised us to spend more time in nature. Even before the time of pandemic, the average person spent more than 10 hours a day in front of a screen. What is even more alarming -  less than 30 minutes a day was spent outside .

Research confirms that getting outdoors into nature is good for our health and wellbeing. 

It reduces:

• blood pressure;
• heart rate;
• the production of stress hormones;
• muscle tension, and;
• anxiety.

It increases:

• good mood;
• self-esteem;
• immune system functionality;
• attention span;
• academic performance, and;
• levels of relaxation.

Dr Matthew White’s (2019) extensive research study* found that the optimum time for us to spend in nature was 120 minutes per week. 

Dr White concluded that those who spent two hours a week in green spaces — local parks or other natural environments, either all at once or spaced over several visits — were substantially more likely to report good health and psychological well-being than those who didn’t.
 
All studies on the positive and healing benefits of nature are pointing in one direction...Nature is not only nice to have, but it’s a have-to-have for physical health and cognitive function.”

Research done in hospitals, offices, and schools has found that even a simple plant in a room can have a significant impact on stress and anxiety. For decades, these findings have been driving outdoor learning environments for children. 

“Forest Schools” are a key part of early years education in the UK. This concept allows most of the children’s learning takes place outside. Stomping through puddles, scrambling over fallen logs and digging in the dirt with sticks are core parts of the curriculum. We are proud to have Forest Schools at Shrewsbury Bangkok, at both City Campus and Riverside, for our youngest learners to benefit daily from the great outdoors. 

Like us all, children are from nature and because of this  they connect with it so effortlessly . Being around nature for children is so important for their healthy development, equanimity and sense of peace.

When children interact with nature, they interact at a deep, deep level. They are in flow,  living in an organic play environment where they find objects that they feel are close to their own selves. Nothing is the same, nothing is static or flat,  things come exactly in the shapes and forms that life has to offer. We would do well as adults to remind ourselves of what it is like to be a child and let ourselves pause, power off, unplug, breathe deeply and enjoy the benefits of nature for 2 hours a week.

Where can you go this weekend to hug a tree?

*Source: White, M., Alcock, I., Grellier, J., Wheeler, B., Hartig, T., Warber, S., Bone, A., Depledge, M., Fleming, L. (2019) Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing, Scientific Reports, 9: 7730.  

This week we celebrated the International Day of Peace. A shared date where every human around the world is invited to think about the absence of war and contributions they can make towards building a culture of peace. 

To honour this day at City Campus, we gathered virtually as a community, dressed in white and blue, the two colours that represent peace.

Peace Day is on 21st September every year. The United Nations - a intergovernmental organisation that works hard to build friendly relationships between counties - invites countries who are at war to put down their weapons, stop the shooting,  stop the  bombing, stop the fighting and violence for 24 hour and honour peace for the whole of the day.

Ms Betts led a reflective and thoughtful assembly, talking of hope for a peaceful world.

Right now, this very minute, sadly there are wars and  conflicts happening in almost 40 different countries around the world. Most of them are  in the Middle East, North West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The worst are in Mexico, Yemen and  of course Afghanistan.

Children as young as the children in our school live in countries at war, they are hurt, hungry and scared every single day. They hear gunshots, air attacks and see terrifying devastation and destruction of their homes, towns and cities. 

International Peace Day isn’t just about  the absence of war, it is about making a yearly commitment to being a peaceful person. It is about committing to doing your  bit to promote a culture of peace and love  within your community, whether that is within your family, your neighbourhood, your school, your country or indeed your world. 

On International Peace Day, people all around the world  gather together to celebrate peace. These celebrations often involve the lighting of candles as a symbol of peace. 

This year the theme is’ Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world’. A difficult one to understand at first. 

The recovering  is about countries working together to make sure  the world gets better, heals and recovers from Covid-19. The equitable is about countries helping each other to make the world more equal and fair and the sustainable  is about counties making sure the positive changes made last for a long time.

There is a lot to try and understand about this year's Peace Day theme. Ms Betts read a  story to the children called ‘A Child’s Garden’, a story of hope by Michael Foreman to explore the theme.

It is a story of recovery and survival, one of collaboration and hope for a brighter future.

A  story of connectivity and hope. Two children in a country at war working together to ensure the recovery and survival of a grapevine that grows to have deep strong roots and will remain forever doing it’s part in making a better, more beautiful  world for children. 

You may wish to mark this day in your homes this weekend, and so we invite you to light your candle for peace…..

Today we had a wonderful virtual wai kru ceremony, led beautifully by our students and our Thai Studies department. Our children were able to express their gratitude towards their teachers in a symbolic way online; it felt very special as always.

Ms Bell, our Year 2 Team Leader, talked proudly of the memories of her teachers and the way they inspired her and instilled her absolute love of reading; including her first and forever teacher - her Dad!

My message of advice/guidance to the children each year usually begins with a particular letter to help us remember them. This year I chose the letter ‘S’:

Safety: With COVID changing all our lives this has to be a first priority - for the children to remember their responsibility in following rules to keep themselves and others as safe as they possibly can.

Success & Shine: Inspired by the meaning of incense stick and candles as explained during the assembly. My advice to children was to continue to work hard and to do their very best  to succeed and most importantly, reflect and be proud of what they personally achieve and allow themselves to ‘shine’.

Speak Out: I encouraged children to focus on finding their voice – whether that is  contributions in class; if they are unsure, to ask; if they have a view that is  different to others to learn how to put their view forward and disagree politely and  if they see an injustice or something that is not right or not following our school values to have the courage to challenge it

The traditional selection of flowers given to teachers during wai kru is significant, and each flower has a meaning. As I say every year and most importantly, as the eggplant flower in the wai kru bouquet symbolises, we must always remember to be kind to each other……….always......

We are staying connected virtually and doing all we can to ‘walk the talk’ of our Value of the Month, which is Connectivity. 

Our students are wholly connected to their online learning, proven by another great week of attendance with 99% in our classes across the school. Children have been excited to start Term 1, meet their new teachers and classmates and connect with the wider Shrewsbury community.

We are taking every opportunity we can to connect with our parents virtually. We miss seeing you every day at the school gate. 

This week we have had two successful meetings. The first with all the brand new families to Shrewsbury City Campus. It was lovely to see everyone. We introduced key players, had a presentation about all our Library has to offer from our newly appointed librarian, Patrick Durkan. Ruth Boxer, our Marketing Manager explained our methods of communication with parents and time was given to ask questions.

Shrewsbury Bangkok hosted a cross-campus consultation meeting with parents who are health professionals to discuss ‘Living with COVID-19’.

In this initial meeting, we  outlined the current state of play from the authorities here in Bangkok and focused our discussion on:

• What ‘Living with COVID-19’ looks like
  The possibilities of reopening schools and key risk factors
• The ongoing systems and structures that schools might benefit from
• Consideration of next steps and further conversations

At the conclusion of this very informative partnership meeting we are in a strong informed position to review material and then consider next steps.  Thank you to all the members of our Shrewsbury community for your ongoing support.

A very warm welcome back to Term 1 2021. 

Our children all return to their classes this week, excited and eager to learn. The staff team were impressed by their focus and contribution. Everyone is happy!

We are of course starting the term online, and the connection across our community remains strong.

‘Connectivity’ is our new value of the month focus. It was introduced in our live Zoom assembly this morning.

At the start of a new school year, investing in good connections is an absolute must! Everybody feels valued if there are good connections and good communication.

I shared some top tips on ways to connect well in our school right now. We talked about:

• Being on time and attending all lessons (Via Zoom) to connect with friends and teachers and learn together.
• Listening carefully and paying attention. When someone is talking to you, listen. …give eye contact ….think about what is being said….small gestures can show you are listening - nodding your head , not slumping in your chair, thumbs up, smiling….. 
• Asking questions and seeking feedback
• Remembering a person's name - on Zoom you cannot always pick up the cues that someone is looking at you or talking to you, so listen out for your name, and use other people’s names too.
• Making great connections by showing you care and by showing kindness. Be encouraging, positive, uplifting, and supportive. Say thank you for small things and big things….. People love feeling appreciated and cared about. They will feel more connected to you when you show that you value them. 
• In order to connect well with people that you meet or already know …...it is important to  connect with yourself. If you have a good connection with yourself, it will help you connect with others.

I shared one of my favourite stories, ‘The Soul Bird’ by Michal Snunit which encourages children and adults alike to listen to their emotions and connect with yourself….in turn this will help us connect with others.

Our superb music department gave us two wonderful live performances to connect us all through song: ‘One Moment’ and ‘Believe’- both beautifully reflective and inspirational songs.

It was absolutely amazing to see all the children’s smiling faces as we begin this new academic year. It felt so powerful to see them. We were connected.

Many children were wearing their House Shirts which was a delight to see, ready for the announcement of this week's winners - it was ‘King’ House, by the way!

This week saw our last whole-school staff Zoom of the term, to say farewell as we prepare for our summer break. Seeing us all together was quite overwhelming and emotional. We’ve all been cocooned in our own little bubbles, and learned how to stay connected virtually in these usual times. 

How the world has changed. I am continually proud of our outstanding staff team at City Campus. 

It was an absolute pleasure this week to host our Year 6 drive-through Graduation - red carpet, music, starfish awards, leavers books, personaliSed cookies, certificateS and that all important Class of 2021 photograph were collected safely by each of our leavers with Hollywood-style family photographs taken in abundance!

We look forward to following the journey of our wonderful alumni at Riverside, other schools and beyond.

It is the last day of term, the last day of this academic year. What a journey we have been on. Time to reflect and rest for a while away from our screens…..

We must all find our own ways to recuperate during these summer months - we have all been on an epic journey and it is important now to take time to be kind to ourselves.

Have a wonderful summer everyone and stay safe.

Throughout this time of online learning, our senior management and teaching teams have prioritised our children’s wellbeing alongside their academic development. This theme has prompted to me to ask a series of questions this week...

What healthy choices are we making?

We have had a fun focus on fitness this week with our enthusiastic PE department ensuring we all get moving. It was inspiring to see so many children and their families up early ready to join in the fun and get their bodies awake ready for the day.

How are we connecting to nature?

Our Nature Bags have been ‘whizzing off the shelves’ and it has been good to connect with families as and when they are being collected. Activities include a STEM construction challenge, some shallot planting, bird house building and monster-making, to mention just a few!

How do we make time to relax?

Our Virtual Book Fair has also been successful this week. Our children always love to read - and City Campus has seen hundreds of books borrowed via its Click & Collect service during this current period of school site closure. 
 
The importance of reading is key and underpins a Shrewsbury education. I myself am looking forward to the summer break to have some space to read and relax. 

How do we stay in touch with friends and family?

One week until the end of yet another very extraordinary year. It is important to stay connected during this time and ‘Connection’ will be our first value back when we return after the holidays. As a community I feel we have tried our best to remain connected virtually and sincerely look forward to real face to face connections next term.

A busy (socially distanced!) week on campus, with many highlights. As with all educational establishments across the world, we have faced the necessity of moving our extensive school events programme online. We are grateful for the opportunity to continue our community-building values via virtual platforms.

It was lovely to host a welcome event for our new EY1 2021 families. Our new cohort of parents and children were very excited to get to meet their class teachers and teaching assistants. The families were given an extensive introduction to our Early Years and how we will start our new term. 

We also hosted a live onsite tour of our campus for prospective families, who were able to enjoy our welcoming and informative school tour experience in the comfort of their own home. Myself, Ms Betts and Ms Cath ventured around the whole campus sharing our beautiful spaces bringing them to life while explaining our values, pedagogy and curriculum. 

A few families also opted to book our safety-checked pre-booked individual tours onsite with our Admissions Team. It was wonderful to welcome them.

Congratulations to Year 2, who attended their graduation online today. This marks an important milestone for this year group at Shrewsbury, as they prepare to transition into Year 3 with a new uniform, a new floor in the primary school building and a set of increased responsibilities within their learning.

End-of-year reports for City Campus students are going out today in preparation for Parent-Teacher meetings next week. 

Our final two weeks of term are packed full of exciting events, including an author visit, a virtual book fair, year group transition activities, class parties and a whole-school Sports Day, all hosted virtually of course. 

As I type, our second round of extremely popular Take a Break Bags being prepared by our wonderful TAs for our children to enjoy - I may sneak one home too - they are amazing! This time, we’ve designed the bags with a ‘Back to Nature’ theme - as we continue to bear in mind the wellbeing of our children, and the gift of time away from their screens. 

City Campus is certainly not slowing down as we reach the end of term! 

This week we started our new value of the month, which is ‘Trust’. 

We have been discussing with the children the importance of trust and how we can nurture this value within ourselves and put it into action.

How can we be a trustworthy person and what does this look like in practice? Here are a few of my reflections:

• Be true to your word and follow through with your actions
• Learning how to communicate effectively with others, which is always an ongoing focus here at City Campus.  
• Allowing ourselves time to make decisions and think before acting too quickly.
• Helping our children understand that it takes time to build and earn trust.
• Leading by example in proving the value of trust, and that it is a key character trait to want to have. 

We’ve been seeing trust in action this week at City Campus, during our special online transition events, hosted for our parents by our fantastic Early Years Team Leaders.

Our parents trust us to thoroughly prepare and guide our students through key transitional milestones in the Early Years, and the exciting steps taken into Year 1 in the primary school.

We’re looking forward to seeing our youngest learners flourish in their new year groups, as we see the trust play out between our children, their parents and our teaching teams. 

As we continue to safely work in our own bubbles we are managing to find creative ways to connect virtually, to have some fun and to socialise.

The staff who are working on site have theme days for our dress code, for example a special colour, animal print...'Under the Sea' was a bit challenging, but today's theme of sparkles was easy for me!

Our children connect 'live' with their teachers and classmates everyday, as we continue to maintain a strong and well-balanced online curriculum for our students. Whole year groups have got together for singing, sharing stories and other immersive activities. Today, our Year 2’s had a wonderful session altogether, delivered by local plant experts Tiny Tree - the children created their own mini terrariums, their very own living world in a jar.

We’ve had live workouts with over 100 children joining in with our Head of PE Ms Buehler; it’s so important for us to keep active and moving during these restrictive times.

The staff have been connecting via Zoom at ‘playtimes’ for informal chats which has been great fun too. Our Social Committee are running a full programme of after-school Zoom events to support staff wellbeing through connecting and ‘downtime’ activities

Our new staff who are excited to be joining us in August have been connected to a ‘buddy’ to support and welcome them to our community, as they prepare to join our ever-expanding team.

Next week we will connect virtually with our Governors for our third and final meeting of the academic year

The joys of connecting, socialising and having fun together is still crucial for keeping our spirits up. Across all channels in our City Campus community, we are finding imaginative and fruitful ways to stay connected in these unique times. 

This week at City Campus we have had a strong focus on supporting our chosen charities.

However tough we are finding these challenging times we are lucky enough to be able to always find the silver linings.

Many more communities are not so lucky and it is important that we reach out and  support each other in whatever way we can, however big or however small.

As part of their ‘Charity’ topic this term, Year 5 have been learning about local charities here in Bangkok. In particular they have been researching Second Chance Bangkok (SCB) and the wonderful work they do with the community of Khlong Toei.

SCB relies on donations which creates employment and they also run an upcycling project transforming clothing into beautiful bags and giftware.

Ms Kearns and the Year 5 children organised two events for our school community, to support the fantastic causes at SCB. Firstly a Donations Drive to collect dried food goods and secondly a  'PJ Day'  for the whole school community to take part in today.

Whether in the office or at home on Zoom, all of the City Campus children and staff took part to have some fun and more importantly to raise awareness and raise money for this wonderful organisation.

Meanwhile earlier this week, our dedicated Community Engagement team set out for a 'big shop' at their local Makro store to buy essential supplies for SCB and another one of our charity partners SOS Thailand. The team purchased masks, food, water, cooking equipment, hygiene products and hand sanitiser. 

Finally to top of a fantastic week of giving, City Campus was able to make a 35,000THB donation to worldwide children's charity Unicef. Thank you to all who have donated to the school’s Charity Fund so far, you have made this all possible.

I drove to work this morning with ‘Bear Nobel’ (who worked from home with me last week) by my side, so I could film the announcement of this week's House Point winners in school (the correct House shirt must be worn for the big reveal!). 

As I reached the school gates, I was delighted to see all the ‘Take a Break Bags' were lined up beautifully, ready for our families to collect with exciting activities to pursue together (away from a screen). There is a warm welcome as there always is from Loong Jai, our wonderful loyal and friendly security guard.

These bags represent the spirit and the drive of my team - from the inspiration for the content, the creativity of the teachers and the fabulous team work, energy and commitment to have them ready in time for the weekend for the children.

Families drive up to collect the bags and we have the opportunity to see some of the children’s excited smiling faces...My spirits were lifted, even before I reached my desk.

Here in Thailand we continue to navigate our situation as many more cases of COVID-19 are being reported. I am generally a very optimistic and positive person, but I know that many of us are beginning to feel deflated with all the continued uncertainty. 

However, I remain extremely proud of the dedication of our students, our wonderful parents and our amazing staff team.

As we start the month of May - with the school site closed and online learning in full swing - it does seem fitting that our value of the month is ‘Uniqueness’.

We are in unique times, and everyone is experiencing and coping with the challenges in their very  own way. It is really important to hold on to a sense of ‘self’ who you are, your values, goals and what you stand for. We need to stay strong.

To be a unique person means that you are one of a kind and no other person is exactly like you. This uniqueness partly comes from within, shown through our actions and behaviours. 

Bella, one of our founding pupils and a City Campus alumni, wrote a wonderful insightful and progressive award-winning book called Lemon Boi. The story follows a restless yellow lemon who looks at other fruits and decides to try out different identities and appearances. The moral of the story is that we must learn to be our unique selves and not try to fit into any particular box, develop your own sense of identity and be yourself…...

As we focus on uniqueness this month, why not try to embrace it and  develop yourself further, discover more and explore your true self…….

The quote reflection in our community this month is: “As we grow as unique individuals we learn to respect the uniqueness of others.”

Before the recent school site closure, Ms Dennison gave a special reading of Bella's award-winning book, Lemon Boi. Watch here:

This week, our new ‘Value of the Month’ is launched for  April - ‘Responsibility’. 

I talk a lot about coming together as a community; with this I also mention the importance of a sense of personal responsibility too. 

What I mean by that is taking responsibility for yourself; for your actions and words and for your decisions and choices. 

We all make both good and bad choices; no matter what age we are. It is only through taking responsibility for our choices, both the good and the bad, that we can reflect, take full ownership of our actions and allow ourselves to learn from them and most importantly to grow, mature and change. 

The past twelve months - for myself and for us all - have seen unprecedented change to our daily lives. Many things outside of our control have dictated the ways in which we interact with others, how we travel and how we live. But in taking responsibility for our own reactions and emotions; for how flexible we allow ourselves to be and how willing we are to see the silver linings (however small!) I believe we take back a sense of control. 

This is the message that I will be taking to all of our children over the next month. I believe a sense of responsibility over personal actions and decisions dovetails so naturally with a wider sense of responsibility for your friends, your family and your community. 

As our children grow and as many of them will, I believe, take up positions in life with great influence - I hope that this message of responsibility is remembered...and that ultimately, it starts with yourself. 

We are here! We have reached the end of Term 2 and the Songkran holidays begin!

...I say this with a tinge of sadness and anxiety as Thailand enters another period of rising COVID cases. We all await news and information of the restrictions and safety measures that will be put in place over the holiday period.

Songkran is an important event in Thailand’s Buddhist calendar; it is a festival of water and marks the beginning of the traditional Thai New Year. The name Songkran comes from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘passing’ or ‘approaching’.

This year, the streets won’t be filled with crowds of people throwing buckets of water, neither will we see water pistols being used and the familiar trepidation of being absolutely soaked (and the thrill of soaking absolutely everyone one in the vicinity!) will be replaced with something quieter and more reflective to start the new year.

What remains the same however is family.

Appreciation of family is an important aspect of the festival, with many Thai people making their way to their home towns to spend time with relatives. Buddhists also visit temples throughout Songkran, where water is poured on Buddha images and on the hands of Buddhist monks as a mark of respect. It is a time to refresh, to revitalise and to reset the balance.

I wish you a positive and refreshing period of revitalisation and reset over the coming weeks: whether you are in Thailand and celebrating the festival or – for that matter - wherever you may be in the world. 

What will this year bring we wonder? We have had so many challenges already. Nevertheless, I take solace in the knowledge we have all travelled through them together, we have built resilience together and we have learnt how to manage scenarios we never thought possible. We have seen the world from a totally different perspective…and sometimes, perhaps, that’s necessary. We will remain strong and hopeful.

I wish you a beautiful and graceful start to the year.

Happy Songkran Everyone!
 
สวัสดีวันสงกรานต์
 
        sà-wàt-dee wan Songkran

This week I’ve been thinking about community. Specifically, I was thinking about a sense of community which many of us strive for and which, for a few, they’re incredibly lucky to already be a part of. 

I feel incredibly lucky. It goes without saying that I very much feel a huge sense of community when I’m here at City Campus and I speak a lot about this; about our families and our staff, via social media and other digital channels...

...last weekend however, I got the chance to thank our community in person for the first time since lockdown. 
On Saturday 20 March we hosted an Easter Family Fun Day here on campus; a celebration of colour, fun and (yes, that’s right…) COMMUNITY!

There was so much happening! We had Easter crafts and games, a swimming competition, live music and singing….we had extremely cute animals from our friends at Farm de Lek, which the children loved to feed and experience up close, we had a fairground train ride, photo booth and even some colourful clowns walking around making balloon animals...and I haven't even mentioned the many many market stalls selling delicious food, drink and craft products. 

That’s when I started thinking about community - the seed that has been in my mind all week. It dawned on me how much I had missed that physical interaction - the smiles, the spontaneous conversations and laughter - that only comes from real and interactive engagement. 

I was so happy to be able to be part of an event which thanked our community and which reminded me again about how much we all share. I believe the sense of belonging to something - the interdependence which comes from this - is such a positive thing. It's certainly true that we teach our children about independence and personal responsibility - but this goes hand-in-hand, I believe, with an acknowledgement of belonging; membership to a shared feeling of connectedness. 

This weekend, I hope you are able to find your sense of community in whatever guise that might be. The wonderful thing about a sense of community is exactly that - it’s a sense. A feeling. There is no set structure or organisational right or wrong. It’s a sense of belonging to something - and wanting to belong to something - which I believe we all share.  

Please take a moment to think about all that you’re part of; the people and the shared experiences that bring you together with others - and take a moment to be thankful for your community, wherever they may be.   

Tomorrow, 20th March, is International Day of Happiness. 

It’s been a dedicated day to be happy since 2013. In fact, it was the United Nations (UN) which first celebrated International Day of Happiness as a way to recognise the importance of this vital emotion in the lives of people all around the world. 

Six years ago the UN launched the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which were set out with the aim to end poverty, reduce inequality, and protect our planet – three key aspects that lead to well-being and happiness. 

Each year the United Nations invites everyone; of every age; every classroom, business and government to join in the celebration of this international day and I think it’s one of the very best: a whole day dedicated to feeling happy! 

In preparation for tomorrow, City Campus embraced their own happiness day today by inviting everyone to dress in clothes that made them feel happy and to style their hair differently in ‘Wacky Hair Day’. The purpose was to make us all smile and have fun - as well as raising money for our 3 chosen charities: Scholars of Sustenance, Second Chance Bangkok and UNICEF.  

The day started with happy tunes being blasted out through the school's sound system; children and staff dancing into school in their colourful creative attire!

Year 2 children were amazingly confident in their polished assembly which launched our special day. Children shared what makes them happy  - and friends and family were top of the list! They also made pledges of happiness and told us about the importance of sharing happiness with others. It reminded me that a smile is contagious and the words of the song they sang so beautifully reflected that sentiment:

When you're smilin', when you're smilin'
The whole world smiles with you
When you're laughin', when you're laughin'
The sun comes shinin' through

I invite everyone to write down the things that make you happy. I bet you’ll be surprised how long that list will be! Then, like the children, make a pledge of what you will commit to doing to ensure our world is a happy place….

3, 2, 1….go! 

My thoughts this week turn to connection and collaboration. We really are such a global village and I just love this idea. 

This week we had our Board of Governors meeting. Despite not being able to travel, we were all connected online from the Boardroom at City Campus, to the Boardroom at Shrewsbury UK School and to our CEO at his offices in China. It is just amazing how this last year has changed and realigned our thinking about what’s possible. Our meeting was just as purposeful, productive and future thinking as always - with continued support, guidance and ‘critical friend’ conversations as valuable as ever.

City Campus this week also hosted a Leadership Seminar, which was focused on Global Citizenship. This was led virtually by ‘Global Citizen’ Rob Unwin, who is currently based in the UK. He facilitated some thought provoking, stimulating discussions around perceptions, perspectives, critical literature and bringing a balanced view to our curriculum and teaching pedagogy. 

He focused our thoughts on how we can challenge assumptions and he highlighted the interdependency of our global world. All of the products and services we take for granted - they all depend on a global network of collaboration and communication; a simple concept which really hit home. In a world where we may sometimes feel isolated (especially at a time where travel isn't possible), I took comfort in the idea that everything around us is the product of such a network of partnership and of people working together.  

And finally, today, I attended the virtual FOBISIA Heads Business Meeting. FOBISIA stands for the ‘Federation of British International Schools in Asia’ and once again the idea of connection and collaboration was highlighted as I talked with schools from across Asia. I love how we work together to support each other and, ultimately, to ensure our children have fantastic opportunities. 

I believe our global village of established connections brings with it a growing network of strength and possibilities.

Right now we may be a world apart, but we are connected. Our new future?

We have had such a fabulous first week back after the holidays; a week which was full of literature and imagination. The campus has been buzzing with excitement as children and staff fully embraced our ‘Reading around the World’ book week events and activities.

At the moment we can’t travel the world easily; but in true ‘Silver Linings’ fashion, we brought the world to us with words. Words from all over the world and from so many different perspectives and voices. 

I read a lot of books when I was a child and I remember being fascinated by faraway places (like Thailand!) as I read from my cosy corner in Morecambe; a small seaside town in the northwest of England. When I was a child I couldn’t travel much either, and I think books and stories, which come to us so freely, bring us tremendous wisdom, excitement and adventure. That’s why I’ve been so thrilled to see our children ‘Reading around the World’, with each child having a focused country to explore and a ‘Reading Passport’ challenge to encourage the reading of books and stories from every continent…

…and talking of different continents; Andy Wright, an amazing international storyteller, joined us in a series of captivating virtual sessions all the way from New Zealand. It was beautiful to see all our children totally absorbed as Andy painted pictures with words from a Mauri perspective.

The final celebration of the week was a wonderful Book Day assembly. Students dressed as characters from their favourite books and we saw such a wide variety: Harry Potter, Frida Kahlo, Frogs, Astronauts, Little Red Riding Hood, Cruella Deville and (nearly)101 Dalmatians, ‘Where’s Wally?’, Matilda, Miss Trunchbull, Fairies, Caterpillars, JellyFish, Cowboys, a full range of superheroes and so much more - please watch out for all the photographs we will share!

If you’re not already reading something - please pick up a book soon and dive in. Our children are learning to love literature and they’ve reminded me just how much I love it too!

#CultureAtShrewsbury

This week we celebrated Chinese New Year, which was organised by our truly talented Mandarin team. I’m constantly amazed at the dedication, expertise and enthusiasm of our staff and this week was without exception. 
 
Children enjoyed a fascinating assembly, not only hearing about the Chinese provinces our team come from but also learning about the traditions which take place over this important event. I was wowed with the children's knowledge of CNY when they participated in a special quiz; getting 100% of the questions correct. Who knew that dumplings represent prosperity because of their resemblance to ancient Chinese ‘ingots’ (used as currency for centuries in China)?! Certainly not me! 
 
Continuing with our Chinese New Year theme - the school has been an absolute hive of activity! It’s so lovely to see a working campus again:
 
Children have been making New Year cards, creating Ox horn hats, Chinese rattle drums and participating in Chinese funfair activities: ‘the Fishing game’, ‘Fruits on head’, ‘Chopsticks vs Ping Pong ball’ and ‘the Pitch-Pot game’. All of this was set against an elegantly decorated campus, with traditional lanterns and dragons...and on Thursday all of the staff and the students dressed in their finest Chinese attire. It felt incredibly special. 
 
We’re coming out of the Year of the Rat. Last year, forecasts said that a flexible and open mind would make our life much easier - we were also told to keep a lookout for opportunities and make the most out of them. Well - we certainly had to do that last year!! Although there were big challenges, this is exactly what we did as a community.

This year, the Year of the Ox, predicts new opportunities. Let’s not allow anxiety or negative thinking to affect us as we move forward together...let’s see what opportunities come our way this year.

I wish you all happiness, joy, peace and hope... 

Happy  New Year !  新 春 快 乐 牛 年 大 吉

#WeAreShrewsbury

It is so wonderful to have all our children back in school; friends reunited; laughter and learning; grateful to be together once more. All of us remained incredibly patient over the last month - especially our students - and this patience has paid off. Our campus is buzzing once again and fulfilling its purpose as a place of shared knowledge and understanding. 

This week we celebrated ‘Read Aloud Day‘ with members of staff reading to children all around the playground during lunchtime. It was incredible to see children absorbed in such wonderful imaginary adventures and grow their love of literature. 

We’re also gearing up for Chinese New Year next week. The year of the Ox. The Mandarin Team at City Campus tell me that the Ox is associated with virtues of hard work and honesty; virtues that I personally value very much. While next week’s celebrations will be much more low key than originally planned, I believe that our continued patience, hard work and positive attitude will pay off and be a valuable early lesson for our children. Their experience now will mean our future innovators, leaders, movers and shakers are more patient and measured in the future world they inhabit.  

Our new focused value of the month is, in fact, patience......over the past twelve months we have all practiced this in abundance.

Let our expertise continue to shine and pay off as we navigate the next chapter together.

#WeAreShrewsbury

This week the very first ‘International Leadership Seminar’ took place over Zoom, connecting all the Principals and leaders from Shrewsbury Schools in Hong Kong, China, Bangkok and the UK.

Despite the challenges we are all facing in unique ‘country specific’ circumstances, our spirits were high and discussions were reflective and optimistic. 

These timely reflections on leadership, with a focus on lessons learned from 2020 and plans for continued close working across the Shrewsbury schools, filled me with a strong continued commitment to collaboration across our family.

The power of community, connection and communication were at the heart of our discussions.

The Primary schools will launch a project designed to encourage reflection, so that Shrewsbury students have an opportunity to share their experiences and learn from one another. Student Council members will first pilot this concept.

Exciting times ahead.

#WeAreShrewsbury

This week, I've been making sure I keep the right balance.

A balance of rest and diligence and a balance of positivity and pragmatism. 

The situation in Thailand is beginning to look more positive. The BMA announcement this morning allowed more businesses permission to re-open from today - and we have everything crossed that school will be able to open soon. But we know that official guidance means distance learning will continue for at least the rest of this month and the whole team here at City Campus is working hard in a practical way to ensure children's learning continues successfully. 

We continue to do all we can to support our children at home and it’s very much ‘business as usual’. 

I was also thinking this week about the right balance for our students; I believe it is important to get a balance of onscreen and offscreen learning and our teachers are working hard to ensure we provide the right mix of recorded, live and offline content each day.

After the delivery of our Early Years Busy Bags last week, we prepared Mindfulness Matters bags for our Year 1 - 6 children.

The bags are aimed at allowing children to get the right balance and take a break from screen time by being creative, planting and growing a sunflower, writing and drawing in a journal and finding the silver linings in these challenging times.

I’m so excited to share all of these silver linings when we’re back together again (which will be soon!) 

Have a relaxing, safe and balanced weekend…

As we start Term 2 with school closure and online learning in place once again, it is so important that we remain positive and focused. 

We learnt so much from our closure last year and because of that we have slipped seamlessly back into providing excellent teaching and learning via our Seesaw platform. We are all used to it now, both children and staff, and therefore we are coping with the routine much better than before. A silver lining?

Of course we miss having the children on site - a school is simply not a school without them - but we need to cherish the connections we can and do have, especially given the technology at our fingertips, and be thankful. A silver lining?

Our Value of the Month for January is ‘Positive Attitude’.

Everyone is usually very full of hope for the New Year. It’s a fresh start...a time to make commitments about how to improve things for yourself or for others. I believe it is important that we remain hopeful and positive even (and especially) during these very challenging times. 

When it comes down to it, positive, optimistic people are happier, healthier and enjoy more success than those who think negatively. The key difference between them is how they think about and interpret the events in their life.

I sent a ‘Welcome Back!’ video message to our children on Monday, encouraging them to ‘Find the Silver Lining’ of home learning and to feed these back to their teachers and to me.

Here are a few of the silver linings shared this week: 
 

‘I will be safe at home and can spend more time with my family’

‘I can play in the surf in the sea everyday’

‘My family and I have a greater spiritual connection and deeper faith’

‘I have more time to practice my clarinet’

‘My silver linings are doing art and swimming at my house. It makes me happy and healthy.’

‘I have more time to spend with my baby brother’

Let's dig deep. I invite you to find your silver linings, share them and encourage others to do so too...

Take care and stay safe. 

The highlights from this week simply have to be everything Christmassy….

From our wonderful singing from EY1 around the Christmas tree, to the first big stage performance from our EY2 children, and the ‘Christmas Countdown’ Concert where every child from Year 1-Year 6 was included in the cast. We heard almost 300 voices singing our favourite Christmas songs, as well as some lesser known festive tunes from around the world. All led by Mr and Mrs Christmas, Shinny and the all-important elves!

Our class parties were also in full swing across the school, with seasonally coloured party attire, traditional party games and true (rainbow) feasts provided by our wonderful parents.

City Campus is now truly filled with the Christmas spirit.

As we close and reflect on 2020 which has been, as we are all fully aware, an extraordinary year,  it is important to look for the silver lining. I have appreciated most of all our strong community spirit which has  shone through in abundance and provided us all with support, hope and optimism. Thank you everyone.
 
Term 1 has certainly seen many amazing highlights. Please do have a look at our Term in Review to read more. 
I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas, a peaceful safe holiday and a fun-filled 2021.

This week we had our Year 6 parents’ An Introduction to Riverside presentation. Mr Seal, (Principal at Riverside) and Mr Miller (Vice Principal at Riverside) joined me as we shared this year's plans for a smooth transition between schools for all Year 6 children.

We talked about the already established cross-campus links that are in place to enable all children and staff to forge friendships and relationships. There was a full explanation of life in the Senior School and the continuation of exciting and ambitious teaching and extracurricular opportunities that a Shrewsbury education offers (more on this in a moment).

We know it’s not only our students who are transitioning but also our parents; an open dialogue will now pursue and we have key dates throughout the year for an exciting programme with them in mind.

Mr Seal also shared and spoke in great detail about major new developments at the Riverside campus, with a wonderful new Senior School building set to open in August 2021; perfectly timed for our second cohort of City Campus graduates. 

As well as promoting the academic successes of a secondary education at Riverside, Mr Seal was also keen to highlight the wide range of additional activities available to our students; including expeditions, young enterprise programmes, music and drama, sport, art and environmental work - to name just a few.

The amazing focus given to extracurricular pursuits at Riverside is a lovely continuation of our You Time activities at City Campus. Year 7 students can continue to grow their passion and fulfil their potential at Riverside and I would like to personally thank our amazing staff, at both campuses, for their commitment in providing our students with every opportunity to achieve their potential for excellence. 

Exciting times ahead.

Our new Value of the Month is Humour. 
 
Humour is important for emotional wellbeing, and supports our brain development and physical health too.
 
Humour helps relationships and friendships and helps us to cope with stressful situations. It improves resilience. It's good to look on the bright side and see the funny aspect if things go wrong.
 
In our assembly today,  we made sure that the children know that having fun and having a laugh can make you feel a little bit better when you are feeling unhappy, sad or worried. We were reminded however that humour shouldn’t be used to pretend that you don’t feel sad or worried.
 
We also discussed that it is unkind to laugh at someone else’s problems or because of the way that they look, think, speak or act. It is ok to laugh with someone but not at someone.
 
I shared the famous A Classic Breakfast sketch from Morecambe and Wise, a comedy duo I was brought up with. Eric "Morecambe" Bartholomew was from my hometown. I think their work has stood the test of time, because all the children laughed very loudly and it got the thumbs up! 
 
I then invited some of our children onto the stage to share their jokes with the rest of the auditorium. We all enjoyed many laughs immediately, as our young jokers confidently delivered their lines!
 
I’d like to pass on some humour strategies that are important for us all to consider as parents and educators:  

• Laugh at yourself – when you do something silly or wrong, mention it and laugh at it.
• Have a Joke A Day – parents/carers and children can prepare one joke each a day to share with the family.
• Remember, above all, that sarcasm has no place. Only "no hurt" humour is acceptable.
• Talk to your children about what books make them smile and laugh, and find out why they find them funny.
• If your child is feeling tired or grumpy, find a funny (not rude or mean) video clip or programme to watch, or tell them your favourite joke.

Have a fun, happy, laugh-out-loud weekend!

Our success stemming from our innovative Design & Technology curriculum continues in this week's news. We were thrilled to announce that Shrewsbury City Campus has been nominated for the International School Awards 2021. 

We are shortlisted for the category ‘Initiative to support students as future-thinking innovators’. This acknowledges our firm belief that age is no object when it comes to the skills our children need in this increasingly digital age.  

We were selected from over 250 applications from schools in 62 countries.This is an amazing achievement.

The world is changing at a superfast pace and  beyond anyone’s predictions. To be shortlisted for the ‘Future-thinking Innovators’ category is a great tribute to our creative, passionate, open-minded and dedicated teachers and learners.

I am thrilled that this has been acknowledged by the Awards panel. We look forward to the International School Awards 2021 ceremony, which will be streamed virtually from the UK on Monday 18th January 2021.

The highlight this week was hosting our very first ‘Primary Engineer Young Leaders Awards’ prize-giving ceremony. 

Primary Engineer® promotes STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) within schools, through a range of events, workshops and competitions.

Primary Engineer® has many partner organisations, including well known engineering firms such as Balfour Beatty, companies such as BOSCH, EDF Energy and NISSAN, as well as many UK universities.

Our children were asked the question ‘If You Were An Engineer, What Would You Do?’ They then had to do three things:

1.   Interview an Engineer to find out more about the world of Engineering and designing products.
2.  Identify a ‘problem’ that exists in society and design (draw and annotate) a creative, innovative, and preferably sustainable solution to that problem.
3.   Write a letter to the judges explaining what their idea is and why they think it should be chosen as the winner.

We were extremely impressed with the amount of questions that were submitted to Emma Knowles, our participating engineer, from Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 children.

92 of our students received certificates of recognition for their designs, with an abundance of passes merits distinctions and finalists; we couldn’t be prouder 

Three of our finalist children were selected by the Primary Engineer® judges  to receive medals and an ‘Achievement of Excellence’ trophy.

Our Design and Technology department also selected a student to receive an award for his ‘Outstanding Contribution to Design & Technology’. 

The winning designs included:

• an auto suitcase that is connected to your phone and moves through a GPS signal alongside you as you walk, or it travels to you, and carries all of your belongings.
• a wireless charging units that would connect to phones via Bluetooth and automatically charge them if the battery is low
• a sway working chair that is ergonomic and good for people’s posture through the shape of the seat and making the chair rock
• an autopot that is linked to an application on your phone and you can water your plants using the app when you are away from your home or set a timer for the plants to be watered automatically
• a multitask tool that can grab things from on the floor and it also turns in to a chair and has pockets to put things in

I feel overwhelmed with pride with the outstanding response from our students' enthusiasm for this competition. The standards were high and to receive so many awards is extraordinary.

Miss Holland, our Head of Design & Technology has been a true inspiration to our students and we are very fortunate to have her passion, expertise and knowledge. 

I believe our future is in creative and safe hands.

We have had another wonderful week, which ended with today's vibrant and meaningful Diwali celebrations. The school was awash with colour and sparkle once again as children, parents and teachers dressed up to join in the celebrations.

Special assemblies were held for the primary students and for the early years…..all learning about the traditions and customs of Diwali, and understanding that good always wins over evil.

We also continue to enjoy our much-valued parent involvement within the City Campus community. A sports competition, a ‘Tea and Topics’ event and a Maths in Year 1 Parent in Partnership were full houses with enthusiastic parents attending. 

Our City Campus Swim Team photoshoot also attracted a lot of parent involvement with cheers of encouragement eching across our campus boulevard. 

Yesterday’s Autumn Piano Recital was outstanding; it is the perfect end to a day to be able to relax and listen to our young musicians play so beautifully and professionally. Parents are clearly committed to supporting their children on this journey. Music is truly at the heart of a Shrewsbury education.

This week’s Bake Sale added another dimension to the week with many parents fully supporting the Year 3 stall - lots of excitement and candy floss!

Peace, love and joy to you all.

Our new Value of the Month for November is ‘Health and Wellbeing’. Over the month we are discussing and learning about the importance of exercising, sleeping well, drinking plenty of water, eating healthily, being sunsmart and thinking positively and looking after our emotional health.

We’ve started by learning about choosing a rainbow plate at lunchtimes to ensure we are all enjoying nutritionally balanced plates of food. 

Our children are already great at selecting healthy options but we all need a  polite reminder from time to time to ensure our plates continue to be colourful. 

That being said, we had our first Bake Sale of the year - our wonderful parents went above and beyond to arrange an amazing array of goodies for the children (and adults!) to enjoy...  which did include healthy options, I have to say. 

Our community spirit has remained strong during these changing and unprecedented times. Life is slowly getting back to normal here in Thailand. We are lucky to be living in a country that has managed the situation well. 
Take care everyone and look after yourselves.

Happy Loy Krathong everyone! This year, we have had a wonderful celebration, with the children taking the lead to present us with a very colourful and informative assembly. Children and staff enjoyed some wonderful singing and dancing with hints of  the tradition and the modern. The school was a sea of colours, sparkle and fun!

Earlier in the week, we had our Board of Governors meeting. Our Thailand-based governors joined us on campus, and we  connected with our UK members via a digital conference.  Obviously we missed having  them here in person and they missed the Thai hospitality and being here to connect personally with families and staff in our community. Nevertheless we still  had a positive and productive meeting, looking to and planning  optimistically for the future. 

We showed appreciation to Khun Supawan Lamsam’s 17 years of dedication, commitment and contribution in serving on the Shrewsbury’s Advisory Board. We are now delighted to  welcome her daughter Khun Pook, a graduate from Harvard University who has now joined us. Dr Wattana Mahattanakul, a graduate from the University College London and a City Campus parent also joined the Board - exciting times ahead for the Governors.

In contrast, I  also enjoyed the Year 7 (postponed from Year 6) Graduation Disco, hosted at Shrewsbury Riverside. It was wonderful to see our first City Campus alumni so settled and happy with their new friends in the Senior School. We look forward to following their progress.

Have a great weekend everyone, and enjoy the Loy Krathong celebrations. I am certainly looking forward to the fireworks along the river and floating my krathong.

The last week of this half term has been full of activity, positivity and reflection.

Earlier this week  we marked the Remembrance of His Majesty The Late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Our children sang and played a selection of  pieces composed by the beloved monarch; so much respect and love shown by our community.

Year 5 children enjoyed  a Greek day of related activities, ending with a Greek feast of feta cheese, olives, grapes, yoghurt and honey.

Our Inter-House Cross-Country event took place today, with the  perfect weather for it. The children were amazing. We are pleased to announce that Schweitzer House won for the second year running.  Well done to all the children in Schweitzer House, a great team effort.

We hosted Parent-Teaching Consultation meetings this week, across the whole school. Many proud parents have been hearing about the great progress that their children have made this half term.

Year 2 children have been celebrating their ‘Life Below Water’ topic...and 2JB shone in our very first class assembly for this academic year. Their wonderful singing, poetry, drama and their ‘Ocean Promises’ were creative and inspiring. The children were such confident, professional and clear speakers; every word could be heard. A wonderful treat for our children, staff and parents to enjoy just before the holidays.

After a very busy week and indeed a very busy half term, it is time for us all to enjoy a break with family or friends, and recharge for the next exciting half term we have planned.

Take care everyone and have a safe holiday.

One of my highlights from this week was our Class Reps afternoon tea. It was lovely to welcome brand new parents to this important role and to also welcome parents who have been proactive supportive class reps already. 

Having supported our navigation through our founding year and school closure, their experiences and positivity is invaluable to the team.

This first meeting was an opportunity to meet with our school’s Year Team Leaders to plan and map out the year ahead. The excitement and buzz in the room was infectious.

I feel very optimistic about this year, and the ongoing developments within our growing community.

Our new Value of the Month for October is Compassion. In assembly today, we focussed on the life and work on Mother Teresa. Pupils across Year 4- Year 6 who are in ‘Teresa House’ led the assembly, by sharing the importance of her work in Calcutta and how she, along with her followers, helped alleviate the suffering of thousands of people. We heard that her work continues today through the Missionaries of Charity. 

Mother Teresa sent a beautiful message out to the world: it doesn’t matter if you do big or small things in your life, as long as you do them with great love.

We have also been looking at the poem Dare to Be by Dr Steve Maraboli. This will be our focus poem throughout this year. Here’s an excerpt to take us into the weekend:

“When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.
When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.
When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.
When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.
Dare to be the best you can –
At all times, Dare to be!”

Our Friday began as it always does - announcing the House who had accumulated the most points for their achievements and good deeds throughout the week. It was close, but we congratulated Schweitzer House for tallying up the most points this time. 

This week, we had our very first Recital for this academic year. Ms Yeji’s piano students performed a variety of pieces so confidently and professionally. It was wonderful to  hear the fruits of their strong commitment to practising, and to see their enjoyment in taking the opportunity to play in front of delighted parents, teachers and friends in our auditorium.

The performers were as young as EY2, up to Year 3, and are at the very start of their musical journey. Who knows where this first brave step will take them? I look forward to seeing them flourish over the coming years.

In our music assembly earlier today, we were privileged and inspired to hear music from across the whole school including individual pieces played on the piano and on the  violin, singing from year group choirs and the Year 3 recorder ensemble.

All our performers were introduced by our talented and confident MC’s in Year 5. Our community also all joined in together to  sing some of our favourite songs: “We gotta be a rainbow...we gotta be a rainbow...we gotta be a rainbow...in somebody’s day.”

Music is at the heart of a Shrewsbury education, and it is wonderful to see these seeds blooming at City Campus.

We’ve enjoyed a great end to the week with our annual Wai Kru celebrations. Arranged beautifully by our Thai Studies department, our children took their opportunity to show their gratitude and respect to their teachers. 

We had a fantastic start to the week with a special assembly for the International Day of Peace. We sang together and shared poems to celebrate and inspire peace.

Sandwiched in between, all the City Campus staff team gave our ‘official’ warm welcome to Dr Tim Nuttall as our Group Director of Schools. 

Dr Nuttall was the Rector and Executive Head of St Stithians College in Johannesburg – one of South Africa’s top independent schools. Prior to assuming the leadership of St Stithians seven years ago, his 30-year career in South Africa has spanned tertiary and secondary education – as an Associate Professor of History at the University of Natal, a Deputy Head at St Andrew’s College and Head of Somerset College. He has been actively committed to advancing education in South Africa’s new democracy. After attending school and university in South Africa, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.  

Tim began working with us in May via digital means. It is wonderful that he is able to be based with us in person in Bangkok for a few months, before he moves to China to open three new Shrewsbury International Schools over the next few years.

We all feel very excited to welcome Dr Nuttall as our Director, and look forward to working with him.

This week, our Children’s Forum has been transformed into a magical space, with children under 3 years old in mind. We are well underway with assessments for families seeking an Early Years place at City Campus for August 20201. We have already seen a wonderful cohort of children, who we look forward to joining us in a year's time.

We were also delighted to safely relaunch our Shrewsbury Starfish playgroup on Wednesday. It was fantastic to see so many children enjoying our creative open-ended provision. Families are invited to join us every Wednesday morning - registration available HERE. 

We are looking forward to extending our Shrewsbury Starfish programme over the course of the next few weeks - watch this space. 

We were very busy this week in our Aquatics Centre, as trials began for this year’s Swim Team from Years 2 to 6. Lots of cheering and encouragement came from parents and staff in the stands. 

At City Campus, we remain committed to providing our students with opportunities to enhance their learning through the use of innovative and leading-edge educational technologies. Parents in Year 4, 5 and 6 valued yesterday's important presentation, related to the BYOD programme (Bring Your Own Device) with e-safety and the signing of an acceptable use policy at the heart of this. 
 

This week has, as always, been a busy one. 

All our parents have been into school to meet the child’s class teachers - we’ve enjoyed a wonderful positive buzz around the campus every day as each year group in turn hosted the event safely. 

We also held a Coffee Morning for brand new parents in our community, to introduce them to key members of staff, to enjoy each other's company and ensure they knew how to access our Library.  The most important gift we can give our children is to surround them with books and make time to read for pleasure everyday.  

I am pleased to report I have seen a happy parent community here at City Campus, who are positive and confident about the year ahead.

Our children have really settled beautifully into their routines and have been excited by their “You-Time” opportunities which all began this week.  

Classes are transforming their year group bases, and other spaces around the school, to be creative and stimulating places which reflect topics and learning ......the Year 3 rainforest is looking particularly impressive, and our Early Years Hub has a sensory calming feel to it this week.

Again, I have seen happy children, who are positive and excited about  the year ahead.

Teachers are enjoying their new classes and can’t believe how quickly the children have managed to return to school after being away for so long. The children’s enthusiasm, politeness and wonderful contributions has been inspiring for us all.

And so too we have happy teachers, who are positive and enthusiastic about the year ahead.

What a wonderful start to Term 1 2020...to have all the children back in school has been an absolute delight.
 
We started the new year focusing on our Value of the Month, which is ‘Community’. In my assembly this week, we discussed who was part of our growing City Campus community and focused on what is important to us as a school family.

The children shared their views and ideas - kindness and respect were the top of the list, along with with sharing, helping each other, being inclusive, solving problems together, smiling and greeting each other, good manners, showing empathy and understanding.

Our City Campus starfish also came into play, as we all agree that a starfish has become a symbol representing what we care about in our community, coupled with the important message in the starfish parable that every small act of kindness makes a difference and we know there are ripple effects. 

We are  a strong and growing community who understand that we can and we do make a difference.

“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” (Margaret Wheatley, author)

After a busy summer on campus with many potential families visiting, we are now very much looking forward to returning to school for a new academic year.

It is with real pleasure and excitement that all our new teachers from the UK arrived safely a couple of weeks ago. Despite the strict quarantine measures in place, our full induction program has been taking place - via creative, effective and live Zoom sessions delivered by our staff team. 

New staff based in Bangkok have been in school for a few days to receive their training, get to know each other and familiarise themselves with the school site.

We are very much looking forward to all our new and returning staff and children filling the campus with chatter, laughter and fun as our community grows and moves positively forward into our third year of operation.

Our team is ready and raring to go.

It really has been the best outcome we could have hoped for, to end Term 3 in school with the children. We’ve had so much fun having the whole school community back on site.

We’ve been able to ensure all children have transition activities and introductions to their new class teachers and are ready for August 2020

We’ve been able to hold our first ever Year 6 graduation ceremony which was a true celebration of the uniqueness of our Year 6 children - taking inspiration from Maya Angelou's poem 'Still I Rise…’

We will miss our founding Year 6’s enormously but we look forward to seeing them blossom further at our Riverside campus and beyond.

Here at City Campus, we will be busy preparing our site to welcome visitors to tour the school during the summer. We are now able to open our gates to prospective families who have been waiting patiently to visit our beautiful campus.

Our new staff will arrive in August - they are so excited to be joining Shrewsbury City Campus…..

We also plan to have a community event toward the end of August, so please look out for more details.

Today, on our last day of term, I would like to wish you all a calm, peaceful summer break - a time for families and fun and relaxation.

I will be relaxing with my family and will be taking a break from my blog until August.

In the meantime, please join us in celebrating what has been an unprecedented yet rewarding term. 

READ TERM IN REVIEW

Take care everyone and thank you….

All our children are now in school full-time, and they are continuing to enjoy their learning and friendships. They are also loving being able to eat the delicious lunches in our dining space, especially today as it’s ‘ice cream Friday’! We are of course having to apply physical distancing at lunchtimes, but nevertheless there has been a wonderful atmosphere amongst our community in our dining hall and in our playgrounds. The children have adapted so brilliantly to our new safety regimes.

This week we have hosted a number of transition meetings for our families, as our students prepare to move into a new year group in August. The children have had transition lessons and found out who will be their new class teacher next year - very exciting times ahead. 

It is encouraging to be looking to the future with optimism as restrictions are being lifted further in Thailand with business and other activities being allowed to resume from 1st July.

At City Campus, once the term has ended next week, we will allow prospective families to come onto the campus for site tours. After months of virtual tours and events, which have nonetheless been successful and rewarding, we are very much looking forward to meeting prospective parents face-to-face and welcoming visitors to our school. 

What a fabulous week it has been, as our children return safely to school.

Our Year 2’s through to Year 6 arrived on campus full of smiles and excitement to see their friends and teachers again.

It is amazing how quickly the children have adjusted to the new safety precautions that we have put in place. Students have been very mature and sensible, we are very proud of their responsible behaviour and their resilience.

Our teachers have once again shown their creativity and adaptability to a new way of teaching in school, ensuring the children receive high quality lessons alongside important wellbeing breaks.

We are looking forward to welcoming the rest of the school back on Monday when our EY1, EY2 and Year 1 children return.

This week we also held webinars via Zoom for all our new families who will join us in August 2020. It has been interesting and exciting to meet them, answer their questions and prepare them for their child to start with us at Shrewsbury. 

Enjoy your weekend everyone. 

We have received confirmation from the Ministry of Education (MoE) this afternoon that international schools are permitted to open next week. We have been preparing for the safe return of our students for many weeks. Representatives from the Ministry of Education (pictured far right) have visited City Campus earlier this week to inspect our facilities in preparation for the children’s safe return. It was concluded that we were ready. We are very much looking forward to welcoming some of our students back on site. 

In other news, it was a real pleasure to welcome our new Director of Schools, Tim Nuttall, to his first Board Governors meeting at City Campus (via Zoom). 

This was our last meeting for this academic year and we were split across the world in boardrooms here in Bangkok, in Shrewsbury UK and in South Africa. 

Although we missed the full experience of all the Governors being with us physically  our meeting was productive, informative, positive and constructive. 

The Governors were particularly keen to hear about our transition to online learning, the challenges, the solutions, the feedback from our children and parents and of course our plans for future reopening. The Board were pleased to hear that we are fully staffed for August 2020 and that we had  secure plans in place for the safe start of Term 1. 

Much praise was given to the whole staff team and the wider community at City Campus for navigating through these challenging times together. The Governors also congratulated us on our recent successful CIS inspection.

To end on a musical note, I would like to invite you to watch our first of this term’s Online Recitals. It really is a pleasure to watch our young musicians perform so professionally. Our value of the month is Success, and our featured pianists have certainly embodied this through keeping up their schedule of practising, delivering some impressive performance, and sharing heartfelt messages of support for their friends and the school community. 

Sit back, relax and enjoy the recital here. 

Our beautiful campus is ready and waiting for our students to return. Of course, we hope schools are given permission to re-open soon, and we continue to await further advice from the Ministry of Education. 

In the meantime, our strong home learning programme for our students continues. On Monday, I (virtually) introduced our children to June's Value of the Month. We are focusing and reflecting on the value of ‘Success’.

Success is measured in many different ways and it is important for us to acknowledge this. It can be about reaching your goals or your dreams; it can be measured through exams and grades; it can be measured through your emotions and how you feel; it can be small steps or huge ones. 

At different times and in different situations how ‘Success’ looks, feels or sounds will mean different things to different people. 

What we do know is that success is determined by hard work, persistence and commitment. I also strongly believe that success is very much linked to the two previous values that we celebrated respectively in April and May - Courage and Resilience.

When I think about all our children, parents and teachers at the moment and I see how hard they are working and how well they have adjusted to this new life online I am amazed. I see our truly inspiring work and commitment to making Term 3 count and be a success.

This week in our City Campus community, we are also feeling a sense of  ‘success’ following the announcement that we have been granted membership with the Council of International Schools (CIS). 

CIS praised the school for the rapid progress we have made in a relatively short period of time with growing student enrolments, a broad and rich curriculum, and a range of programmes to support student learning and wellbeing.

City Campus’s key observations and special commendations from CIS can be read in more detail here. 

Our successful online Admissions Events programme continues. This morning, our Early Years leadership team presented 'An Introduction to Early Years at City Campus. Many families joined us via Zoom to hear about our provision and our approach for our 3-5 year old students. 

For this particular age group, myself and Ms Cath (the school’s Head of Early Years) also did a Q&A for families earlier in the year. We addressed some frequently asked questions HERE. 

Places remain limited in all year groups. My team is currently delivering online assessments for families that have applied for a place at City Campus in August 2020.

Have a safe and relaxing weekend, everyone.  

We have received confirmation from the Ministry of Education (MOE) today that international schools will not be allowed to re-open from Monday 1st June. 

We have prepared our school site for the safe return of our children, and these efforts are by no means wasted. The work has shown the commitment and resilience of our community. The safety of our students, staff and wider community will always remain our utmost priority, and this has been especially evident in the work by our school teams in recent weeks. 

Our operations team have done a fantastic job of keeping our site thoroughly cleaned throughout school closure. Alongside the deep cleans and more regular cleaning routines, new hand washing stations are in place, classrooms and communal spaces have been reconfigured with child-friendly stickers placed across the campus to be a visual reminder for our children with their physical distancing. 

Today our amazing teaching team were on site for training, including discussions and planning in preparation for the children’s safe return, as and when this can eventually happen. 

For now, our strong home learning programme continues. We know we have to continue to be open and flexible as well as keeping core standards and non-negotiables for the safety of all our community.

At City Campus we will continue to monitor the national and Bangkok COVID-19 infection rates, keep in close contact with other schools and ensure that all Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) and MOE guidance is received and followed as well as remaining in close contact with the British Embassy. 

We all have to remain informed and be prepared to take decisive action to keep our communities safe.
 

As with other schools around the world, we have been carefully considering the possible return of our children to on-site learning, before the summer holidays. 

Providing this is safe to do so, it will be simply amazing to welcome the children back to school - we have missed them so much.

In preparation for this possibility, we have of course been making comprehensive health and safety adjustments throughout the campus to ensure a safe return. We have drafted a set of protocols and plans we will have in place for a safe return for City Campus students, staff and parents. These will be confirmed and shared with our community once further instructions and guidance are issued from the Ministry of Education (MOE).

At City Campus, our Maintenance team has been working hard to rearrange the classrooms and to maintain deep cleaning procedures across the site.

Next week, we will be training our teaching staff in preparation for a safe return for our students. We will also be delivering special teaching sessions for our children, so that they are introduced to new safety expectations and the new environment on their return.

This week, we have begun to welcome teaching staff back to campus. Of course, we are all practicing physical distancing, but it has been wonderful to see some familiar faces in person and be able to wave!

I think we are all learning to really appreciate the little things in life right now. We have a mini break now with two days of half-term for our children and teaching staff, before we step forth into another chapter and adapt to this next expected phase of teaching and learning.

Last year, we planned a Council of International Schools (CIS) membership evaluation visit at City Campus during this month. The SMT had worked hard to ensure all the documentation was ready and in place. Given the circumstances, we were expecting this visit to be postponed. 

We were delighted that the CIS team invited us to take part in the pilot of a remote membership evaluation visit that allowed us to proceed with the school’s membership application, despite these challenging times. We  worked closely with the inspection team to support and hopefully help shape future CIS remote visits.
 
Our visit took place this week and was a very positive, reflective and constructive experience. We will be able to share outcomes of the visit when the report is published in a few weeks time.

This week, I sent out a Home Learning survey to our parents. This survey formed part of an ongoing dialogue we have had within our school community during these unprecedented times.

I am pleased to report that the results show us that a strong majority of parents are happy with the level, volume and variety of work their children are receiving at home. This reflects the success of ongoing collaboration between our academic teams, our parents and our students within the school’s home learning programme. 

Some positive comments that I was particularly pleased to read: 

• “I couldn’t be more pleased with the attention and support my child gets from her teachers.”
• “I love the teacher’s comments on my child’s work, it keeps us connected to my daughter’s learning and encourages her to be to complete and put effort in all her assignments. Big thanks to all the teachers.”
• “I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your dedication for our children.”
• “We understand that this is not the normal situation. Thank you for your hard work.”

We have of course received other constructive suggestions and comments, which myself and my senior leadership team will carefully consider and action in the following days. We continue to work together with our staff, our children and our parents to ‘make Term 3 count’. 

Myself, Ms Betts and Ms Okill beamed ourselves live this morning, by holding our first Virtual Open House. We welcomed prospective families, we shared expertise from our early years and primary curriculums, we took our guests on a virtual tour of our beautiful campus, and we answered a range of useful questions. 

On our Virtual Open House guest list, we were also delighted to host families who have already accepted a place at City Campus, and will be joining us in August 2020. We were more than happy for them to take a ‘second look’ at the school they will be joining very soon.

This week, we have held our Parent-Teacher meetings. My teachers have shared with me the overwhelming support  and positive feedback they have been receiving. 

The feedback indicates that our carefully crafted home learning programme is well-balanced between the three key strategies for delivery (live sessions, recorded content and downloadable documentation). Together, we are making Term 3 count.

This week, City Campus was put under the spotlight by the popular expat family advice portal BKK Kids. I was delighted to see our school celebrated for its unique position as a purpose-built primary school in the heart of our city. I invite you to read the full article here. 

Take care everyone and have a safe, peaceful weekend.

Our new value of the month is ‘Resilience’. 
 
A very important value to discuss, reflect upon and to grow, develop and nurture at this moment in our history.
 
To launch our new value of the month with our children, I read 'Giraffes Can't Dance' by Giles Andreae. In the story, we see how Gerald the giraffe defies the odds and bounces back from difficulties. 
 
It is important for us all to consider what we can do to build our own resilience during these challenging times. That way, we can also support others.
 
I used a ball to demonstrate how it keeps bouncing again and again and again. No matter how hard you throw it, it always bounces back up.
 
We all understand that difficult things are happening to every aspect of our lives right now...for us at City Campus, the important thing is how we adapt to this situation that we didn’t expect.

People around us can support our resilience. Friends, family and colleagues can help us get through these tough times and help us remain hopeful. It is important to keep connected to people.
 
Continuing to do things we enjoy or help us relax can help enormously. It is crucial to give time to the things that you enjoy and that make you happy.
 
It is important not to give up - keep trying and remain positive. It is also important to positively encourage and praise others, this supports them to remain positive and grow/develop  their resilience.

Getting through difficult times is a vital part of learning and can help inform how we respond in the future, helping us to ‘bounce forward’.

ENJOY GERALD'S STORY WITH THE PRINCIPAL HERE:

This week was the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. To celebrate, City Campus invited members of its school community to make some Pledges.
 
Students, parents and staff were asked to consider what they could commit to do this year, to help conserve our planet's resources and reduce pollution. It was wonderful and heartwarming to see all the pledges made from EY1 through to Year 6, and across our parent and staff community too.
 
I have of course made my own Earth Day Pledge: to recycle at home; to turn off lights; and to declutter and donate
 
As these pledges become real and secure habits, I will add to my list….. 
 
What will you do?

Term 3 is in full swing at City Campus. Not perhaps in the way we would have wanted or initially predicted, as attending school in person for teaching and learning is, of course, everyone’s preferred option.

However, we continue to move forward with renewed energy and positivity. For now, online learning continues.

Within the Shrewsbury community, we are all continuing to work together, learning to adapt to the restrictions and to find different ways to continue to provide a high-quality education for our children.

Our teachers are working tirelessly behind the scenes to adapt to our current reality, to make sure that our children stay connected and that Term 3 counts.

So, the holidays are here and I am looking forward to planning out my days with a range of activities to keep my mind and my body (I hope!) healthy and in good shape.
 
Exercise is key for me, as I have neglected that whilst  being cocooned in my office, so that's the first thing on my list to establish in my new ‘holiday at home’ routine.
 
I am going to read lots, teach my son to cook more dishes ready for when he goes to university, practise meditation and enjoy some family time watching some great movies from my younger days.

As I reflect on the term we have had, I am aware that I am a Principal with closed school gates and students scattered in their homes around the city. Like a fish without water. 
 
In some ways, this reminds me of our pre-operating year at City Campus (2017-2018), when our students were not yet with us on campus. 
 
What I did have however was a wonderful small pre-operational enthusiastic committed team around me; based in our new offices close to the school building site. We connected daily and worked through a mountain of new learning as we ‘built’ the school and our founding community. Travelling through new waters optimistically together - often very turbulent waters I have to say, but we did it!
 
Then in our founding year when everyone…..every child, every parent and every member of staff were new to the school, another rollercoaster ride of new learning for everyone. Once again, our collective community spirit and positive attitudes ensured we had a fabulous first year together as a new school, and we did it!
 
And here again as we reach the end of Year 2 Term 2, and we find ourselves facing, this time, a unique set of unprecedented challenges.
 
We have a much bigger community this year and we do have children, parents and a full staff team. We have a huge amount of support, resilience, positivity and determination - I have seen it and felt it in abundance.
 
It may be the toughest set of experiences to date, but we will do this together, and I know I will be writing “we did it”, once more at some point in the future.
 
The connection between these three challenging times is the spirit of the people. Whether it is a small, medium or larger community, if we all remain positive, supportive, resilient, courageous and kind with each other, all will be well…..in time.
 
"We have such a long way to go,’ sighed the boy. "Yes, but look how far we have come," said the horse. - Charlie Mackesy
 
As we enter the term break, I will enjoy sitting on my balcony and take in the wonderful view, that I rarely take the time to appreciate normally. I will catch up with friends past and present virtually - we are all in the same situation at the moment and it is important to be connected to lift each other's spirits.
 
I’ve made a commitment to document my thoughts. I have always kept a journal of some description, but I sense during this time in history it is an even more important ritual to keep up.
 
I received an Artbox a couple of years ago that contains an elephant that needs painting in a creative way. I have not had the courage to start this yet, but I think I will try and give it a go…....
 
I hope you are able to carve some interesting times for you and your family in this unique set of circumstances and also and most importantly, please keep safe and well.

Everything has moved so quickly this week, and we are all finding ourselves in a new reality. It’s difficult, it’s challenging, and yet through the resilience and commitment of our school community, we are finding our way through.

Our home learning programme is going well. I have been extremely proud of our teachers, students and parents for all their efforts at this unique time. 

I have been working from home for only 3 days and there are times when this unique experience is unsettling, frustrating and somewhat surreal.

We all know what we need to do, and we must work together to help each other. Bit by bit, day by day I am cultivating a routine and embracing this situation as best I can. I am finding the positives every day, and I am doing my utmost to do my ‘best job’ for our community from home.

I have been taking advice and inspiration from our Vice Principal Ms Betts, who recently showed us how to Travel the World without Leaving your Sofa. 

My absolute favourite book right now is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charles Mackesy. This was given to me by one of my best friends at Christmas.  It stays by my bed for motivation - I can highly recommend it to everyone of all ages. The illustrations are beautiful.

"When the big things feel out of control….focus on what you love right under your nose." - Charles Mackesy

Reading is a vital part of our wellbeing at this time, and always, and I will be leading by example in this area. 

As I plan out my new routine, I am going to ensure my own family has an E.R.I.C (Everyone Reading In Class) time slot every day. Though maybe we need to rename this for now. We’ll take our R.A.F.T (Reading As  Family Time) each day - that's my promise. I hope many other families will join me in this, as we seek to look after ourselves at home. 

All those books I’ve bought, intending to read - watch out because here I come!

My blog this week, for the first time, is written from home. All schools in Bangkok have been officially closed since Wednesday. Our staff are in ‘Self-Monitoring’ status and will work from home until Monday 23rd March.
 
We are all navigating our way through this necessary method of learning and teaching. We have been lucky enough to have real experience to tap into with close communication and sharing with Shrewsbury Hong Kong, who have been delivering excellent online learning for many weeks now.
 
This is Day 3 of home learning at City Campus and our children have already shared some wonderful outcomes from their digital lessons. Year 2 have been learning their Kings and Queens dance, ready to perform at their royal banquet later in the year. Year 4 are busy designing and making a healthy snacks and our writers in Year 2 have been scribing creative Rainbow Fish stories.

Early Years are in full scientific mode investigating floating and sinking, Year 3 have been working on their writing in their specialist Thai lessons, Year 5 are extending their fractions work and Year 6 have been enlightening us with their insightful responses to poetry. 

I am heartened by all the learning that is going on in the homes of our students, led by my exceptional team of class and specialist teachers.

We know arrangements will work differently for different families and their particular circumstances. We are working hard to ensure home learning is manageable and where possible, that children are able to take ownership of this.

Every day, we are all facing a different set of changing circumstances...and when I say ‘all facing’ I mean ‘all’ - everyone in the world - please stay patient and be kind with each other.

As Xilene in Year 2 reminded us today, little acts of kindness cause ripple effects!

I was invited to take part in City Campus’s Eyes of a Reader challenge this week, in preparation for Fully Booked 2020 which begins on Monday. 
 
Our Library team are ready to launch a full programme of Book Week activities on Monday, which will inspire us afresh to read, to enter new worlds and to imagine new possibilities. 
 
Imagination is our current value of the month. Having a good imagination makes life more fun, richer, broader, more holistic. It is proven that if we explore your imagination we become better problem solvers, preserve our memories, are more observant, more empathetic, have more self-confidence, develop our resourcefulness and our creativity.
 
Through their class assembly this week, Year 2NC certainly brought to life and celebrated our value of the month. The children themselves told us how important it is to nurture and grow our imaginations. 2NC encouraged our student body to use their imaginations in all areas of their lives - whether for problem solving, home learning, during Design and Technology, in gymnastics, while playing with friends, when cooking, through music and stories - it is “never-ending”.
 
In my years of leadership in primary education, I myself have observed that children are excellent at developing and sharing their imaginative thoughts, ideas and ways of expressing these through different mediums. Yet somehow many of us adults feel that we ‘never have enough time’ to dare to use or give time to developing or opening up our imaginations…. 
 
So what are we waiting for? Parents, why not ask your children what imagination means for them and take it from there? 
 
Try reading, drawing, playing, making, relaxing, cooking, crafts, music, nature, daydreaming….and open yourself up to possibilities.
 
My final charge this week, as we prepare for Book Week, is…....why not simply read? Reading will transform how you see the world and how you see yourself.

I have been extremely proud of the support and cooperation shown by my staff team, our parents and our children this week. 

As a precautionary measure we have introduced morning temperature checks at the school gate for children, staff and visitors to keep our community healthy and safe. Our children take their responsibilities seriously - washing hands at the start and throughout the school day.  

It was wonderful to welcome back many members of our community returning from their time in quarantine; it is so good to have them back in school.

Many members of staff and children are still in quarantine but busy working and learning virtually. Although there is much negative press about the overuse of technology, especially amongst our younger generation, this is when the use of technology can be utilised at its absolute best for full involvement, participation and creativity.
 
City Campus is delivering a carefully planned home learning programme to ensure that high-quality teaching continues. With the use of Zoom technology, pupils and teachers alike have been able to still be ‘in the classroom’ for some sessions.
 
We look forward to the remainder of our community returning to school next week when we will begin preparations for Fully Booked 2020 - our annual celebration of reading which begins on 16th March. 
 
Don’t forget to be thinking about which book character you will be for our big parade on Friday 20th...!
 
Have a safe relaxing weekend everyone.

One of the highlights of this week was when we welcomed ‘The Surfing Scientist’ Mr Ruben Meerman into school. Ruben and I showed our students what happens when liquid nitrogen is poured onto a balloon that I had blown up.... 

We are all now learning the Periodic Table song which is very impressive. Our children have really been inspired; many wanting to pursue careers in science!
 
In the meantime we’ve been asking our social media followers to send in their questions about those all-important early years of a child’s life - you can read the full Q&A on our website: Q&A WITH THE PRINCIPAL AND THE HEAD OF EARLY YEARS 
 
Our whole school community has worked proactively and positively together to ensure our children have great learning despite the quarantine arrangements put in place this week. 
 
Children and staff who are ‘At Home’ are working virtually and children in school continue an exciting curriculum.
 
It is in times of challenge that you really notice people's strengths, their flexibility, their resilience and their kindness; I believe our community has this in abundance.
 
Have a lovely weekend everyone.

This week, it was City Campus’s pleasure to host Mr John Gwyn Jones MBE, Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA)  and Ms Siobhan Bland, Executive Office Manager, for our school’s pre-membership visit. 

The purpose of the visit was to validate the application against the criteria set out in FOBISIA's Constitution and By-laws. 

Our guests undertook a thorough check of the appropriate documentation, they met with key people in our school community, and they were given a first-hand look at the school's facilities and resources, including some classroom visits.

I am pleased to say that we had a very positive couple of days and we look forward to receiving our report.

Mr Jones spoke very kindly to our staff team today:

"As an experienced international school primary practitioner and leader,  if I was asked to plan and design an outstanding international primary school from scratch looking at the pedagogy, a creative curriculum, the facilities, the experienced staff and the leadership – this school would be the outcome and perfect model. 

City Campus is a unique, bespoke primary-focused setting, without compromise – a truly wonderful school." - John Gwyn Jones MBE, Chief Executive Officer, FOBISIA

On that positive note I would like to wish you all a happy Valentines Day and a peaceful, relaxing half term break.

This week we showcased our love of reading by celebrating World Read Aloud Day. 
 
There was a real sense of excitement around the school as teachers and staff from all departments chose their favourite books to read aloud to children at  lunchtime and break time and during class time in the library, outside, and in our Children's Forum.

It was wonderful to take this opportunity to immerse ourselves in books. LitWorld, the founders of World Read Aloud Day, remind us why it is important to read aloud to children...

Reading aloud develops stronger vocabulary. It lets children hear new words in new situations, which builds their vocabulary. When children hear words read aloud, they begin seeing how printed words are closely connected to spoken words. 

Reading aloud provides sheer enjoyment. The children I read to in the library loved the book I’d chosen and even though they knew the book, they simply loved hearing it again. Reading aloud encourages children to become interested in learning to read, which is likely to then spark a lifelong love of reading.

Reading aloud has proven to increase attention span and strengthen cognitive abilities. When children are regularly exposed to the sophisticated language of quality literature, they learn how to apply their cognitive abilities to understand the text.

Reading a story aloud that explores particular emotions helps some children to accept their own feelings and understand how others feel. By reading aloud together, stories can help children feel more comfortable discussing their emotions with others.

Reading aloud with children provides benefits for adults too. The quality time spent together promotes bonding and strengthens relationships, making it easier for children to develop their social, communication and interpersonal skills.

Let every day be a World Read Aloud Day.

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.

After my recruitment trip to the UK, it is great to be back in Bangkok and in school, with many warm ‘welcome back’ conversations with children, staff and parents much appreciated.

This week, our Design & Technology and DEC teacher, Katie Holland presented to our parents at this week’s ‘Tea and Topics’ event. Ms Holland outlined the varied and exciting curriculum we have in place across Year 1 to Year 6 . 

Intricate, inclusive and sustainable design projects  working with textiles, clay, wood, electronics, CAD, CAM, food, natural materials, recycling materials, robotics, graphics…the list goes on. Ms Holland explained that the children are learning how to use tools, equipment and technology effectively, accurately and safely. Exploring futuristic design is also an important aspect of our curriculum.

Parents had the opportunity to explore the department to see projects in process through to completion. Having spent time in Ms Holland's classes, I can see why our children look forward to their D&T classes so much - 100% engagement 100% of the time - architects, engineers and designers in the making.

Unfortunately it was a shortened week, as the Ministry of Education closed schools yesterday. We therefore had to postpone our long-anticipated Chinese New Year celebrations - now rescheduled for Monday. Luckily the dragon can also reschedule to make it then and dance alongside our talented student performers.

More news on that next week.

Until then....新年快乐 (Xīnnián kuàilè)

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...

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

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.

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.

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!

This week we had a very informative Tea and Topics event focusing on something we all need to engage with: ‘Parenting in the Digital World’. Simon Aves (Director of ICT at Riverside) and James Knight (Digital Literacy Lead in the Junior School at Riverside) presented this session for parents at City Campus. 

I’d like to share some of the top tips I took away with me:

• We need to create new family rituals for the connected world.
• It is important to discuss your family protocols, rules and help children master digital manners as young as possible to instill appropriate, safe and good habits related to the use of devices/screens/technologies.
• As parents, it is paramount that we need to be good role models,  our children copy what we do..... we must set firm expectations as a family. Remember every family is unique and you must decide what is best for your family.
• There is a balance to be had as there is much creativity to be gained from the use of technology. It is vital that children learn how to become creators, not just consumers of digital technology. 
• Try and find ways to show your child the positive way to engage online. Learn and engage together. Get involved ... embrace technological activities that have a family component .
• Try to ensure you have enough family activities without technology. Set aside specific times at home when no one (parents included) uses technology. 

I challenge you to have a device-free Sunday this weekend, take some quality time as a family and enjoy the real world (with no ‘pings’ interrupting…..)

It is always so refreshing and positive to start each new academic year with the Thai Wai Kru ceremony where the children show their gratitude and respect to their teachers. 

 “Wai” is the way to show respect by putting palms together and the word “Kru” means teacher.

Teacher representatives were presented with beautiful flowers and the meaning of each was explained to us:
 
 “ดอกเข็ม” Ixora means intelligence;
 “ดอกมะเขือ” Eggplant flower means kindness;
“หญ้าแพรก” Bermuda grass means patient;
  “ข้าวตอก” Popped rice means good manners;
 “ธูป” Incense Stick means successful;
 “เทียน” Candle means shine.

As the children thanked their teachers for preparing their minds and hearts, children also know to show respect to their first and lifelong teachers - their parents.

Happy Wai Kru everyone!

We have been focusing on peace to mark International Peace Day, which takes place annually on 21 September.

Year 6 began our week with an outstanding assembly showcasing their learning. Our students told us about the importance of combating climate change as a way to protect and promote peace throughout our world. 

We ended our week with a whole school moment of reflection. We explored the meaning of peace through poetry and song. Our choirs sounded so beautiful, their voices capturing a real sense of calmness and a true belief that our children are the future of the world, as the lyrics that were sung so sincerely suggest. We are confident that our children will indeed go out into the world and make a difference. 

The main focus for our new parents coffee mornings this week was a clear message about  reading. 

The most important gift you can give your child is to surround them with books and make time to read for pleasure everyday. Read in English and/or your home language - picture books, fiction, non fiction, graphic novels, poetry, recipes, instructions, your own stories…….the list is endless.

Children copy those around them so always have a book on the go yourself; model that love and enjoyment, show that you value reading.

“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.” – Napoléon Bonaparte

What a fantastic start it has been to Term 1 2019 at City Campus. 

It has been so wonderful to see all our founding families and founding staff team again, and to welcome new families and staff members to our growing vibrant community.

The children have settled beautifully with many new friendships forging across all year groups.

This year begins with an expansion of our Music department, our Design and Technology Centre and our Mandarin Team…..more news as the weeks unfold.

A highlight for myself and my team this week was when school leaders and teachers from the Mater Dei School visited.  It was reflective for us to share our journey, our campus and our philosophy  with such an interested team who gave us kind and positive feedback: "Your sharing and all that you showed us helped us to open our hearts and minds to new possibilities."