REGENTS` NEWSLETTEr - Nord Anglia Education

EDITION 3 Term 2 2013/2014
REGENTS’ NEWSLETTER
PRIMARY
THis Week in the primary newsletter
CALENDAR DATES
17 - 21.02.14
half-term break
primary round square week
24.02.14
first day of Term 2.2
24.02.14
ELP and Clubs resume
normal operation this
week
04.03.14
Primary Guitar and
Drums Recital, Globe
Theatre 3.30
literacy workshops
06 - 07.03.14
Primary FOBISIA Maths
Team in Bangkok
10.03.14
Primary Literacy Week
12.03.14
Friday 14th: Asia Books
Book Fair
ks2 sports day
year 6 scientists
The Beauty of Participation
As I write we are coming to the end of yet another successful
Round Square Week in Primary. Over 60 children took
a deep breath and challenged themselves by travelling
either within Thailand or internationally to participate in
a Service, Adventure or Leadership residential trip, away
from the comfort and familiarity of home, the care of mum
and dad, their well-used electronic entertainment devices.
Close to 400 Primary children left the school grounds for
a morning or a day to travel further afield for their selected
activity. All 560 plus children in
Primary participated in this
annual event with enthusiasm, a
positive spirit and a willingness
to be challenged in their chosen
tasks.
The excitement and nervousness
visible on the face of a 5 year old
as he skips happily onto the bus
which will take him to Horse
Shoe Point for a day of adventure
bike-riding is the same as that
exhibited by our older Primary
students as they embark on their
incredible adventure to Nepal.
No matter what the age, the
children all have something in
common – a desire to participate
in something new, to challenge
themselves and push their own
boundaries of learning. Who
knows what long-term, perhaps even life-changing, effects
the challenges experienced this week will have on our
children.
Many thanks to our staff for their energy and commitment
this past week; without your positivity and desire to give
our students the very best, Round Square Week would not
be the incredible memorable experience that it is.
I hope all our families have a wonderful half-term break
and I look forward to see all children back in school on
Monday February 24th.
Nonie ADAMs, Head of Primary
Best regards,
REGENTS’ GARDEN
NEPAL
ELEPHANT NATURE PARK, CHIANG MAI
Round Square Week: Really Something Wonderful
By Nonie Adams, Head of Primary
Over 560 children, from ages 2.5 to 11, took part in our
annual Round Square Week earlier this week. In Primary,
Round Square Week now consists of Service, Adventure
and Leadership residential trips that take place within
Thailand and internationally from two to 7 nights in
duration. There is also an enormous range of day trips as
well as many fun and challenging campus-based activities.
The final ‘piece’ of our Round Square Week is the special
Reflection Assembly where children are given the chance
to share what they have experienced, what they have learnt
and what they would like to do next.
I have not worked in a school where an event such as
Round Square Week takes place every year and I suspect I
never will; it seems to be an element of education unique
to our school. Future editions of the Primary Newsletter
will give more details of a selection of the options available
to our children during Round Square Week.
CAMPING AT BIRDS AND BEES
“The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss
Literacy Workshops
Reading in Early Years and Key Stage 1
By Mrs Karyn Walton, Assistant Head of Primary
by Claire Furlong, Literacy Coordinator for Early Years and Key Stage One
During Week 4 we ran a series of Literacy Workshops
for parents. They took place over three different days to
ensure relevance to the different expectations according
to children’s ages.
The reading curriculum
Guided reading
Throughout Early Years and Key Stage One, broad and
balanced reading opportunities are planned for; these
include the teaching of phonics, shared reading, guided
reading, independent reading and home reading.
Guided reading takes place twice a week in targeted
groups of similar reading abilities and needs. The lesson
provides the opportunity for the teacher to interact with
small groups of students as they read books that present
a successful challenge for them. Books for early reading
have texts that include the repetition of high frequency
words with a good proportion of words children can
decode using their current level of phonic knowledge
and skill. The teacher closely observes, monitors, and
evaluates ways in which individual students process print
and apply reading strategies such as checking meaning and
self-correcting.
Our Literacy Coordinators; Miss Claire Furlong (Y1 &2,)
Mrs Karyn Walton (Y3 &4) and Mrs Nikki Ingram (Y5
&6) carefully considered key aspects of the curriculum
children require to make good progress that can be
supported at home.
Miss Claire, ably assisted by Mr Richard gave an
in-depth explanation of Phonics; the importance
of why children learn this, how we teach this at
Regents and fun activities to try!
As Michaela said: ‘It’s good fun, I got this one correct; but I
didn’t know how much our children have to learn...’
Mrs Karyn worked with Y3 & 4 parents to explain the
grammar taught to children during LKS2 – parents had
many opportunities to try some fun activities and make
the link with the importance of grammar in not just
written, but also spoken English.
‘A very useful workshop! Welcoming and informative,’
Donna.
Mrs Ingram led a thought-provoking Grammar in Writing
workshop with a group of very interested UKS2 parents.
They tried many of the games and activities used in class
with our Y5 and 6 children, challenging themselves.
As Rosa said: ‘My daughter likes grammar and writing;
it’s easy to see how important this is and how it helps our
children progress.’
Many thanks to all of you who attended these workshops.
a very useful workshop!
If you were unable to attend please email for copies of the
hand-outs and information shared to the relevant member
of the Literacy team:
Ms Claire (KS1) [email protected]
Mrs Karyn (LKS2) [email protected]
Mrs Ingram (UKS2) [email protected]
We look forward to offering Writing workshops in the
future – many of you asked for ideas on how to make this
exiting and interesting at home. That’s a series of whole
new workshops altogether!
Phonics
The systematic teaching of Letters and Sounds is taught
through discrete daily lessons. Children are grouped
according to their acquisition of the various phonic stages
and are taught to apply the skills of blending (for reading)
and segmenting (for writing). High frequency words
including ‘tricky words’ (those that can not be sounded
out) are taught through interactive games that encourage
the development of a wide sight-word vocabulary.
Shared reading
‘Big books’ (oversized versions) that contain large print and
illustrations or texts projected through a data projector are
read aloud by the teacher. The enlarged text enables pupils
to follow, helping them to develop word recognition and
language comprehension. Through shared reading pupils
discuss, engage and explore their responses to texts and
develop their speaking and listening skills, new vocabulary
is explained and explored through discussion and they
are exposed to a wide range of text types; fiction, poetry,
plays, non-fiction – often linking to cross- curricular
opportunities and supporting reading for a range of
purposes.
Independent reading
In addition to the school’s books from the reading scheme,
children are encouraged to enjoy books from class reading
areas and borrow books of interest from the library. The
library books children choose to take home may sometimes
present challenging text, yet as parents and teachers we
want to encourage children to follow their interests in
their book choices. If the text is challenging, take turns to
read, not only will it allow a child to follow the text, it will
also model reading and enjoyment of books.
Through the range of all the different types of reading
experiences identified, we aim for all students to become
confident and competent readers that view reading as a
way of learning and as a pleasurable leisure activity.
A GREAT DAY FOR SPORT
on display. The bleachers continuously erupted into loud,
enthusiastic cheers as our students got behind their fellow
athletes and House. As always our students represented
their houses with pride and put all the efforts into each
event. It was a pleasure to see all of our students enjoying
sport with a healthy appetite for competition.
Everyone went home in high spirits. The Primary Sports
Days have been a wonderful experience for me. Watching
our talented, committed and ever-enthusiastic students
enjoy their sport has been an enriching experience.
Well done to everyone involved…
The sports day also indicated the importance of children
being involved in sports and how it teaches them some
valuable lessons, lessons that will be so helpful throughout
their lives.
In the end, the Champion House title was calculated over
the two separate events and the award went to Yellow
House and the Best Cheer House title went to Green
House this year.
The final standings for KS2 Sports Day 2014 were as follows:
POSITION
Key Stage 2 Sports Day shows off some real athletes…
By PAUL MADDEN, HEAD OF PE
This Year Key Stage 2 were brought together for a Sports
Day where The Regents School enjoyed a fantastic
morning of sport. There was a cool breeze blowing and
excitement filled the air. The oval quickly filled with a sea
of colours – red, green, yellow, and blue – and it echoed
with the frantic cheers from all supporters of the four
Houses in the spectators’ stand.
The Key Stage 2 Sports Day represents a more traditional
sports day and is an opportunity for children to use their
athletic abilities to represent their House and to cheer on
their team. Athletic activities are fantastic because there is
something for everyone; running, throwing, jumping and
the popular fun events. All students have had the chance
to take part in athletic activities during our PE lessons and
are familiar with the events. This year our KS2 students have
been busy practicing their events in their PE lessons leading
up to the big day. The students represent their House team
and gain points for their team dependent on the position
they achieve in the race or event. Students volunteer for
events they want to compete in and all students take part
in the big event. The event highlighted just how talented
our KS2 students are with some fantastic performances
HOUSE
1st
Morakot
2nd
Bussarakum
3rd
Tabtim
4th
Pailin
we will do our best!
Magical Mathematicians on Tour!
By Michael Barrett and Nadine Irnesberger, YEAR 6
This year Yuseung, Ling Ling, Nehmat and Seo Bin will
be representing The Regents International School Pattaya
at the FOBISIA Primary Maths Competition. This will be
held at Bangkok Prep in March; Seo Bin is particularly
excited about the 5 star Hilton accommodation!
All four of the human calculators say they are not nervous
about the competition and look forward to the challenge.
They will focus on logical thinking and complex/multistep problem solving; as Yuseung said ‘It’s not just 7 x 7 you
know!’
They hope to represent our school well and demonstrate
their mathematical ability – although they fear the
competition may be tough! As Nehmat said ‘We will do
our best!’
Their advice to our budding mathematicians? ‘Remember
you are a team; if you work hard, persevere and help each
other you will all be high performance learners!’
Preparation has started and the team are currently meeting
daily with Miss Brown or Miss Karyn to practice problem
solving skills and do team building exercises. They also
know it’s important to concentrate in Numeracy lessons
to sharpen up their numerical skills.
Yuseung says the following quote by Descartes is helping
him as he prepares:
‘Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served us
afterwards to solve other problems.’
Year 6 Scientists Test their Hypothesis in the Secondary
Science Labs
by Mr Pete Locke, Year 6 class teacher
Our topic in Year 6 this half term has been Changes. In
Science we have been looking at changes that happen when
solids and liquids are mixed to make solutions, reactions
that occur when some substances are mixed together and
reversible and irreversible changes. Recently we have been
looking at changes that occur as a result of our diet. We
came up with the hypothesis that when exposed to a flame,
unhealthy food would produce a bigger flame than healthy
food due to the high fat and sugar content. Can you tell
which was the unhealthy food?
great lesson!
ThE CHILDREN WERE FASCINATED
Sawing to New Heights
by Nikki Ashley, Year 5 Year Leader
As part of the hugely varied curriculum here at Regents,
pupils in Upper Key Stage 2 are given a small taste of
Design Technology (DT), a subject which will become very
familiar to them once in Secondary. For our Year 5 topic,
we decided to create images of different environmental
issues and use these to create jigsaws. However, these were
not to be made of paper or card…the Year 5 pupils are far
more ambitious than that! So after several conversations
with Secondary, we arranged a trip to the DT department.
Here, pupils were shown how to saw accurately into
pieces of MDF before they were let loose on their own
creations. Their superb sawing skills saw their jigsaw
puzzles transform from their original plans of 7 or 8 pieces
to designs in the 20s; needless to say, these were quite a
challenge to put back together when they were asked
to do so! This was a really valuable afternoon where the
pupils’ creativity was let loose and they were introduced to
new skills and tools previously unknown to them. A huge
thanks to Mr Biggs, whose guidance (and patience!) helped
them to achieve such great results. Their enthusiasm and
effort was without fault and I hope you agree that their
final pieces were: s-awesome!
Nursery Trip to Horse Shoe Point
by Helen Dixon, DEPUTY HEAD OF EARLY YEARS
What a wonderful experience the nursery children had
at Horseshoe Point. It was amazing how confident they
all became, grooming, showering, feeding and riding the
ponies. Mr Randy the farrier showed them how he shoes
the horses and Dr Zherwin explained why the horses
need shoes and how important it was they fitted correctly.
The children were fascinated and asked some really good
questions. Ling Ling a student in year 6 helped to show the
children how to groom the ponies properly and then rode
a pony to demonstrate the pony’s different paces.
thank you for having us
Year 2 Trip to Lotus Crystal Factory and Visy Packaging
By Claire Furlong, Year 2 Leader
This term, Year 2 has been learning about ‘Marvellous
Materials’. During their Topic lessons, pupils have been
identifying materials, exploring their properties and
having great fun investigating the best and worst materials
for specific purposes. During Literacy, pupils have
use books and ipads to research how materials such as
paper, metal, glass and plastic are made. Recently, Year 2
pupils visited two factories to observe for themselves the
processes involved in making glass and plastic.
Company. They started by feeling the very fine silica sand
required to make the glass, then observed how the red hot,
molten glass was blown and shaped to create a drinking
glass. Next on the tour, the pupils watched as the skilled
workers etched intricate designs into the glasses. Finally
they visited quality control; they learned that if the glasses
weren’t perfect enough to sell, they would be melted down
and the whole process would be repeated all over again!
To begin day the children took a tour around Lotus Crystal
skill each person contributed towards making a beautiful
Throughout our morning tour the pupils saw the time and
drinking glass. The afternoon visit to Visy Packaging was
an altogether different experience; the children observed
huge machinery producing hundreds of plastic pots at a
time! Human contact with the products was prohibited as
all the pots were to be used to package food that explained
why everyone had to wear hair nets! We also had to wear
earplugs to protect our ears from loud machinery and
wear high visibility jackets so we could be seen by the fork
lift trucks driving around the factory. The children were
led through the plastic making process, from the melting
of the polypropylene beads, to the giant rolls of cooling
plastic sheets, to the machines that produced and packed
perfectly formed pots. The children learned, that due to
the very special way the plastic is made at the factory, the
fruit that is then sealed inside the pots stays fresh and tasty
for months, amazing!
Year Two would like to say a very special thank you to
Saffron’s dad, Mr Simon Shale, for inviting us to visit his
factory. The children had a lot of fun exploring the factory
in their high visibility jackets and hair nets and they learned
a great deal about the plastic making process too!
DESIGN YOUR OWN UNIFORM!
This is the chance for you, the students, to
influence the design and appearance of the new
school uniform and sports kit for the next
academic year at Regents International School
Pattaya.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE
NEXT YEAR’S SCHOOL
UNIFORM TO LOOK LIKE?
THE
PRIMARY UNIFORM
CHALLENGE 2014
The challenge is open to all Primary students. Students can produce as many designs as they like for one
or all of the following categories:
 Primary School Day Clothes
 Primary School Sports Kit

You must use the body templates for your design, but you can enlarge them if you wish.

You can draw, paint, use collage or design your work on a computer.

You do not need to include the school logo and you can choose whether or not to use the Nord
Anglia colours (see Moodle).

You should also write an explanation of how you came up with your design. What inspired you?

All entries should reach Mr. Dale or Mr. Eddy by Friday 28th February.