The undoubted highlight of the past few weeks within sport was the Harrow International School Invitational Golf Tournament held at the prestigious Bangkok Golf Club on Sunday 25 September. The BIST team including Poon, Eng, Ja, Dream, Jump, Anais, Marvin and Top won the coveted Team Champions Trophy and confirms, once again, the strength in depth that our golfing programme has. The Sports Academies have started very positively with both the swimming and the golfing groups virtually at capacity already and numbers in the basketball academy growing steadily.

‘Challenge Week’ is almost upon us with the Year 11-13 trips heading out on 10 October, and a number of excited students and staff around the campus. Planning is now in the final stages for all other trips, so please expect to see further information over the coming days and weeks.

As the basketball season is now in full swing, I would like to offer my thanks to the support and assistance from our parent body. Thank you and I look forward to see you at a fixture soon.screen-shot-2559-09-28-at-13-15-15

On September 13th, The PTA committee (Parent-Teacher Association) were invited to try our school lunch and to attend the first PTA meeting of this academic year. The Student Committee from both Primary level and Secondary level were also invited to meet them and talk with the PTA members during the lunch time. Their feedback on the school lunch was very useful to help us to further improve our school meals. After lunch, they visited our Boarding houses and listened to the changes and improvements that the school has undertaken this year. They also visited the K Thiti Library to observe the ”Roald Dahl Day” event which every student enjoyed.

At the end, the PTA committee discussed and brainstormed how to support the upcoming school events in Term 1. The cooperation among parents, teachers, and students are vital in making Bromsgrove a great place in which to develop every student, build a warm community spirit and where every child can develop their potential and have fun.

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As I mentioned a fortnight ago, we have recently been visited by our sister school Bromsgrove UK and it was wonderful to show them around the Secondary School and see all the wonderful teaching and learning taking place. During their visit, there was also the opening of the Khun Thiti memorial library where our Head Boy, Jason, read a wonderful poem about the joy reading gives chosen by our Library Coordinator, Ms Loughran. The renovations that have taken place in the library have given it an amazing sense of light and space; I have been pleased when popping in at lunchtimes to see students using both the reading and study areas productively, as well as the MakerSpace room upstairs to develop individual creative projects. Also, the auditions for the School Production 2017 of Bugsy Malone have drawn to a close and the roles have been announced! Rehearsals for the production, as well as building of the set have already started in earnest – it promises to be a real treat for parents, students and staff in Term 2!

Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming Bromsgrove UK to our school. It was a fantastic opportunity to share good practice and continue to strengthen the partnership between Bromsgrove Thailand and our sister school. It was also a great chance to take a walk around the campus and enjoy all the exciting learning that was taking place. I have spent some time this week learning alongside our Nursery and Pre-Nursery children, looking at the school day through their eyes. I was so impressed with what I saw I decided to create a couple of short videos to show what an hour in the life of our youngest children might look like. You can view the videos on our Facebook page or by clicking on the links below.
Nursery

Pre Nursery

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On Sunday 25 September, the Bromsgrove Golf team was invited to participate in the Harrow International School Invitational Golf Tournament, which was held at the prestigious Bangkok Golf Club.

We were able to field a very strong team of 8 golfers and, as we have come to expect, there were some great individual performances on the day. The undoubted highlight was in the team event where BIST won the esteemed Team Champions trophy; overcoming fierce competition from the likes of Harrow and other large international schools.

As our golf continues to go from strength to strength, we must congratulate Mr Tak, the golf coordinator and, of course, our team of student golfers: Poon, Eng, Ja, Dream, Jump, Anais, Marvin and Top.

Results:

Team Champions Trophy – Winner
Class A Boys Poon – Runner up
Class A Girls Eng – Runner up
Class B Boys Dream – Winner
Class C Boys Top – 3rd Place

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The Headmaster of Bromsgrove UK, Mr Peter Clague; Assistant Head, Ms Rachel Scannell and Bursar, Mrs Lesley Brookes visited BIST on Thursday 22 September. During their visit they toured the WP campus, visited lessons in both the Primary and Secondary phase of the school and met with Dr Moore, Headmaster, to discuss opportunities to further strengthen ties between the two schools moving forward.

Following their visit Mr Clague, Headmaster of BUK stated that ‘..whilst the renovation of the main building, enhancements in the boarding houses and of course, the spectacular new Performing Arts facility were all impressive, it is the quality of teachers across the school that was most striking. Without exception, the classrooms we popped into revealed scenes of joyful, productive and innovative teaching and learning…your staff had things to teach us at BUK about great classroom practice.’

Dr Moore, Mrs Young, Secondary Principal and Ms Bennett, Primary Principal, will be working on opportunities for BIST students to collaborate with BUK students on a range of projects over the course of this academic year.

Click here for more photos

At Bromsgrove, we are always looking to the future and considering how we can take a more innovative approach to teaching and learning. As a result of this we would like to announce the launch of our brand new Makerspace, located above the newly refurbished library. Our Makerspace is an area where students can learn new skills, such as: programming and coding, robotics, music composition, film editing, arts, crafts and 3D printing. The students choose their own projects, based on their personal interests, and are then supported by their expert teachers. This brilliant new facility is being used during our ECA time; allowing our students to take their learning into their own hands and define their own projects.

With the very latest in specialised equipment to assist them, this truly is a fantastic, student centered, learning experience. One example of this innovative technology is LittleBits, an easy to use and accessible introduction into electronic design technology and engineering. We have several kits here at Bromsgrove in the MakerSpace, which students are already using to gain new skills.  Through these kits, the students can develop an understanding of how complex mechanisms and devices actually work. If you would like to see the LittleBits in action, please click on the following links to view a video: Invent Anything and Gizmos and Gadgets

We also have a 3D printer in our Makerspace, which students can use to design practically any 3D model they can imagine. Printers such as this are the future of IT, Computing and real life prototyping; by introducing students to this kind of technology, we are preparing them for the future of 3D modelling and prototyping.

If you would like to know more about our MakerSpace, then please contact Mr Marker at dmarker@bromsgrove.ac.th or Miss Loughran at sloughran@bromsgrove.ac.th

Click here to see more photos

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After a couple of weeks of planning and training both the ECA programme and the sports fixtures are now underway.
The ECA programme has started very positively with over 20 activities taking place across the school each afternoon in the fields of sports, arts and academic activities. It is great to see the campus buzzing after the timetabled lessons have finished.
Our first sporting fixture of the academic year took place this week, with our Under 13 Girls basketball team getting underway in the TISAC league. With six teams all entered into their respective TISAC leagues, this was the first of 28 basketball fixtures over the coming weeks.
Next on the horizon are the Challenge Week trips with the first trip heading out on Monday 10 October. This is the Year 11-13 trip and will offer the students 2 options; either a trip to Chiang Mai or a diving trip to Pattaya. Information about these trips and all of the other trips will be sent out in the coming days and weeks.
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On September 6’16, the working committee of the BTEC programme (Business Technical Education Commission) went to meet Dr Soonthorn Pibulcharoensit, The University Registrar, Assumption University (ABAC) and his team. We introduced and explained about the BTEC programme which the school is opening now as an alternative academic pathway for Year 12 and 13 students. The BTEC programme is designed to respond to the interest and level of capability of each student. ABAC currently offers several international programmes of study which are closely linked to the BTEC programmes and ABAC is one of the universities in Thailand that will accept our graduating students from our new BTEC programme at BIST. This is great news as it confirms that our students who complete the BTEC programme from BIST can continue their study at the university level in Thailand or in other countries around the world.
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It has been a fantastic few weeks in boarding and it is hard to believe that we are almost halfway through the first half term! All students are now fully settled into their routines and have welcomed a few new faces to our boarding houses. Over the last two weeks students have had the chance to go on a range of trips including Art In Paradise, Fashion Island and Sampran Riverside. Please do visit our Facebook page (BIST Boarding) to see the fun that was had!

This fortnight, we have had applications and interviews for our new Boarding Student Leadership Team. This year, we will have a group of prefects who each have specific roles and areas of key focus such as wellbeing, Epicure and Sports (to name but a few). These students will work together to ensure that boarding is a happy and healthy home where each child has an opportunity to have a say in the decisions made. We look forward to announcing these positions on our Facebook page shortly.

We are looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible at our Boarding BBQ on Thursday, and welcoming you into our Boarding homes. There will also be opportunities for day students to join us in the coming weeks for Thursday Team Time and our weekend trips.