We are delighted to announce that Smonporn Santadusit (Ja) from Year 10 was a prizewinner in the Singha-ISF Junior Golf Open 2015 on Sunday 25 October 2015 at Prime Golf and Resort. Well done Ja!

We are delighted to share the news that Rachata Winwon (Jump) won an award in the TGA-Singha Junior Golf Ranking 2015 at Naraihill Golf Resort and Country club, on 10 and 11 October 2015. Well done Jump! A wonderful talent in the making.

Head Boy and Head Girl

Head Boy: Pat (Year 13)
Head Girl: Jade (Year 13)

Learning Committee

Chair (and Student Voice Executive member): Daisy (Year 10)
Vice Chair: Satang (Year 12)
Secretary: Andrew (Year 9)
Committee Members: Je t’aime and Isacc (Year 7), Kai and Minjae (Year 9), Nina and Joon Ho (Year 10), Michelle (Year 11), Surabhi (Year 12)

Wellbeing Committee

Chair (and Student Voice Executive member): Thomas (Year 11)
Vice Chair: Ply (Year 12)
Secretary: Meetu (Year 12)
Committee Members: Mike (Year 7), Ananya (Year 8), Jeana (Year 9), Devi (Year 10), Lily and Nicola (Year 11), Say (Year 12) and Tae (Year 13)

Senior Boarding Prefects

Tudor House: Susan (Year 13)
Windsor House: Jaejae (Year 13)

House Captains

Edwards: Pim and Jaejae (Year 13)
Taylor: Peter (Year 13) and Satang (Year 12)
Walters: Pat (Year 13) and Claire (Year 12)

I was away from school last week, commencing my doctorate of Education in the UK, and conducting some doctoral research in one of the top international schools in Spain. I am exploring how Bromsgrove’s own ‘Mona Lisa Effect’ can be applied differently in various cultural contexts around the world. It was very exciting to be exploring at the highest possible academic level the very ideas we are developing here at BIST, and very encouraging to hear from school leaders across the world how much they admire the innovation we are able to effect here. For example, our approach to ‘homework’, about which parents at both Parent Workshops on Friday were so positive, is gradually becoming the envy of international schools around the world. I feel very proud to be able to let you know that, in so many ways, your child’s education here at BIST is, quite honestly, amongst the best they could receive anywhere on the planet.

This week saw the finalists of Bromsgrove’s Got Talent confirmed. I am thrilled with the range and quality of the acts that will be performing this week and excited to be part of the judging panel. Please do come along and support all the students who are involved in this event: Thursday 15 October at 3.30pm. Our Student Voice committees have also met this week and have provided useful feedback to me about the areas of the school which they would like to see developed further. I also spent some time this week seeing some of the fantastic ELO and ILT work that Secondary students have produced: all the pieces that I was privileged to see showed immense creativity and depth of understanding. The week was rounded off by a supremely positive Parents’ Workshop on Friday, to give feedback from staff and students about the new ‘homework’ at Bromsgrove and to hear thoughts and opinions from the parents. It was an hour full of interesting feedback and I would like to thank all parents who came along and spoke to us, as this perspective is so important to us as a school as we continue to develop.

I am delighted to inform you that the School has improved the efficiency and effectiveness of our parent communication. We have encouraged every parent to follow “Line@” and to provide us with their “E-mail address”. The admissions team will monitor with every parent, one by one, which communication channels they prefer to use, and ask them if they agree to follow Line@ and contact us via e-mail. Effective communication is the key factor to build relationships and understanding between parents and teachers, so that our children can be developed in the same direction, and we thank you for your support with this.

Things in boarding are really picking up in pace at the moment. This week, the prefects have been asking for the different year groups’ feedback on many aspects of boarding so far this year. The head prefects have then fed back the summary of this and we are now working to implement as many of the requested changes as possible. It was great to see how many of the requests were mature, reasonable and justified. I look forward to feeding back to the boarders this week the changes we will be making to our policies, procedures, items around the house – and an unexpected bonus that I have been working on to reward our excellent prefect team for all of their hard work. This week saw the second week of the ‘student request’ Sunday dinner. We now have on the rota, for the next few weeks, Mexican tacos, Japanese curry, steamed chicken and rice and Bulgogi (Korean BBQ beef). Sadly, due to unavailability, we had to cancel the airsoft trip last Friday, but we have moved this to Thursday this week as a treat for the boarders for working so hard this term. The Sport and Spa sign up turned out not to be popular, so we will look to find another activity on a Wednesday evening that the boarders would enjoy. I am currently negotiating with a professional Golf coach to offer driving range instruction early Wednesday evenings for the boarders.

This week, we had our ‘Fantastic Finish’ in Primary. Classrooms opened their doors and invited parents in to see all the awesome things that the students had been working on this half semester. We had a range of exciting activities including:

  • Ink drawings of The Twits in the style of Quentin Blake
  • Jam tasting from The Wolves in the Walls
  • Chocolate Making and an Oompa Loompa dance from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
  • Science experiments relating to sound and vision from The BFG
  • Business presentations from student-led companies inspired by the inventions in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

It was truly a fantastic finish to the topic and I was delighted to see how many parents came to celebrate their children’s successes. This week many parents have also started using the Interactive Learning Diary (ILD), and it has been great to see parents uploading their children’s academic achievements at home and sharing their success at school.

It seems almost impossible to believe that we are almost half way through the first academic term of the new school year. It has been a half-term packed with exciting learning and teaching, a wide range of house events (not forgetting the spectacular BIST Trashion show), sports competitions and fixtures, the ISB Choir Festival, Bromsgrove’s Got Talent, a new programme of amazing boarding trips plus many, many more. It is also fantastic to see some of our basketball players topping the TISAC basketball league in the year we re-joined this Athletic Conference. It has been a real pleasure to speak to a number of parents over the past 8 weeks and listen to your feedback about how amazing BIST is this year – both in and out of the classrooms. I would like to thank all my dedicated staff for their ongoing commitment to the school as, without them, this half-term would not have been possible: they all deserve a well-earned holiday next week. Lastly, I would also like to wish all our students, parents and guardians a restful break. I look forward to welcoming you back with your batteries fully charged and raring to go for the upcoming residential trips programme.

The Senior Swimming Squad participated in a Gala on 6th October at Bangkok Prep School. They were keen, motivated and worked extrmely well as a team. We won 5 medals so well done to MJ, Sydney, Rapee and Sanjee who got two.