STMARKS NEWSLETTER 10 (28 OCTOBER 2022)

CAMBRIDGE OUTSTANDING LEARNER’S AWARD 2022

Following the announcement from Cambridge International last week, we are very pleased to announce the academic success of our student, Natchayathorn (Year 9), who will receive the prestigious “Cambridge Outstanding Learner’s Award” for High Achievement in A-Level Mathematics for her examination taken in November 2021.   

This is the 4th consecutive year where our students excel and achieved brilliantly in the Cambridge examinations and here is our record of Cambridge achievements over the past 4 years. 

2022    “Cambridge Outstanding Learner (High Achievement)” A-Level Mathematics

2021      “Top in Thailand” IGCSE Chemistry

                “Top in Thailand” IGCSE Mathematics

                “Top in Thailand” IGCSE Biology

                “Top in Thailand” IGCSE Additional Mathematics  

                “Top in Thailand” A-Level Mathematics

                “Top in Thailand” A-Level Computer Science

                “Cambridge Outstanding Learner (High Achievement)” A-Level Mathematics

2020     “Cambridge Outstanding Learner (High Achievement)” IGCSE Chemistry

2019     “Top in Thailand” IGCSE Physics  

Once again, congratulations to our students’ academic success.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PREMIER’S WACE BURSARY WORTH $AUD 20,000

As educators, we understand that the determination of a tertiary education can be an exciting and yet challenging experience for both parents and students. Parents may have to consider various factors from quality of education, types of the curriculum and program, location and most importantly financial commitment.

We are delighted to inform parents that The  School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA) has forwarded us a letter from the Minister for International Education in Western Australia, which recently announced that international students graduating from St. Mark's Year 12 ATAR program will be eligible for the Western Australian Premier's WACE Bursary. This program will provide a one-off payment of $20,000 (Australian Dollars) to all successful applicants to reimburse some of the costs involved with studying at any university in Western Australia.

PROTOCOL FOR BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT SCHOOL

We are aware that birthday celebration is a joyous event for both parents and students as it is a special day for them. Some students may wish to celebrate this special occasion with their friends at school. Hence we do allow parents to bring cakes, food and other related items to school during lunch period. However, in order to have a pleasant and memorable time, we would like to seek your cooperation to follow our Birthday celebration protocol below:  

1. Parents who wish to have a birthday celebration for their child at school, will have to notify the school in writing either through school LINE official or email, 7 days in advance.
2. Parents have to list down all the items that will be brought into the school on that day.
3. Helium balloons are strictly prohibited.
4. Lighting of candles on birthday cakes are prohibited. Parents who wish to have candles on the birthday cakes may include the candles but they will not be lighted.
5. Parents will have to prepare cutlery, paper plates or cups as required for the birthday party.
6. For parents who wish to join the celebration, they have to be at school and to leave the school on time, so there will be enough time for the celebration and preparation for their next lesson, after the lunch period.
7. For parents who will not join the celebration, they may drop the birthday cake or any food with our school security by informing them your child’s name and grade level. In addition, please label the bags with your child’s name and grade level as well.

TEMPORARY SUBSTITUTION OF MANDARIN TEACHER (EARLY YEARS - YEAR 1)

We would like to inform you that Miss Xiaoqing, our Mandarin teacher, will have to make an emergency trip back to her hometown in China due to her father’s passing. Starting from Monday, 31 October, we have made a substitute arrangement to have Mr. Sean take over all of Ms. Xiaoqing’s classes (Kindergarten – Year 1).  We anticipate that Ms. Xiaoqing will be able to resume her teaching role in Semester 2.

For your information, Mr. Sean holds a Bachelor of Communication from the University of Zhejiang.  Prior to joining St. Mark's, Sean taught Chinese broadcast and English classes for elementary and junior high school students in his home city of Zhangjiajie, China.  His attentiveness and caring attitude toward his students, have enabled him to earn the trust of his students.

STUDENT'S MATH ACHIEVEMENT 2022

On behalf of the St. Mark's community, we would like to congratulate Rachata (Y4) for bagging yet another Gold Award from the recent Singapore Math Competition 2022.  Rachata is ranked # 1 in Thailand and #1 in Global rank at his year level. 

Keep up the good work. 

AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

We are delighted to announce the following students who received our Award of Excellence in Effort and Kindness this week.

As a way of acknowledging our students' achievements, students have been given a special "Award of Excellence Breakfast" today (28 October)

Pasut - Year 4 (Effort - Completing Assigned Work)

Monpachara - Year 6 (Kindness)

Vilanphat - Year 6 (Kindness)

Nira - Year 6 (Kindness)

Punn - Year 6 (Kindness)

Xinjie - Year 8 (Effort - Achieving Excellent Result)

AWARD OF EXCELLENCE BREAKFAST (28 OCTOBER)

On Friday, 28 October, we held our second Award of Excellence Breakfast for this semester. The event is aimed at recognising our students for their exemplary character. 

Award winners were invited to join our special breakfast prepared for them in recognising their good behaviour.

Keep up the good work!

PREPํ THAI: LEARNING TO BLEND ALPHABETS AND VOWELS

Our Thai language lessons are taught in a meaningful way.  Students are given the opportunity to recall sounds of different alphabets and vowels. They are also given opportunities to take turns practicing blending and combining alphabets and vowels into meaningful words. 

Most of our students in Prep have mastered the skills of blending of sounds and are early readers and writers; they have shown significant progress in their ability to read and write this Semester. 

Well done Prep!  

YEAR 1 ENGLISH: OBSERVING SCIENCE - ENGLISH PROCEDURAL WRITING

Our Australian English curriculum is interesting and unique in a sense that the English curriculum allows opportunities for students to explore various English contents pertaining to the world of Science, History, Geography, Morale.  Through this process, students learn to develop their English skills, while enjoying themselves with new knowledge from various disciplines.  Many of our students love our English program because of the fun, interesting and creative ways to learn English. 

This week, Year 1 students had a very interesting English class. The teacher led our students to do a simple but amazing experiment. He first mixed water and vinegar in a beaker, then added sodium bicarbonate. And then something magical happened, a lot of bubbles were created in the beaker, and more and more. At this time, the teacher placed a balloon on the conical flask's mouth, and the balloon started to expand.   Our students were amazed with what they saw in class.

After the experiment, our teacher focused on procedural writing, where students were given the opportunity to write and describe the procedures of how the balloon experiment was carried out in class.  Our teacher gave some practical words to help the students organise their procedural writing.  Since our students enjoyed the lesson, they were quick to learn how to write the procedures of this experiment.

YEAR 6 MANDARIN: USING THE PREPOSITION "CHEN"

The word 趁 (chèn) is a commonly used Chinese preposition certainly meaning "to grab" or "to take advantage of" a favorable situation or a good opportunity to do something.

During our Year 6 Mandarin lesson this week, students were given various examples of how to use this word in a sentence.   Later, our teacher gave an opportunity for students to practice using this word by assigning phrases for each student to form a sentence using this word at the beginning of their sentences.  Later, the Year 6 students were asked to write their sentences on the board and read them. 

Our comprehensive Mandarin program ensures that our students understand what they have learnt through the practice of phase/sentence construction. Concurrently, students also learn to apply new words, read, comprehend and learn to write meaningful sentences.    

YEAR 8 ENGLISH

Linking sentences into paragraphs is what must be mastered firmly in language learning, which tests students' language logic ability. The exercises of conjunctions into paragraphs are generally sorted according to the chronological order, the order of events, the order of space, etc. If they want to do a good job of connecting sentences into paragraphs, they must stick to the core paragraphs of the text.

In this week's Y8 English class, the teacher gave the students an article that disrupted the order of the paragraphs, and guided the students to analyse the relationship between each sentence and the central idea on the basis of fully understanding the content of the text. This helped students learn to grasp the internal logic of language.

YEAR 12 MATHS: LAWS OF LOGARITHMS

Our Year 12 students have been working hard since last year in our new ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank) program for five subjects. It was a pleasure to see their continued efforts in building on what they’ve learned since last year in preparation for the demanding ATAR exams set to begin next week. They practiced almost every practice exam available, reviewing and studying even during the holidays last week.

In the video here students were reviewing the laws of logarithms to work through an example problem. The basic concepts of calculus and statistics are exciting enough. But details of algebra and basic arithmetic can be demanding in solving advanced problems.

The students will continue to make final preparations for their first ATAR exam this coming Monday. But mental preparedness includes a balance of sleep and rest as the exams will not end until ten days later. We wish our Year 12 students the very best for their upcoming exams.