January 2017

Your choice. Their future. Our family. โรงเรียนนานาชาติการ์เด้นอีสเทิร์นซีบอร์ดบ้านฉาง January 2017
CHINESE
NEW YEAR
Find us at:
Website: w w w .gardenrayong.com
Twitter: w w w .tw itter.com/ gisrayong
Facebook: w w w .facebook.com/ pages/ Garden-International-School-Rayong-Thailand/128699487157809
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/gardenrayongthailand
Accredited by
Affiliated to
1

From Mrs Hawtree: Principal
Dear GIS Community,
It’s been a busy start to 2017, with a huge number of sporting events, trips, Global Action activities, Chinese
New Year celebrations, and very important mock examinations for Year 11 and IB2 students, to name but a
few of the exciting and challenging opportunities available to GIS students.
Our new Head of Secondary, Mr Share, appears to have settled in very well, and is already getting to know
many of our Secondary students. He is looking to build on the strong foundations lain by Mr Ball and, more
recently, Mr Beales, to make our Secondary school an even more vibrant and stimulating environment in
which our Secondary students can grow and develop.
As a school leadership team, we are now starting to plan ahead for next year, and I thought it might be timely
to share some of the key developments planned with you in this newsletter. Many of these developments link
to the feedback from the parents who attended the discussion evening we held in September – thank you
again to those contributed their time and ideas.
We are in the process of putting together a detailed 3-year development plan, as it would not be feasible to
make all the changes we would like to in one year – as the saying goes ‘Rome was not built in a day’. There
are many, many developments planned, but some of the key ones that will be evident to parents in 2017/18
are as follows:
A change from the current 6-day timetable, to a one-week timetable in Primary, and a two-week timetable
in Secondary.
In conjunction with the change above, an adjustment of the balance of the curriculum, particularly looking
to strengthen Thai language provision and review how we deliver what is currently known as
‘awesomeness’.
A change to the option blocks for IGCSE to ensure clear, logical pathways for our students to progress
smoothly from IGCSE through to IB.
A change to the school’s leadership structures, aimed at delivering greater consistency between different
sections of the school, and ensuring we have clearly identified leaders driving our major developments.
A review of our assessment processes, and how this information is best shared with parents.
A new system of student rewards and sanctions.
Increased opportunities for student leadership.
Forging deeper links with local charities to enrich our students’ opportunities for Community Service.
A programme of parent discussion events on specific topics.
Reconfiguring and refurbishment of certain classrooms and facilities.
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As our plans progress, and the new academic year approaches, we will provide further details for you on the
planned developments.
Another of the issues that was raised in the parent meeting was the importance of maintaining low staff
turnover and recruiting high-quality teachers – a top priority for every school. This year our turnover is going
to be relatively low; typically international schools turnover around 30% of their teachers each year – at GIS
this is only just over 15% this year. We are also looking to add a couple of extra teachers to further develop
and strengthen our provision. These vacancies have already been advertised, and we have received over
200 applications. Of these, over 1/3 were invited for an initial Skype interview, and we are now shortlisting
the final 30 or so to proceed to final interview, either at GIS itself, in London, or if necessary, via Skype where
the candidates are located in very far flung destinations. The quality of applications has been impressive, and
I’m confident that we will be able to secure the services of some excellent teachers for next year. I will share
details of all the staffing changes once all contracts are signed which, if all goes well, I anticipate being some
time in April.
Shortly after you receive this, I will be heading off to London to meet the UK/Europe based candidates.
Although it will be nice to spend a few days ‘at home’ I am certainly not looking forward to the cold!
Mrs Dinah Hawtree
Principal
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Upcoming Events
Whole School
Feb 6-10: LAMDA examinations
Feb 6: Friends of Garden coffee morning, 8am at the canteen
Feb 10: End of half term (holidays February 11-19)
Feb 20: School reopens (Day 6)
Feb 21: International Mother Language Day
Feb 22-24: GIS/REPS Book Fair, Assembly Hall, 2nd Floor, Kindergarten Building, REPS
Primary
Feb 1: Year 2 horse-riding trip
Feb 7: Year 3 trip to weather station
Feb 8: Reception to Year 2 Sports’ Day
Feb 9: Primary Sports’ Day
Secondary
Feb 1: PSHE collapsed morning (Year 9)
Feb 2: UK Maths Challenge
Feb 3: IB2 History IA deadline
Feb 4-5: Senior Games, Regents Pattaya
Feb 8: IB1, Extended Essay workshop
Feb 9: Assembly, period 5 (ELS)
Feb 10: Secondary Sports’ Day
Many thanks to our generous GIS sponsors:
Platinum
Aditya Birla Encounter Church Indorama
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CHINESE NEW YEAR MARKED WITH DANCE AND DUMPLINGS
GIS celebrated Chinese New Year with songs, dance and dumplings.
The Languages' Department organised a special evening of Chinese activities, which featured red lanterns
strung around the school leading up to the Main Hall on January 26. The show, hosted by IB students,
featured a traditional Chinese fan dance, songs from the Thai teachers and even a special
dance from other GIS teachers.
In the interval, Chinese dumplings and other snacks were available. To mark the Year of the Rooster,
students and staff also wore red on Friday January 27.
Thanks to Indorama, which sponsored this event.
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Head to our Facebook page for the latest news on what’s been
happening at GIS. This month, you can read about:
www.facebook.com/gardeninternationalschool
You can also watch our latest videos about what’s been happening
at GIS by going here:
www.youtube.com/user/gardenrayongthailand
Follow us on Instagram! Find us at garden_international_school or
search for
#gistitans
Check out our Pinterest page and see the dozens of photos showcasing
life at GIS.
https://www.pinterest.com/GISThailand/
Follow our tweets on Twitter!
https://www.twitter.com/gisrayong
For Sport, follow #GISTitans
See our snaps and stories on Snapchat! Our
username is gisthailand
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From Mr Walsh: Head of Primary
Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope that you all had a good start to 2017. There has been
a lot happening in Foundation and Primary as each class gets
immersed in their new learning units for this half term.
Already, displays are being filled with fantastic examples of
children’s learning. We have also already had two year
groups on residential trips (see below) and we’re only on
week 4!
At the start of term students attended a whole-school Global
Action assembly aimed at increasing understanding of the
charities connected with GIS. Guest speaker, Margaret,
founder of the Hand to Hand Foundation in Pattaya, was
inspirational and this led to our recent donation drive. Thank
you for all donations (see later in this newsletter for more
details), and to everyone who took the initiative to organise
this.
Rice
Year 4 students have been leading our rice-growing project.
Students from across the school have been keeping an eye
on the progress of the rice as it has been growing and learning
about the production of this cereal grain. The rice is
actually coming out now and will be ready to harvest in a few
weeks. Please stop by and have a look.
Thanks to Mr Michael for pioneering this project with the help
of funding from the Friends of Garden. There are plans this
year to increase this horticulture.
Primary Student Council
and International Day
The Primary Student Council meets
once a month to discuss ideas for
school improvements and current issues.
Recently the Student Council
has been planning the next phase of
the Primary Tree House/Pirate Ship
which will be funded by the Friends of
Garden (Thank you FoG!) The Student
Council has also discussed ideas
for future charity events and International
Day. In the week leading up to
International Day (the week commencing
March 6) there will be internationally-focused
learning events
during the last period of each day. The
Student Council is keen to invite parents
to come in to teach some students
about their home country. Tasting
food is always nice, but it would be
even better for the students to get a
greater understanding of a different
country by learning about the language,
history, traditional dress,
customs, landmarks, and so on.
If you think you would be able to come
in to share some information about
your own country’s culture, please
come and speak to Mr Walsh, or email
headpri@gardenrayong.com.
Friends of Garden
Representatives
If you are interested in becoming a
parent representative for a Primary
year group, please contact the
Friends of Garden by emailing
fogevents@gardenrayong.com.

ZOO TRIP
The Nursery class went on a field trip to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month as part of their study of
‘Wild Animals’. Together we had talked about what kind of animals they thought we they might see. It was
wonderful for the students to see real animals and how they behaved after we had seen them in books and
watch them on videos.
The students were able to feed giraffes, rhinos and elephants. The zoo sells food that is an appropriate part
of the diet of the animals there. This helped us to understand what the animals like to eat.
After we had looked around we stopped to have lunch there and play in the zoo playground before returning
to school.
WORK FOR STUDENT ABSENCE
After a few recent enquiries about setting work during student absence, I would like to clarify the
school’s stance on this issue.
If a student is absent for reasons beyond their (or their family’s) control, the school will set work for the
student to complete during that absence. For example, if the student had to travel abroad to attend a
funeral, or because a family member was sick.
If a student is absent for reasons within their (or their family’s) control, the school will not set work. For
example, during a family holiday.
Any questions regarding this should be directed towards the Head of Primary.
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PRIMARY HAS
TALENT
The first heat of Primary
Has Talent was a lot of
fun. It was fantastic to see
a whole range of talents
being performed on
stage. We enjoyed
individual and group
performances.
A big well done to all of
the students who bravely
volunteered to perform. A
special well done to those
who went through to the
next round.
The next Primary Has
Talent heat will be on
March 17. Students can
sign up on the clubs’
noticeboard.

LEARNING ON A BARGE
On January 11, Year 5 travelled to the Chao Phraya River
to spend 3 days living and learning on a river barge.
We learnt about sustainability and the current threats to
the Chao Phraya River ecosystem by interviewing local
people on Koh Kret, viewing wildlife and plants along the
river and participating in a water hyacinth investigation to
check the health level of the water.
Here are a few of our trip highlights:
On our first day, we got to experience using a pottery
wheel to shape and spin our own pots. Then we dried
them on the top of the barge. Everyone enjoyed getting
their hands dirty and using the different tools to change
the shapes of our creations.
On our second day, the highlight was swimming at Bang
Sai Bay and jumping off the barge into the water. Some of
us were nervous about it, but we were excellent risk takers
and had loads of fun!
We learnt lots of new games to play together – Ultimate
Ninja was our favourite! On our last day, visited a big market
and bought breakfast to share with all our classmates
and teachers.
We learnt about adaptation through a game where we pretended
different tools were bird beaks and we had to get
enough food for our bird family. We LOVED the hot chocolate
that our barge leaders made for us in the mornings!
We demonstrated responsibility by being part of barge
crews, where we had to take turns mopping the deck, recording
the navigation details and preparing, cooking and
serving meals.
It was an excellent three days for everyone on the trip and
we were sad to say goodbye to the barge and our wonderful
barge leaders.
11

VISITING THE
ROYAL VARUNA YACHT CLUB
Year 4 students have been on an
extremely exciting and challenging
residential. Linked with our current
topic on Body systems, the children
got the fantastic opportunity to use
their muscles whilst learning to sail.
We were extremely impressed by their
willingness to learn how to steer a
boat. The children have proven that
they could be Risk Takers and Reflective
at the same time as they had to
remember so many new things at
once: wind direction and force, different
types of knots, etc. It was also
great to see them working in pairs —
they showed strong team working
skills. The RVYC offered a safe and
beautiful environment for our new
skippers and they all enjoyed the food
and the bonfire!
GIRLS TAKE GOLD AT CHARITY FOOTBALL CONTEST
The One Day One Goal football tournament took place at St Andrews School on January 21. It was
a really good event. Students from a variety of schools enjoyed a whole morning of football. The
main objectives of this sponsored event were to raise money for charity and enable the children to
have fun playing sport. It was highly competitive and our students gave it their all, enjoying varied
success. Well done to all of the GIS students who took part; we’re very proud of you all. A big well
done goes to the Under 10 girls who received gold medals for winning their group. Thank you to all
of the parents and the Friends of Garden members who came to cheer the students on and offer
much needed refreshments. Thank you also to the teachers who gave up their time to coach the
teams during the day, we’re very proud of you too!
12

Australia Day
As our current Connected Learning
topic is Australia, on the actual
Australia Day (Thursday, January
28), we got the chance to learn more
about this vast island by conducting
a wealth of Australian themed activities.
During the day, we rotated between
a variety of activities, including playing
Aussie Rules football (a child
friendly version with our local expert
- Mr Garth), making lamington
cakes, creating Aborigine inspired
art and our personal favourite
activity: boomerang making!
We enjoyed a taster session in the
secondary DT lab, where Mr Man
helped us use cool new tools to cut,
file and sand our boomerangs.
For lunch, in true Australian style,
we held a 'barbie' (Australian word
for barbecue) where some barbecue
experts cooked up burgers for a
Year 6 picnic.
Thank you to all the teachers who
helped make this day amazing for
Year 6.
Social Media
You can find out more about all of the trips and events by going to our Facebook
page. To keep up with the learning as it happens, please see the class blogs.
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From our Head Boy and Girl
GLOBAL ACTION LEADS
TO LOCAL DONATIONS
Term 2 has never been busier! The month started off with a spectacular
Global Action whole school assembly, wonderfully pulled off by the
members of the new Global Action committee at GIS.
GIVING A
HELPING HAND
Kind-hearted students have donated
dozens of gifts to a
Pattaya-based children’s
charity.
The school launched its new
Global Action Committee with a
whole school assembly. This
included a talk from the Hand to
Hand Foundation in Pattaya,
which helps impoverished
children and their families.
Several students were so
moved by what they heard, they
decided they wanted to help
and collect items. A week-long
drive was launched and resulted
in many, many boxes-full of
items, which will be sent to the
Foundation.
Services’ Prefect Jignil invited Miss Margaret from Hand to Hand Foundation
as a guest speaker so the students at GIS know why we help the
charities we support and how we can keep helping them. The committee
also informed the school about the Christmas boxes organised last
term. Well done Global Action!
We also congratulate the Year 11 and IB2 students on finishing their
mock examinations - those are tough! We are sure your hard work and
perseverance paid off, and hope you are ready for the real
examinations coming up very soon!
Other students at GIS preparing for examinations are those about to
take LAMDA assessments. Tutored by both teachers and IB1 students,
the LAMDA students have been working very hard for the past month
and from February 6-11 these students will be sitting their
examinations. Good luck to all the LAMDA students.
Recently, we organised an activity for students to recognise Holocaust
Memorial Day, where we recognized those who have suffered due to
conflict. We also marked Chinese New Year. The amazing food and
wonderful performances made the night memorable and enjoyable. We
can’t wait to see more amazing performances next year!
The Hand to Hand Foundation
is one of the school’s chosen
charities for this year.
Head Boy – Jignil
Head Girl – Shilpi

We have some great school blogs to tell you about life at GIS. Click on
the links below to see what’s been going on!
PRIMARY BLOGS
Early Years http://earlyyears.gardenrayong.com/
Nursery http://nursery.gardenrayong.com/
Reception http://reception.gardenrayong.com/
Year 1 http://year1.gardenrayong.com/
Year 2 http://year2.gardenrayong.com/
Year 3 http://year3.gardenrayong.com/
Year 4 http://year4.gardenrayong.com/
Year 5 http://year5.gardenrayong.com/
Year 6 http://year6.gardenrayong.com/
ESL Blog: http://primaryels.gardenrayong.com
SECONDARY BLOGS
Year 7-9
http://year7to9.gardenrayong.com/
IGCSE
http://gisigcse.gardenrayong.com/
IB
http://ib.gardenrayong.com/
WHOLE SCHOOL BLOGS
Extra-curricular Sport
http://gissport.gardenrayong.com/
Extra-curricular Music
http://gismusicblog.gardenrayong.com/
Extra-curricular Drama http://gisdrama.gardenrayong.com/
Library
http://library.gardenrayong.com/
Community Programmes http://communityprogrammes.gardenrayong.com/
Community Service
http://gisserviceprojects.gardenrayong.com/
Friends of Garden
http://friendsofgarden.gardenrayong.com/
Boarding
http://gisboarding.gardenrayong.com/

From Mr Share: Head of Secondary
At the end of my first month I have witnessed many of the strengths of the school. At our wonderful community
Chinese New Year event it was great to see so many of our families and it was also wonderful to
see our students help crafting and leading the show and working so well with our teachers. What you may
not have seen is the nervous students and indeed one, who moments before the start, was in floods of
tears with performance anxiety. Stress also affected the students who recently sat their IGCSE and IB
mock examinations, who went through the necessary “evil” of practising hours and days of revision before
the rigorous process of experiencing examination conditions. It is a useful point in time to remind all in our
community of the kind of beliefs that we are instilling in our students. In my first assembly I shared my passion
for the belief of “growth mindset”. The science is clear on how what you believe yourself capable of
effects how successfully you can build intelligence. The students were shown these videos which you may
want to look at clip 1, assembly clip 2. Research also shows that support and understanding from the family
is also a big factor in the potential for a child to succeed. If you would like to learn more about growth
mindset you might like to watch this introduction to growth mindset.
The students who were taking their mocks should know that even if the mock results are not what they expected,
this is the key time to learn from mistakes, fine tune skills and have clear targets on how to
improve in the next 3 months. We have a Year 11 and IB2 Parent Conference on February 7 to assist with
these discussions. When you look at the school’s values the studious is obviously very important and
evident in lessons around the school but there have also been plenty of examples of the generous with the
fantastic collection that has been made for the Hand to Hand Foundation in the last week and the being
internationally minded has seen our sports teams compete against local international schools at football
and basketball and we are planning ahead for next month when we have an international week, an international
Mathematics’ competition and students taking part in international Drama and Music examinations
(LAMDA), well done and good luck to them all.
Finally in this busy period of holidays across the region and the world from Tet to Chinese, New Year and
various half terms from the different educational systems, I often get asked about the policy for taking
students out of school. The answer is always that we do not encourage students being taken out of school
in term time, but we understand that sometimes it is unavoidable in the case of family emergencies or visa
issues. We will do our best as teachers to help students catch up by publishing details of what has been
taught. Parents must email me (headsec@gardenrayong.com) to ask for this information as it takes
considerable extra work for our teachers to collate. Teachers are also asked to refer all enquiries to me as
we monitor the attendance in the school so that we maximise every child’s chance of success in all areas
of school life.
Finally if you wondering what happened to the girl in floods of tears before the Chinese New Year
performance, after 10 minutes being calmed down and encouraged, she went back in and performed.
What a fantastic attitude and learning experience.
Chris Share
Head of Secondary

We continue to celebrate all the countries represented at GIS by flying a different
nation’s flag each week. Here are the countries that have recently been recognised at
the front of the school.
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18

Sport
GIRLS IN
VOLLEYBALL
TRIUMPH
We had some successful
Under 15 volleyball matches
against St Andrew's.
Our girls won, and the boys
came very close. Both boys
and girls played well.
Our volleyball teams played well in their recent games.
Remember to follow our sporting stars on Twitter by following
#GISTitans.
MEDALS FOR OUR FOOTBALL TEAMS
Five teams from Primary and two from Secondary
went to a charity football tournament at St Andrews.
It was a great day and three of our teams came
home with medals! The U13 Girls were great and
came second. A great warm up for the FOBISIA
Games in March.
A big thank you to all the staff who gave up their
Saturday to coach their teams.
Also, big congratulations to our Senior Boys
football team who recently beat Regents 5-4.

Sport
BASKETBALL VICTORY
Our Senior boys basketball stars won against St Andrews on Tuesday
January 31.
They started slowly in the first half of the game, but then we had a
dramatic transformation. Confidence and focus was the key to
winning.
The House competition is even more competitive this year! Tiger are slowly catching Cobra, Eagle
are falling behind and Gecko are just about holding on. There are Sports Days next week with lots
of points to play for — who will come out on top?
21

IB Diploma Programme
Every month we look at the work our IB students have
been doing for Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS). This
month Prem talks about helping blind children at a
school in Pattaya.
Before you visit this place, you
need to book a time that is suitable
for you and the children. This
benefits the children so their lessons
will not be disturbed. They
accept visitors on particular
days, so we decided to go on a
Friday as this was when the children
have ice cream, which were
given out by my family. Therefore,
this experience helped create
a tremendous atmosphere
for experiencing the moment
everyone received their ice
creams.
Before leaving this charity event, the children performed a
beautiful piece of music as a thank you to us for visiting
them and making their day. For any visitors who visit, this
will create an emotional affect as the music played was very
impressive and I was amazed to see a blind child playing a
guitar so well. For me, visiting this charity made me want to
do better in life as seeing these children made me feel sorry
for them but also happy to see that despite their disabilities,
they can still enjoy themselves and do their best. I am glad
my family and I decided to visit this charity to help out.
STAYING SAFE ONLINE
IB students helped younger students learn
about online safety as part of their PSHE
lessons.
The IB students who are studying
Information Technology in a Global Society
(ITGS) came up with three mornings of
activities for Years 7-9. This involved looking
at how to stay safe on social media,
what to be aware of and how to ensure
students take steps to remain safe when
online.
Feedback from the Years 7 to 9 students
was very positive—well done to the IB
students who organised these successful
mornings.
CAS Outcomes:
-Planning and initiating activities
- Working collaboratively with others
- Working with my family to help the children out
- Considering the ethical implications of your actions
- Caring for unfortunate children.
For more about this
charity, visit:
www.fr-ray.org/en/what-wedo/school-for-the-blind/
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House Council
HOUSE COUNCIL GIFTS
The House Council decided to use some of the
money they raised last year to give the Year 11
and IB2 students, who are currently sitting their
mock examinations, a well-earned gift.
One student was nearly brought to tears by the
kind and thoughtful gift. Good luck for the real
examinations!
Garden International School
Your choice. Their future. Our family.
Find us at:
Website: w w w .gardenrayong.com
Facebook: w w w .facebook.com/ pages/ Garden-International-School-Rayong-Thailand/128699487157809
Youtube: w w w .youtube.com/ user/ gardenrayongthailand
Twitter: w w w .tw itter.com/ gisrayong
Accredited by
Affiliated to
23