Message from Head of school – Wednesday 6th January

Wednesday 6th January 2021

Dear Parents, Guardians, Teachers, and Staff

I am constantly impressed by the positive attitude that our students display during these times of adversity. I believe this is a clear indicator of the importance of our focus on the 11 Bangkok Prep life values especially problem solving, responsibility, resourcefulness, community minded, caring, and being a team worker, respectful and an active learner.  Bangkok Prep will continue to follow the guidance form the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), Ministry of Education and the CCSA. Currently, schools will be unable to allow students back onto their campuses until the government agencies agree it is safe. I will share any relevant updates as they become available.

Great progress during online learning

We should all be extremely proud of the achievements of our children at Bangkok Prep, and we have every confidence in their ability to flourish during this period of online learning. In fact, during the last academic year’s period of online learning, all children continued to make the expected progress. The impressive ‘end of year’ results also support this sustained progress as do the I/GCSE, A Level results not to mention the offers from the very best universities from around the world. Please see this Constant and True 2020 publication for reassurance.

High Quality and Great Communication is the key to success

During this period of online learning, we need to make sure we talk to our children in a positive and optimistic way, thus enhancing their self esteem and ensuring their well being remains healthy. Clearly, communication is a challenge when our children are learning remotely and we will continue with our ‘three key teams’ system that we utilised during the last time students in Thailand were directed to learn at home. The reason this system was deemed as very successful by parents was mostly due to the regularity of the feedback from students, parents and staff. This feedback was quickly analysed so that solutions could be effectively communicated with our Bangkok Prep community.

In essence, the school leadership team will operate three key teams throughout the closure. These are:

The Communications Team: This group will be dedicated to all outward communications with all the community by letter, website, and social media. They will make sure we share things with you in a timely manner but that most importantly this communication is accurate, verified and clear.

The Learning and Support Team: This group will manage internal communication, logistical planning, resourcing, training and support for the students, teaching staff and admin staff. They will be responsible for ensuring everyone is clear on expectations, and ensure we can all deliver on these high expectations.

The Evaluation and Feedback Team: This group will set up communications with staff, students and parents to gather useful feedback and to ensure changes are made throughout the situation. They will help us to check attendance, the quality of learning, and how well we move from one phase to the next. They will recommend improvements and how we can help students and teachers work most effectively together.

During the last 12 months, there has been a huge amount of research within international schools to support the maintenance of the school timetable and term dates. In fact, in cases where some requests from parents to change term dates were met – over 60% of the parents then requested to return the dates back to the original dates for the academic year.  A maximum of 8 weeks and a minimum of 5 week terms are optimum for children’s learning whether it takes place at home or in school.

We must all continue to work together to support our children through these difficult times and ensure they continue to flourish in a positive learning environment.

Warmest regards

Duncan Stonehouse

Head of School