Dear Samakee Community,
Thank you to all Samakee parents and carers for your trust, understanding, and unwavering support throughout the academic year 2023-2024. For families moving on from Samakee, we wish you happiness and success in all your future endeavours. Your presence has enriched our community, and we hope your journey ahead is filled with happiness and success.
As we conclude this year, we must bid some of our staff farewells. Some will return home to spend time with family, while others will move on to new schools or workplaces. To all these staff members, we wish you a smooth and successful transition to your next endeavour. We sincerely thank you for your contributions to our School. Let’s stay in touch, as we never know when our paths may cross again!”
We wish all the best to students, teachers, and TAs leaving Samakee this year; they have all made a fantastic contribution to our School during their time here. Thank you, and good luck to Ms Michelle, Ms Josey and Ms Than. We will miss you all!
To everyone in our community, we wish you a relaxing and safe holiday. We look forward to welcoming you back to School on Tuesday, August 13th, for the start of the next academic year.
Bangkok International Schools Athletic League
Last month, PE subject leaders and athletic directors from 14 Bangkok International Schools came together to form BISAL. The meeting marked the beginning of an exciting new chapter in fostering sportsmanship and healthy competition among Bangkok’s smaller schools.
Mission Statement: BISAL was established to foster camaraderie, sportsmanship, and healthy competition among schools by providing regular opportunities for organised sporting events, creating a positive, mindful, and inclusive environment for lasting memories and friendships. We aim to inspire a love for sportsmanship and competition through events and emphasise not just winning but the development of teamwork, community spirit, and meaningful connections.
Vision: Embrace uniqueness, Achieve greatness, and Experience success.
The logo, featuring 14 stars, symbolises unity and division, with 7 schools in a north league and 7 in a south league.
SAS is a founding member school in the North Division and we will compete all together in invitation tournaments.
To start, there will be Football, Basketball and Swimming competitions organised for U9, U11, U13 and U15, so all students at St Andrews Samakee will get the chance to compete if selected from the ECA teams. We hope this is just the start of increased opportunities for our students starting early next academic year. There is further interest from more small International Schools in Bangkok and even from overseas!
Summer School 2024
All aboard, adventurers! This summer, we will join an exciting Intrepid Explorers programme! Imagine a fun-filled two-week journey where we “sail” to amazing places like the Amazon rainforest, exciting Japan, cool Antarctica, beautiful France, and sunny Australia. At each stop, we’ll have special activities to learn about these cultures: imagine creating rainforest art, practising simple French greetings, or even using fun maths to budget for tickets or budgeting for sushi in Japan or how far we’ve travelled on our amazing adventure so far! The learning keeps going too – we can use our discoveries to make cool art, play sports and games from around the world and even try delicious international food! Maybe we’ll even learn some new songs and dances to celebrate the music of each place we visit! It’ll be a summer full of exploration, laughter, and amazing memories!
Year 9 Leavers
Yesterday, our Year 9 students and their parents, alums, and teachers gathered for a heartfelt Leavers Assembly to bid farewell to the outgoing class. The students, who have achieved so much during their time at Samakee, were excited about their future adventures and nostalgic about their time here—some since EYFS! Fond and funny memories shone through in their farewell speeches, met with laughter and a few tears.
We wish Year 9 all the best as they transition into their new schools in August. Please keep in touch!
Samakee Key Value Awards
It is a joy to see happy children achieving and succeeding every school day. We witness our students embodying the Samakee Key Values daily. On Thursday, we gathered in the school hall to celebrate those students whom teachers believe are shining examples of these values. One by one, the children came onto the stage to receive their awards, met with enthusiastic cheers from their friends, parents, and teachers. We are so proud of each and every one of you.
End of Year Reports
Today, school reports will be published on the Parent Portal for your child.
However, a ‘Report Hold’ will occur if tuition fees are late, library books are outstanding, or other pending payments, such as costumes for performances or trip costs. To ensure your child’s report is not held, please settle any overdue payments to the finance office as soon as possible and not later than Friday 14th, the last day of the school year. Your prompt action in this matter is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Teaching and Learning Highlights!
Kindness
We have had a big focus on Kindness in Y2 over the past few weeks. As part of our PSHE learning we have had lots of great discussions about what it means to be kind, how we can show kindness to each other and to ourselves. The children have asked thoughtful questions and given their opinions and shared their experiences. We have read some great stories such as “Have you filled a bucket today” by Carol McCloud, which talks about the importance of our actions and how they can make people feel and reflecting on the choices that we make each day to be kind.
The children created their own kindness posters to display some of the important things that we have discussed. As it is also the ‘K’ in our SMKE Samakee school values it was an important topic to learn about to ensure that our classroom, school and community are a happy place.
In a world where you can be anything – be kind!
The World Scholar’s Cup
A group of upper school students attended an academic competition in Chiang Mai called the World Scholar’s Cup. They participated in four events: collaborative writing, team debate, team challenge, and team bowl. After a long weekend, the teams came back with lots of medals and became parents to their World Scholar’s Cup Alpacas. Most importantly, they had a lot of fun and are already looking forward to competing next year.
Awards and Achievements
Whole School House Winner
At Samakee, we have three School Houses: Einstein, Shakespeare, and Nightingale.
Children are assigned to their houses randomly, with brothers and sisters placed in the same House and younger siblings moving up from First School automatically joining their family’s House. House captains take on additional responsibilities, such as organising the House, counting house points, and more. This structure motivates the children by encouraging teamwork and rewarding their involvement in all aspects of school life.
Yesterday, to much enthusiasm from the students, the House Cup was awarded to the House that achieved the most points this year. Points were earned through a variety of House and sports competitions held throughout the year.
Upcoming Important Events
School Calendar 2024-2025
Please click here: SAS_School Calendar 2024-2025
SAS LINE Communication Platform
LINE is a widely used communication platform in Thailand, and it’s a platform that Samakee has been utilizing for quite some time. We encourage all our families to connect with our official SAS LINE account to ensure we can easily disseminate important school-wide updates to our entire school community. Click to add
Monica L Sudhirak
Head of School
Head of School, Monica L Sudhirak: msudhirak@standrews-samakee.com
First School Phase Leader, Tabietha Sudhirak: tsudhirak@standrews-samakee.com
Middle School Phase leader, Hannah Riddi: hannah.ridd@standrews-samakee.com
Upper School Phase Leader, Nicky Page: npage@standrews-samakee.com
“Samakee is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare and safety of all students and expects all staff and visitors to share this commitment.”