10th October 2025

Dear Samakee Community,

Exciting Progress on Our KS4 Expansion

We're pleased to share an update on our plans to expand St Andrews Samakee International School to include Key Stage 4 from 2027.

Our preparations are moving forward with momentum:

Learning from Others Our Upper School lead has been meeting with several local International Schools that already offer KS4 provision. These conversations have been invaluable in helping us understand best practices and potential challenges as we plan our expansion.

Subject-Specific Research All of our KS3 subject specialists are actively researching their particular areas to ensure we develop a robust and engaging KS4 curriculum that builds seamlessly on our current provision.

Board Engagement This Tuesday, we held a Board Meeting dedicated to reviewing our progress so far. The Board remains fully supportive of our expansion plans and the thorough approach we're taking to ensure success.

We'll continue to keep you updated as our plans develop further.

It was a special day at Samakee as we welcomed back an alumni family from Denmark! Their daughter attended First School over ten years ago, and they stopped by today for a tour as part of their three-week holiday in Thailand.

We were absolutely delighted when they remarked that the school is still as warm and friendly as they remember.

It was a joy to tour the campus with them, catching up with long-standing staff who immediately remembered the family and made them feel right at home. This short visit confirms that the heart of our small community remains strong across the years and miles!

Welcome Back!

A Warm Reunion

Upcoming Event: A Quick Guide

Please make a note of four important events happening next week.

Monday 13th October - HM King Bhumibol Memorial Day - School will be closed.

Parent Consultations will take place on Tuesday, the 14th, and Thursday, the 16th of October:

We look forward to meeting with you and working together to support your child’s learning.
If you have any questions, please get in touch with the school office or your child's class/form teacher.

Wednesday 15th October - Nightingale House Event - "Dance Crazy"

Time: 12:40 - 2:30 pm

Nightingale House Event will bring the energy with music, wild dance moves, and plenty of laughter! It’s all about creativity, rhythm, and having fun together. Please wear your House T-shirt!

Thursday 16th October - Wai Kru

Time: 8:45

Next week, we will celebrate Wai Kru, a special Thai tradition where students show respect and gratitude to their teachers. This meaningful ceremony is an opportunity for children to express appreciation for the guidance and care they receive throughout the year.

During the event, students will present symbolic flower arrangements brought from home and offer words of thanks, reflecting the values of respect, kindness, and gratitude that are important to our school community. It’s always a beautiful and heartfelt occasion that highlights the strong bond between teachers and students. Parents welcome.

Booking Link

Public Speaking Camp For Kids

This one-day camp will be held on Saturday the 1st of November from 9 am to 4 pm at St. Andrews Samakee with lunch and snack breaks included. This will be a joint event with students aged 10-15 from outside our school too. The workshop will be conducted by Mr. Chris Wright, a highly experienced teacher, trainer, motivational speaker, mindset coach, writer TV host and producer who happens to be a parent of two of our students.

The camp / workshop will be conducted in two formats. We will have various types of speeches on stage in front of others and we will have public speaking walk rally bases where the participants have to take part in team based communication activities such as breaking the ice with new people, storytelling, interviewing, pitching products & services.

We will have little money prizes for team winners and individual winners to show them that if they speak well in public, they will receive good things back from the public. The event will be fun but also a little serious in some parts.

Participants have to bring a laptop / tablet as they will have to present with Canva / Google Slides too.

We look forward to seeing some of your children at the event.

Registration Link

Teaching and Learning Highlights!

EYFS - Play Based Maths !

In Early Years, children explored the concept of weight through hands-on play with weighing scales. They experimented by placing different materials on each side to see which was heavier or lighter, observing how the heavier side would go down. Using vocabulary such as heavy and light, they enjoyed discovering how balance works through fun, sensory learning experiences.

KS1 - The Magic of Forest School

What happens when KS1 children follow their own interests and revisit experiences during Forest School?

They build knowledge, strengthen their teamwork, and enter a wonderful state of flow — fully absorbed in learning that is meaningful to them. These are experiences we can guide and nurture, but ultimately, the journey is theirs to choose.

That’s the true magic of Forest School: empowering children to explore, create, and grow in their own unique way.

Year 5 - Explore Thailand’s Provinces

Year 5 students learned about the different regions of Thailand and the provinces within each region. They researched information about the geography, climate, and key tourist attractions of each province. They also created slides and presented their work to the class. In addition, the students shared their own travel experiences with their classmates in a fun and engaging way.

Year 6 - Maths

In Maths over the last couple of weeks year 6 students have been learning about all things related to angles, here they were measuring and calculating and practising their skills related to angles on a straight line, around a point and in triangles, quadrilaterals and pentagons.

Year 9 - Spanish

¡Hola! This month in Spanish class, our students have learned how to describe people’s appearance using phrases like “Ella tiene el cabello corto” and “El es delgado.” Now they’re putting their new skills to work by creating a Canva presentation where they describe their parents’ appearance in Spanish!

Next, we’ll take things a step further by learning how to describe personalities and adding that to the presentation—because looks are only part of the story.

Why not have some fun at home? Ask your child to describe you in Spanish—can they capture your style and personality?

Awards & Achievements

Young Authors Shine in 'The Write Stuff' Challenge! ✨

We are thrilled to announce the three brilliant Middle School winners of The Write Stuff - Monthly English Challenge!

These talented young authors absolutely surpassed expectations, showcasing outstanding commitment to their writing. They demonstrated excellent planning and executed their ideas flawlessly, resulting in truly fascinating narrative endings.

Their incredible effort was celebrated and recognised in a recent assembly. Here they are proudly showing off their well-deserved prizes!

Congratulations to Our Year 4 Mental Math World Cup Winner!

We want to give a massive shout-out to one of our brilliant Year 4 students for his outstanding performance in the Mental Math World Cup 2025!

This student participated in the online competition held between July and September. Our young maths champion demonstrated exceptional speed and accuracy, securing the title of 2nd Place in Thailand in the Challenger division!

Huge Congratulations to Our Year 5 Star!

We are absolutely thrilled to celebrate a fantastic achievement by one of our talented Year 5 students at the prestigious 26th OSAKA International Music Competition Final Round in Osaka, Japan!

Our young musician, a piano enthusiast, competed with skill and dedication and returned with two impressive prizes.

Artist of the week

Artist of the week goes to a Year 8 student who has made a lot of progress over the last half term. He has created some wonderful gargoyle drawings and created a fantastic clay head. Well done!

Well done to our Go-Kart Champion in Year 9! Go-Kart Thailand.

First place and qualification to race in Macau! Congratulations!

Upper School Credits

Calendar of Events

October

13th - HM King Bhomibol Memorial Day - School Closed
14th & 16th - Parent Consultations
15th - House Event (Please wear your House shirts!)
16th - Wai Kru Assembly
18th - Bangkok Education Fair InterContinental
18th - 26th - October break
31st - Y3-Y5 SMARTs Showcase

November

1st - Public Speaking Workshop

Safeguarding Reminder:

We would like to introduce our safeguarding team. Ms Tabietha (FS Lead) is our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), and she is supported by Ms Alyssa, Mr Kieran and Ms Nicky. If you have any concerns about a child’s wellbeing, please see the contact details below. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility, and our safeguarding team is always here to help—let’s work together to keep our community safe.

School Events

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 Lead, Tabietha Sudhirak: tsudhirak@standrews-samakee.com

Key Stage 1 Lead, Alice Munenge: alice.m@standrews-samakee.com

Key Stage 2 Lead, Alyssa Pay: alyssa.p@standrews-samakee.com

Upper School Lead, 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.”