26th September 2025
Dear Samakee Community,
Safeguarding Corner
The Safeguarding Corner will be a Regular Feature in newsletters, and every month, we will highlight a safeguarding theme, tip, or reminder.
Safeguarding Update: Meet Your Safeguarding Team
Our school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
This week, 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.
Please make a note of these two important events happening tomorrow and next week.
Bangkok Prep's Puppy Cup - On Saturday, 27th, Samakee swimmers, 10 and under, will compete alongside other International Schools at Bangkok Prep. We wish them good luck!
Pupil Progress Meetings WB 29th September at St Andrews Samakee. How We Support Every Child:
At St Andrews Samakee International School, we are committed to ensuring every child receives the support they need to thrive. To achieve this, we hold pupil progress meetings every half-term. These meetings bring together our class teachers, Phase Leads, Headteacher, specialist teachers, and form tutors.
During each meeting, we:
Discuss individual children's needs: Teachers and leaders share insights about each child’s learning and wellbeing.
Analyse progress data: We carefully review assessment information to track how every child is progressing.
Plan targeted support: Together, we agree on specific interventions and strategies to help each child reach their full potential.
Monitor and review: Actions are tracked to make sure support is making a real difference for our children.
By working as a team, we ensure that all children at St Andrews Samakee are nurtured, challenged, and supported to achieve their very best!
Humanities Day: Food for the Future
We had a wonderful morning of discussion, creativity, and reflection! Our 'Food for the Future' theme gave both students and adults the chance to explore one of the world’s biggest challenges: how we will feed an ever-growing population in a fair and sustainable way.
Currently, the Earth produces enough food for everyone, but challenges such as waste, inequality, and the reliance on high-impact foods mean that not all people receive the food they need. Looking ahead to 2050, when the global population is expected to reach 10 billion, the way we produce, share, and choose food will become even more important.
To bring these ideas to life, students across the school took part in a range of exciting activities, including:
Ephemeral Art – creating natural, short-lived artworks to reflect on sustainability.
Library activities
Kitchen visit
Seeds & Grains
Food Tasting – exploring salt and sweet
Fish Observations – learning about where our food comes from
Floating Market – connecting to Thailand’s traditions and food journeys.
Rainbow Plates – designing balanced and colourful meals.
Food Miles – tracing how far food travels to reach us.
Waste Detectives – investigating where food is lost or wasted.
Market Role Play – making choices with cost, health, and sustainability in mind.
Planting at the Farm – hands-on experience in growing food locally.
Hydroponics – exploring soil-free farming for the future.
Carbon & Choices Café – discovering the hidden impact of different foods.
Throughout the morning, students asked thoughtful questions, debated ideas, and reflected on their own role in shaping a sustainable future. Our aim was to develop a sense of awareness, responsibility, and empowerment — realising that small everyday choices, like reducing waste or eating more local food, can make a big difference.
Reception - Healthy Eating
This week in Reception we have been learning all about healthy eating and exploring different kinds of food!
We began the week by talking about protein and the health benefits of fish, before making (and enjoying!) our very own tuna sandwiches.
In our play-based learning, children enjoyed two sensory areas — one with beans, seeds, and pulses, and another with salt — to spark conversations about food, its importance, and where it comes from.
Our grocery role-play shop has been a big hit, with children mark-making their own shopping lists, recognising prices, and even exploring real fruits and vegetables by touching, smelling, and feeling them.
During carpet sessions, we read I Can Eat a Rainbow and created our very own rainbow plates filled with colourful fruits and veggies.
What a fantastic, hands-on week of food, fun, and learning!
Inclusion - Healthy Eating
In our classroom, food is more than just a meal. Every day, the children participate in a self-service snack, and each week they join a one-hour cooking session with our specialist. These sessions are done in small groups with adult guidance, giving the children space to explore, practice, and build confidence.
From choosing ingredients and preparing food to taking responsibility for cleaning up, the children are engaged in every step of the process. They wash dishes, wipe tables and chairs, tuck in chairs, sweep, and wipe the floors, learning that preparing and sharing food also means caring for the environment around us.
Cooking and cleaning together helps develop essential life skills. At a young age, children gain independence, strengthen their fine motor skills, and learn about responsibility and teamwork. These are skills that not only support them in daily life but also build a strong foundation for their future learning and well-being.
Year 4 - Creative Egyptian Collar Designs
Our pupils have been busy designing and decorating their own Egyptian Usekh collars, inspired by the jewellery of the ancient world. Using bright colours and bold patterns, the children worked with great care and creativity to produce beautiful pieces of art.
Activities like this help bring history to life in the classroom, giving our pupils the chance to learn through hands-on, imaginative projects.
Computer Science - AI & Fake News
Our students have been exploring the world of AI and fake news by creating their own deepfakes. This hands-on activity encouraged them to think critically, sharpen their digital literacy skills, and reflect on how to distinguish between real and fake information.
Go Kart Success
Artist of the Week
Artist of the week goes to a year 6 student who has shown great resilience and independence in creating some wonderful blocks prints. This experimental topic allows the students to be creative and discover new ways of printing with patterns and colour. Well done, some really fun prints created.
U9 and U11 Football Team at SISB NR
The SAS U9/U11 football teams were quick out of the blocks to win their opening games of the season. It was great to see new players making their SAS debuts and collaborating with teammates to perform well on the pitch. The U9’s were victors 7-3 and the U11 team won 3-1. Great teamwork SAS, we look forward to the upcoming BISAL tournaments at DLTS.
October
7th - Board Meeting 13:00
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
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.
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
