Welcome to Samui Centre of Learning

Over the years, Samui Centre of Learning has continuously strived to provide all our students with opportunities to excel as we follow the schools motto: Educating the Mind, Nurturing the Soul. From the very beginning Samui Centre of Learning has always had a very family-oriented atmosphere, which I’m happy to say has remained with us throughout our growth and ensures each child feels confident and loved as they make their journey through their school career. The caring environment, coupled with an excellent British and Thai curriculum, and a dedicated, professional, teaching staff ensures Samui Centre of Learning continues to grow from strength to strength.
I feel very proud and honoured to be a part of this school and am continually grateful to all our families, students and members of staff for making SCL the truly great place it is.

- Emma Dyas

Samui Centre of Learning School Manager Emma Dyas

For more information about the school, why not contact us?

The current theme in FS2 is ‘Under the Sea’, so on Thursday the 19^th January the whole class took a trip to The Samui Aquarium.

The children had lots of fun looking at all of the different fish and sea creatures. They saw turtles, eels, sharks, starfish and crabs, and some children even spotted Nemo and Dori!

They had a lovely lunch near the beach, followed by delicious ice creams, and then they made their way to the Sea Lion show. The children were very excited and loved watching the sea lions perform their tricks.

There were lots of sleepy children on the bus back to school, but FS2 clearly had a fun filled day!

Quotes

“We go to watch the sea lion. Some fish have lights on their heads so they can see at night time in the cave. We must be careful with oil, because the octopus will drink it.” – James

“I liked the crab. He has hands like this – nip nip nip!” – Diego

“I liked it when the sea lion jumped and rang the bell.” – Lila

“I like the sea lions when they clap their hands and do the Sawadee Ka, and when they dance and jump the yellow rope… and that’s it!” – Isabel

Today at Samui Centre of Learning the children have enjoyed celebrating National Children’s Day (วันเด็กแห่งชาติ - Wan Dek Haeng Chat) in their Thai Culture lessons. This is widely celebrated, especially by governmental agencies, with many activities for children on the second Saturday of January.

The children all had a lot of fun and a special thank you to all the Thai Staff for their hard effort to make this an enjoyable day for the children.

The Secondary students have been busy cultivating our ‘Eco-garden’ in the swimming pool area at the back of the school. The students have one dedicated Environmental Science lesson per week, in which they complete cross-curricular tasks such as problem solving, team work, report writing and physical activities such as seed planting and cultivating.

The students have recently completed group reports on their tasks. Below are extracts from each group report:

‘Team one are the water bottle Team. We are cutting the recycled water bottles in half so we can build an automatic plant watering syste. We are going to do this by putting the end of the the half cut-bottle underneath another one, slanting it slightly. We are planning to use rain water to water the plants! By Popee, Florian,Jade, Wasan, Alex and Maxine.’

‘Team two are aiming to put plastic bags under the tyres. The purpose of the plastic bags is to try to prevent the soil from coming out of the bottom. We are trying to stick the plastic bags to the tyres by using wall putty mixed with glue. So far it has worked very well!

We are using old tyres because we are saving the environment. If we don’t use the tyres, then people will burn them and that will cause more toxic air pollution! By Patricia, Lilly, Celie, Jenny, Alessiso and J.C.’

‘Team three are cutting recycled water bottles to create small pots for seeds to be planted. We’re recycling water bottles and tyres so we don’t need to throw them away, but re-use them. We are going to attach the bottles to the wall with string. By Lea, Mohelie, Rino, Stang, William and Sting.’

Year 7 Student Lea has written a beautiful poem about how we are damaging the earth:

Looted Earth

From sun to wind, from wind to rain

You, you only can explain

Why our splendid world is changing.

You are destroying Mother Earth’s belongings.

Litter swaying in the wet, green grass,

I hope you will learn in your class,,

How to change what is happening.

If you didn’t notice that the world needs to be clean,

I will make you sit on a rose pin.

In the candy coloured sky,

Some different rubbishes fly.

Plastic bags are floating,

On the coast, deriving.

Help me to help you,

Show the world what you can do

Year 7,8 and 9 have been writing poetry to contribute to the whole school writing competition, which is being judged by teacher Danielle and Teacher Kim. The poems had to be written along the theme of the environment, with many students compelled to write from the point of view of an endangered animal, after learning about these during their lessons.

Teacher Danielle has been busy with the younger years, helping them to complete a piece of creative writing for the competition. Watch this space………

Jenny and Bryan came to SCL earlier this year to offer to do some volunteer work with us, after having read an article about SCL in the Samui Holiday Magazine. From New Zealand, they are both retired teachers and have many years of experience and knowledge to share with both our students and teachers. Bryan is a Numeracy specialist and is currently developing a new system for teaching multiplication tables, for which he hopes to receive funding in the very near future. Jenny trained as a secondary teacher, but has taught a huge range of ages and subjects. Her career has seen her focusing mainly on Teacher Education, setting up schools and resources.

They will be in school on Tuesdays and Thursday between 10.30am and 12pm; reading with the children and providing in class support during Numeracy and Literacy. As always the children have responded really well to having some different faces around, so we would like to say a huge thank you to both Jenny and Bryan for giving up their time to help out at SCL!

Samui Arena is a brand new sports facility on Koh Samui, with two undercover pitches. Khun Moose is the manager of Samui Arena and his colleague Tom is an ex-professional football player (he was on the Thailand National Team) who has now turned his talents to coaching. Together they have organized the Football Youth Academy that will be starting at the beginning of December this year. The program is for girls and boys aged 7 to 15 years and costs 5,000B for three months (payment plan options are available). Children that sign up will be taken through a three month training program, taking place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. This really does present a fantastic opportunity for all children on Samui to get together and get into sport.

If any parents would like more information, or would like a signup form, please contact the school office, or go down to the Samui Arena in Chaweng. Please sign up by the 1st of December and if enough students from SCL sign up, we can arrange a mini-bus from school for the mid week sessions during term time.

This week children have enjoyed learning about the festival Loi Krathong – the ‘festival of lights” as part of their Thai lessons. On Thursday 10th November all of the children had the opportunity to make their own krathong with help from our Thai teaching staff. The krathong is made from banana leaves and is decorated with fresh flowers, candles and incense sticks. The children enjoyed this very much and will look forward to watching them float tonight as the full moon begins to rise.

Loi Krathong Song

November full moon shines, Loi Krathong, Loi Krathong, and the water’s high in the river and local klong, Loi Loi Krathong, Loi Loi Krathong, Loi Krathong is here and everybody’s full of cheer, We’re together at the klong, We’re together at the klong, Each one with this krathong, As we push away we pray, We can see a better day.

This term has seen the start of SCL’s Green Team efforts!  We are starting to look at lots of different ways we can help the environment through responsible waste management, including composting and recycling; growing our own produce in our new SCL Green Team garden and looking at ways we can reduce our energy consumption.   We will be holding our annual Christmas Fair on Wednesday the 14^th of December and all proceeds will go towards our ‘Green’ projects.  If any local businesses would like to donate prizes for our raffle we would be so grateful.

Our project has been featured in the November and December edition of Samui Holiday Magazine.  A huge thank you to all at Samui Holiday, for such a fantastic article that really gets to the heart of what we are trying the achieve!  You can read the article here or pick up one of the magazines from school or locations around the island.

SCL Green Team Article

Off to the Butterfly and Insect Kingdom we go!

On Tuesday 8^th November, Year 4 went on an exciting trip to the Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom! We travelled by minibus and when we got there we were allowed to feed two very cute rabbits. There were so many things to see at the park including spiders, caterpillars, scorpions, bees and many, many butterflies. Some people were lucky enough to catch a butterfly and hold it in their hands before it flew away again. We used magnifying glasses to look at the plants and animals more closely and we were also able to see the real life stages of the butterfly life cycle. Before we returned to school we all had a special ice-cream treat to cool us down! It was a great afternoon and everybody enjoyed it very much.

Teacher Danielle.

Yod – It was lots of fun.
Batel – It was very exciting.
Sarah – The monkey was cute and the butterfly landed on my hand.
Chopper – It was like being in the rainforest and the icecream was so yummy!
Tyson – A butterfly landed on my hat!
Vanessa – I liked giving the rabbit some food and seeing the butterfly eggs.
TG – I saw the Queen Bee!
Coben – I liked the toad in the waterfall.
Brodie – In the bee box I saw thousands and thousands of bees.
Lizzie – I liked the cute birds and rabbits.
Tiw Tiw – I really like it.