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24.5.2010

Dear Parents,

I am sure you, like us here at SJIS, are all relieved that the disturbances of last week have now stopped, and we can resume some normality in our everyday life.

As you know as a result of the build up of events in the centre of Bangkok, the Ministry of Education instructed all schools within the Metropolitan Area to close last week. This was obviously to reduce the movement of students, of all ages, around Bangkok, to try and ensure their safety in a very unsettled and volatile period.

St. John’s, like most international schools in Bangkok respected this instruction, and only remained open for those students who were due to take external exams.

Throughout this period the school was staffed with a bare minimum of admin staff, senior teaching staff and secondary staff who were supervising exams. SJIS had already prepared for such an eventuality i.e. students being unable to attend school and appropriate curriculum material was posted up on the school’s website for secondary students, Years 7 – 10 only, as Years 11- 13 were already off timetable as a result of the examination programme. Primary families were sent age appropriate websites, via e-mail on Monday morning, that would provide a range of suitable work for the students to be involved in all week.

We are also pleased to say the Year 9 Krabi residential trip went ahead as planned and the pupils and staff had a very successful time last week, away from the problems, and arrived back safe and sound on Friday morning.

St. John’s acknowledges that some parents might feel there was a loss of

‘teaching time’ due to the school being closed. Again I can only repeat we were instructed to close for obvious reasons, but the examples above show we still provided a high level of educational service for quite a large number of students, in a situation that was beyond our control.

The school will attempt to make up some of the days from last week, this term, but due to the fact we only have five weeks left and no more holidays, this is very difficult.

The school will be open this coming Friday, instead of taking a public holiday for Visahka Bucha Day, and we are looking at how we can use time in the last week

instead of the usual ‘off timetable’ activities to give students directed time that they would not normally receive in the last week of term.

I hope you appreciate that yes some of the students have had an unexpected week off school, but we offered good alternatives for students to be involved in an educational programme, given the circumstances.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

David Lowder

Headteacher