Huge Congratulations to Xinxia, a 6 years old student at Regent’s International School, Bangkok for her wonderful achievement at the YTMF Yamaha Thailand Music Festival 2018. She has received a Yamaha Gold Prize for piano competition and has also been awarded the Yamaha gold prize for singing competition.
Well done Xinxia! The school is very proud of you and wish you to continue success as a musician. You are a role model to other students and an example to young musicians.
Minagi recently took part in the women’s National Ice Hockey League, playing for Bangkok Zeus’ under 14s team. Her position is as a forward, where she has to be quick and skillful to avoid opposition defences and try to score for her team or set up other members of her team with goal scoring chances.
In a recent tournament she came 2nd and had a big party afterwards to celebrate. The best thing about playing, she says, is that it is fun and really good exercise.
Every parent has to decide at what age to give a child a phone or if to give them one at all. However in my experience the question isn’t if families should get one – but when and which one. It seems part of the growing process for most children and while having a phone isn’t a necessity it seems more and more like one. Every child seems to want one and few seem to live their lives without one but this doesn’t answer the big questions about the impact of handing over a phone and letting children roam free.
Families who haven’t been through this will wonder when is best – what age is just too young to have a phone when there is always someone in your child’s class who has one already? In youth parlance there is the FOMO (fear of missing out) as “everyone” has got one and the accompanying pester power can be hard to resist. Then there are the more obvious safety and communications reasons – having a phone is a sensible way to keep in touch and stay safe. In short there are plenty of practical, peer, social and commercial pressures. There are also loads of great teaching tools, translators, maps and apps to use in school to help teaching and learning.
So what about the downside? New data from about online bullying is enough to make any parent or teacher stop and think.
Reliable UK think tank Davos claim that almost a third of boys and just less than a quarter of girls admit to cyberbullying and this is most likely to take place via phones. Their Facebook and focus group research in different cities found “shockingly high incidence of hostile behaviour to peers”. Added to this over 90% of those who admit to bullying say they have been bullied online themselves. As a school leader in the UK and abroad I have had to deal with countless horrible experiences of phone bullying – it is a problem that crosses class, age, race and cultural barriers and I fear, it is not going away any time soon.
So what do we do? What about prohibition? One exclusive school in the UK has gone on the attack banning mobiles altogether. The Head’s criticism of “wretched parents” buying phones suggests she is out of sync with the needs and lifestyles of many families. When she said that she wanted to rid the school of WiFi altogether it was only the “huge international student rebellion” that stopped her. Such so called rebels have good reason for wanting to communicate with families when they are a long way from home.
Bans seldom work and tend to subvert rather than solve issues. Even Demos, whose survey revealed the extent of phone bullying in schools, warns against barring young people from social media as they deem it counterproductive. When I posted this story on LinkedIn I received the most replies and most outrange I have ever had for an article. Many voiced concerns about the challenges of understanding the behaviour of modern children and it seems clear we have a way to go in balancing the good side of phones with what can be troublesome and downright dangerous.
We have to be vigilant against one to one bullying online but also the growing problem of trolling – contributing to the strings of negative and hateful messages added to website about anyone who is in the public eye. Evidence suggest that young people are all too willing to take part – some seeing it as cool to be cruel.
Solutions are hard to find but schools are working hard through good safety policies, training staff to look out for the signs of bullying and providing information for families. The best advice for anyone worried about this growing and important phenomena is to talk openly with their children and look out for changes in their behaviour. From the moment of giving a child a phone we should insist that it can never be completely private and parents should approach their school to raise concerns no matter how small.
10 signs your child may be the victim of cyberbullying
The article first appeared in Expat Life
Written by Peter Hogan Principal at Regent’s International School, Bangkok
Year 12 student Jenny Ham has just returned from a successful golf tour in Asia. She entered a number of tournaments and emerged victorious at the 2017-18 TGA Singha Junior Golf Championships held at the prestigious Dynasty Golf and Country Club. Jenny competed against and beat off stiff opposition from other top junior golfers from all around Asia, and now takes one step closer to her dream of becoming a professional golfer. It is always great to see Regent’s students performing and excelling in sporting pursuits outside of school, and a great advert for the calibre of students we have here at Regent’s International School. Congratulations and well done to Jenny!
Ms. Suksakaow Mahuttanatan (May), a student at Regent’s International School Bangkok, has received an offer to study at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, in London, UK.
Central Saint Martins has a world-class reputation, producing famous practitioners in the fields of fashion, fine art, graphic design and architecture. Notable alumni include Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Terrance Conran, Bruce Oldfiled and John Galliano.
May’s time at Regent’s helped her to learn the fundamental skills of art and design. Art teacher, Felicity Harris, said: “May is a very determined young lady, with perseverance and tenacity. She enjoyed using paint and loved creating her own compositions, experimenting with juxtaposing colours and textures.”
May was also privileged to be amongst the artists involved in the creation of the Royal Crematorium.
In the course of her education at Regent’s, May has developed her English skills to a very high standard, opening up to her world of international education. Regent’s is very proud to nurture and develop the talent of a young artist with the potential to achieve at the very highest level.
| Year 13 students attended ‘The Bangkok Economics Essay Ceremony’ at the Crown Property Bureau. Their attendance was most welcome as they produced excellent evaluation essays on ‘sustainability‘. Our entries were awarded with a rating of ‘highly commended’ and also shortlisted. A great day was had by all with the sharing of knowledge throughout the event.
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Regent's International School, Bangkok 
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