Week 8: Halloween Highlights and a Busy Week Ahead
Welcome to Week 8
Welcome back after our mid-term break. We hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend.
We finished the first half of term with a fantastic Halloween party. Despite the rain, it was a wonderful evening, with so much creativity, hard work and enthusiasm from the students, teachers and parents. Thank you to everyone who helped make it such a success.
We have another busy week ahead, with parent-teacher meetings, some special activities at our Wednesday café and Friday trips. We're also very happy to be welcoming two Danish teaching students, Annsofi and Celina, who will be joining us from today until the end of term.
This Week
Monday – Polar Bears' Indian Spice Sampler: The Polar Bears will be hosting a small event at 3:30 pm, sharing some of the work they have been doing in class through an Indian spice-sampling activity.
Monday – Rugby Club: Rugby will continue as normal from 4:00–5:00 pm.
Tuesday 27th, Wednesday 28th and Thursday 29th October – Parent-Teacher Meetings: Our parent-teacher meetings will take place this week. Parents are welcome to come in between 3:15 pm and 4:45 pm on their child's scheduled day. There is no obligation to attend, but it is a good opportunity to check in with teachers and discuss your child's progress. If you cannot make these times but would like to speak with us, please feel free to get in touch and we can arrange another time.
Wednesday – School Café: This week's café will include a small student-led event exploring Bolivian skull traditions and Mexico's Day of the Dead, with students also preparing and selling food. We look forward to seeing what they have put together.
Wednesday – Football Clubs: Our regular girls' and boys' football clubs will continue as normal.
Friday – Kindergarten and Lower Primary Swimming: This Friday will be the final swimming lesson of the term for Kindergarten and Lower Primary. We hope everyone can attend and enjoy one last session in the pool.
Friday – Upper Primary and Middle School Trip: Our older students will be visiting SO Sofitel for their Friday trip. More details will be shared separately. The cost is 250 baht per child, which can be brought into school anytime between now and Friday.
Looking Ahead
Tuesday 3rd November – School Photo Day: We will be taking school photographs. We ask that students come wearing plain, block-coloured trousers or shorts and any of their Halio shirts, including the Hyena shirt. More details will follow.
Friday 6th November – Crab Release at Khao Takiab: We will be adjusting our usual Friday schedule for a morning trip to Khao Takiab, where students will take part in a crab-release activity. Further information will be shared closer to the date.
Tuesday 24th November – Loy Krathong: We will be marking Loy Krathong at school, with more details about our activities to follow.
Wednesday 2nd December – End-of-Term Showcase: Our big showcase event will bring together the students' work and projects from across the term. We are looking forward to sharing what they have been creating.
Friday 4th December – End-of-Term Trips: Lower Primary will visit Sam Roi Yot, while Upper Primary and Middle School will travel to Kanchanaburi. More information about both trips will follow.
Highlights from Last Week
Our Halloween party was a wonderful way to finish the first half of term. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed food, helped with preparations, supported the activities or joined us for the evening. It was a real team effort, and we were delighted with how it all came together.
The Crispy Penguins created an impressive collection of Halloween installations, exploring how different cultures understand death, spirits and the supernatural. Their research took visitors from the origins of Halloween in Ireland to ancient Egypt, Bolivian traditions, Tibetan sky burials, Ghanaian funeral customs, the legends surrounding Dracula and the development of Gothic literature. The students put a great deal of work into researching their subjects and finding creative ways to share what they had learned.
Students from the Crispy Penguins, Silver Sharks and Sabertooths also contributed to the Halloween decorations around school. A special mention goes to Matthew and Sarah, who did so much of the painting for our Halloween wall. It became a popular place for photographs throughout the evening, and their work helped bring the whole event together.
The Silver Sharks deserve a particularly big congratulations for their haunted house. They created an immersive experience with different scenes, a video, smoke effects and plenty of surprises. What made it especially impressive was how well they adapted the experience for different visitors, offering five levels of scariness. When the youngest kindergarteners came through, the haunted house became a much gentler experience, complete with friendly conversations and reassuring hugs. It was wonderful to see the students take such care in making sure everyone could enjoy it.
The Muck and Magic Club also did a fantastic job with their potion stand, which was another creative addition to the Halloween party. Well done to everyone involved.
We also announced the winners of our Halloween writing competitions. There were some wonderful entries across the different groups, and we would like to congratulate all the students who took part, particularly our winners.
Halloween Writing Competition Winners
Polar Bears
1st Place: Oscar
2nd Place: Kashius
3rd Place: Banjo
Agent Owls
1st Place: Winston
2nd Place: Mia
3rd Place: Liya
Hummingbirds
1st Place: Fan
2nd Place: Ben
3rd Place: Pya
Sabertooths
1st Place: Maia
2nd Place: Yuzu
3rd Place: Maxi
Silver Sharks
1st Place: Jude
2nd Place: Xi En
3rd Place: Vicky
Congratulations to all our winners. We were very pleased to see the imagination and effort that went into the students' writing.
Circle Time Highlights
On Monday, the Hummingbirds, Agent Owls and Sabertooths shared some of their work from Stories in Motion. They showed everyone the face painting they had been experimenting with, along with some of the handmade paper pulp they had created during their lessons.
They also explored the history of Halloween and how trick-or-treating developed over time. They learned about older traditions of leaving food out for spirits and how customs involving people visiting homes and asking for food or treats gradually developed. Some students then brought this history to life with short trick-or-treating performances during Circle Time.
Relationship Class Highlights
Polar Bears
The Polar Bears explored the different ways positive and negative interactions happen in everyday life. Using examples from around school, they discussed how their own actions can influence these situations. The group agreed to make a conscious effort to create more positive interactions throughout the week and will report back on their experiences in their next lesson.
Agent Owls
The Agent Owls continued practising the Stop, Think, Choose model, brainstorming different ways they could respond to situations they might encounter at school. They also began exploring the difference between big and small problems, discussing which situations they can manage independently and when it is important to ask a teacher for help.
Hummingbirds
The Hummingbirds explored the origins of Halloween through a story about Aoife, a young girl living in ancient Ireland during Samhain, the Celtic festival marking the transition from summer to winter. As Aoife experienced fear in the story, the children used this as a starting point to discuss their own fears. The conversation was largely led by the children themselves, who shared experiences of feeling frightened, explained how they cope and offered each other helpful suggestions.
Sabertooths
The Sabertooths explored the question of what happens when we die. They began by looking at what science tells us about the body after death, before discussing the different beliefs held by people of various religions and those without religious beliefs. The lesson encouraged thoughtful questions and respectful listening, with students recognising that people can hold very different views while still treating one another with kindness and understanding.
Silver Sharks
The Silver Sharks reflected on their experiences creating and running the Halloween haunted house, discussing the challenges they encountered and how they might approach similar situations differently in the future. They then brought their work on leadership to a close with a series of role-playing scenarios, giving every student an opportunity to practise taking the lead, making decisions and responding to different situations.
We are looking forward to another busy and enjoyable week at Halio. Thank you again to everyone who helped make our Halloween celebrations such a success, and we hope to see many of you at our parent-teacher meetings this week.
Warm regards,
Mr Vincent and the Halio Team
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