First Day of School

Dear Parents,

We are very excited to be welcoming back all of our Patana students next Wednesday 19^th August.

Further to my letter from last week, I just wanted to share with you some key reminders:

• When school opens on 19^th August, we will have full classes with children attending every day. Our new Nursery and FS1 starters will have their assigned staggered start.
• Block 1 ECAs will go ahead as planned, with some adjustments to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
• The following procedures will still be in place:
  • Daily temperature checks for students boarding school buses and when they enter school (staff and all approved adults entering school will also be checked).
  • School bus service as normal but masks must be worn at all times.
  • Social distancing practices will still be observed.
  • Students and staff will wear masks. Students will be able to remove their masks for PE and in the playground as directed by staff.
  • The buffet lunch at the Canteen will still be served by staff. All snack bars and lunches operating as normal.
  • We are limiting the number of adults on campus. Only newly enrolled families, and parents with children in Nursery, Foundation Stage, Years 1 and Year 2 may enter via the turnstiles. Please follow our COVID procedures and leave the site once you have dropped off or collected your child.
• All new parents can attend the new student orientation scheduled for 18^th August.
• Teachers have the option to use visors when instructing in front of the class.
• A blended CSL (Continuing Student Learning) online support programme will be provided only for students in quarantine or who are still overseas and waiting to get back into Thailand. If you are in this situation and have not yet contacted Admissions, please email Rachel Jones at rajo@patana.ac.th. We are not providing any online support for students already in Bangkok as school is opening as normal in a safe learning environment.

If you have any questions about these procedures please contact the Primary Office (primary@patana.ac.th) or Secondary Office (secondary@patana.ac.th).

Action for Parents

1. Review / Complete Health and Travel and Student Safeguarding forms

Please fill in or review these two important online forms prior to coming back to school:

Health and Travel Declaration and the Student Safeguarding Staying Safe in School – COVID-19 forms

If you completed these forms previously, please review and make any necessary updates. You do not need to declare provincial travel within Thailand. Those who are new to the school; those who have returned from overseas destinations since 26^th June; and anyone who has contracted or been in contact with a COVID-19 case do need to complete these forms before 19^th August 2020. If you have any difficulties accessing the forms or have any questions, please contact the Primary (primary@patana.ac.th) or Secondary Office (secondary@patana.ac.th) .

2. Access to the Parents’ Gateway

Over the summer our IS/IT team have been busy migrating all of our Firefly resources into the cloud. With just over 380,000 pages in our Firefly ecosystem, it’s been a mammoth task and we need your help in testing the site before term starts. Please follow the instructions on this video on how to login to the new Firefly site to access the Parents’ Gateway:

After you have logged in please remove any bookmarks or default pages in your browser to the old site and bookmark the new one to use from this point forwards. We will change the link on the Patana home page to point to the new site before term starts. If you have any questions or issues logging in, please contact helpdesk@patana.ac.th and send a screenshot.

3. The School Shop is open from 8.00am until 3.30 pm on Monday to Friday. All parents are allowed onto campus to visit the School Shop to purchase new school uniforms, etc.

As a school, we are fully aware that the COVID-19 pandemic is here longer than expected. We are confident that our school campus is a safe learning environment that has many health and safety additions embedded, taking COVID-19 into account. If the situation in Thailand changes at any time, we will of course, make the necessary changes to our programme. We have a fully developed CSL programme that can be deployed to support our students’ learning if for any reason learning has to take place at home again. Even with school operating as normally as possible from 19^th August, we strictly adhere to the 3W’s at all times, as the medical research clearly emphasises these three rudimentary life-saving procedures: 

Can’t wait for school to start with all of our students attending next Wednesday!

Best wishes,

Matt Mills

Head of School