Officially Ms. Melanie

Hi Everyone,

Well, it was a big day for me…first day of orientation!

As I briefly mentioned before, I am going to be teaching at a BC International School here in Bangkok. The school is pretty much brand new. This will only be the third year it has been open. The school is called “British Columbia International School Bangkok”, or BCISB for short. The school originally started as a high school, but by parent request, it also had grade one last year. So it was a very unique school with grade 1, and then 7 to 12. This year they decided to expand drastically. It will now be a grade 1 to 12 school. All of the students will graduate with a BC high school diploma, as well as a Thai diploma. All of the teachers are BC certified teachers (and all of whom seem fantastic so far).

The school itself is massive. I saw the inside of it today for the first time. It was built to house 700 students. Currently we will have about 130 students enrolled this year, meaning there is tons of extra space. The school is 4 stories high, and has everything you could imagine in it. The elementary students even have their own ball pit room, just like at McDonald’s (a much cleaner room of course). Just behind the school on the same property is another school. It is a Thai high school called Tharnpanya. It has over 1200 students enrolled. One of the wings of our school is rented out by their school for some Thai classes.

Front of school (picture taken from school website)

Over the summer the parking lot in front of the school was turned into gigantic tennis courts

BCISB is a technology-based school. The school has virtually an unlimited budget, so they can afford to get all kinds of high-tech gadgets. Each high school student gets their own ePad, which is basically a small touchscreen computer. Most of the classrooms have a SMART Board; an interactive whiteboard .....the list goes on. Oh yeah, teachers don’t even get keys to the building. Rather, we have to use the fingerprint scanner to get in and out.

The school also encourages field trips. Last year, 53 field trips were organized! This is something I am definitely looking forward to. Not only will I be teaching the students, but they will be teaching me a lot about their country.

As you could probably guess, BCISB is a private school with a high tuition fee. I don’t know the exact cost of tuition yet, but I am sure the majority of Thai individuals could not afford to send their kids there. Although I am used to teaching at private schools, this one seems to be in a league of its own. I will be sure to keep you updated with all the new happenings at the school.

My brain feels a bit jam-packed with all the information I learned today…so I think I have no choice but to end my entry here. Time to catch some zzzZZZzzZZZzZZs.