Si Ri Panya News Highlights (issue 28)

Nicola Bunchuay
Nov 14
5 min read

Nov 14, 2025 - Exploring Through Experience

This week, students have been busy learning out and about across Koh Phangan. Our Year 3 students visited Nira’s Bakery factory, where they learned how to make sausage rolls and carrot cake as part of our Primary-wide Cooking and Nutrition module.

As well as creating delicious food and learning about balanced diets and healthy eating habits, the children gained a valuable insight into the work and preparation that goes into producing baked goods commonly sold on the island.

Teamwork, collaboration, confidence building, cooperation and responsible behaviour were just some of the skills strengthened during this excursion.

Our friends at Nira’s Bakery went a step further by delivering the morning’s bakes to school, ensuring every participating student had something to take home and share.

Experiences like these bring learning to life and deepen our connections with the local community.

If you would like to offer a real-life learning opportunity to our students at Si Ri Panya, we would love to hear from you.

Investigating Planets with Year 5

This week, Year 5 students learned about the solar system and created their own solar system models. They carefully chose appropriately sized spheres to represent each planet and painted them to match their real-life colours and features.

This hands-on activity helped students understand not only the relative sizes of the different planets and their individual unique appearances, but also presented them with an innovative and creative, fun approach to learning about the complexities and vastness of the universe.

Enjoy their Space Making gallery below:

students at Si Ri Panya, get in touch!

School Garden Project - Eco Club Lend a Helping Hand

Exciting things have been happening in a neglected corner of Secondary! After the completion of our new office block, we are now able to fully develop the garden space around this building, which will include a garden project with its own outdoor learning space.

Eco Club have been getting hands on, helping with planting a range of plants that can all be used to make teas. They have also been researching these plants, including their properties for health and wellbeing and thinking about which tastes may go together.

Looking after the plants is also an important responsibility - many thanks for Tom and others for being first up to help out!

Get Caught Reading

Our Primary student Lior was recently caught reading his favourite Dog Man book beside the waterfall – a wonderful reminder that stories can be enjoyed anywhere! The Get Caught Reading campaign celebrates the joy of reading in all sorts of unusual and inspiring places.

We’d love to see more of our students joining in, so if you’ve been caught reading somewhere fun, send us your photo and we’ll feature some of our favourites in future newsletters.

Parent & Friends Committee – Term 1 Feedback

Thank you to all parents who took part in this term’s Parent & Friends Committee meeting. We are grateful for the thoughtful feedback shared across all year groups, helping us continue to strengthen our provision and maintain clear, supportive communication between home and school.

As always, we have reviewed every suggestion carefully and provided a full school response. You can read the complete summary here:

👉 Parent & Friends Committee Q&A – Term 1 Summary

We look forward to continuing this partnership throughout the year and thank our parent community for your time, openness and collaboration.

Discover Our New “News Highlights” Page

We’re always listening to parent feedback — your ideas truly help us strengthen how we communicate as a school community.

At our recent Parents and Friends Committee meeting, families suggested adding a search bar to our online newsletters to make key information easier to find. We’re pleased to share that this improvement is now live.

Our updated News Highlights page features a smart search bar that allows you to instantly locate any story, event, or update with just a few keywords. Simply type a word — for example Christmas — and the system will bring up every newsletter that mentions our upcoming end-of-term celebration.

It’s quicker, more intuitive, and a great way to revisit past stories from across our school community. You’ll also find a neatly organised archive of all previous newsletters for easy browsing.

👉 Visit the News Highlights page here.

Key Dates at a Glance

Looking Ahead: Key events and special days for the school year are published on our homepage.

Parent Discussion Circle - every Friday
See Newsletter Issue 21 for full details
Links to our end of term event songs to practice at home
See Newsletter Issue 21 for full details
Get Caught Reading competition
See Newsletter Issue 22 for full details
Year 1 September 2026 admissions
See Newsletter Issue 26 for full details
End of Term Christmas Learning Event
See Newsletter Issue 27 for full details

Our Next Parent Discussion Circle Topic

Friday 21st November: What approaches to parenting work best—discipline or guidance, independence or support? And how do we care for ourselves as parents?

📅 When: Every Friday, 9:00am – 10:00am

📍 Where: Boardroom, upstairs at the main office

👩‍🏫 Hosted by: Pastoral Lead - Faye Reading

✨ Come as you are—whether to share your thoughts, ask questions, or simply listen in. Every parent is welcome.

Go to https://world-schools.scholastic.co.uk/si-ri-panya/digital-book-club to browse the latest books and order online. Please place your order online by November 20th, 2025.

Ongoing Weekly Reminders

Library Reminder: Please check at home for any lost books and return them to the Primary or Secondary library so everyone can enjoy them!

Bottle Cap Collection: We're collecting bottle caps for our Precious Plastic Project! Please bring your bottle caps to the collection point located inside the Primary school gate on the left. Secondary students can bring theirs to the Design and Technology Lab. Find out more about this exciting long-term project here: Precious Plastic Phangan Facebook.

Drop Off and Pick Up: Drop-off is at 8:30 am (not earlier). Pick-up times are 2:50 pm for Primary (or 4:00 pm if attending an ASA) and 4:00 pm for Secondary. Please be punctual, as some Primary children have been waiting up to 30 minutes after 2:50 pm, which can be distressing for them.

No Idling Zone: Help make the area outside our school a NO IDLING ZONE which means switching car engines off while you wait for your child. We appreciate your action for the environment and health of all.

Absence and Illness: Notify your child's class teacher (Primary) or form teacher (Secondary) directly to inform them of absence and sickness.

Head Lice Check: Continue to check your child's hair for head lice regularly and treat accordingly. Boys and girls with long hair need to tie it up.

Uniform Orders: Ensure your child wears the correct uniform each day. Uniform orders can be placed online: 🔗 Secondary Order Form 🔗 Primary Order Form

Healthy snacks: Healthy snacks only. No sweets, crisps/chips or cakes at break times. Birthdays are the exception and dealt with per class policy.