A Friendship Between
Two Schools

 An International Link

Woodlands Junior School is linked with Sriwittayapaknam School in Thailand. The link was first formed two years ago and has involved both schools sharing their different cultures with each other. One of the owners of the Thai school has visited each year. In return one of our teachers visits the school in Thailand each summer and also in 2001, took a years leave of absence to teach in the Thai school.

Sriwittayapaknam School is a privately owned school catering for students aged between 3 and 15. The school is situated in Samut Prakan City about 30 kilometres south of Bangkok. It is a prestigious school with a high academic record. Woodlands Junior School is proud to be linked to such a school. You can find out more about Sriwittayapaknam School by visiting their home page.

Mrs Sirisook Rongraung, Sriwittayapaknam School's administrator, has visited our school many times. She comes laden with gifts and spends time teaching our students how to create traditional Thai crafts with recycled paper. She also teaches our students about Thai culture.

Mrs Sirisook Rongraung, from Thailand, chatting with students

Mrs Sirisook Rongraung second visit to Woodlands Junior School is reported below by two students.
The students called her Tui, which is her nickname.

On Tuesday, 28th June, Class 6 met an old friend of Miss Barrow's called Tui. Tui lives in Thailand and came to know Miss Barrow when she went to Thailand to teach in a Thai school. Nobody in England can pronounce Tui's proper name, so we call her Tui for short.

That afternoon, Tui taught us about her religion, which is Buddhist. Then she taught us to speak their language. She also taught us that they recycle everything in Thailand. We tried making several things using recycled paper.

Miss Barrow contacted KFM Radio, our local radio station. Myself and Jonathan were picked to go with Miss Barrow and Tui to the KFM studio to be recorded on the radio. We answered questions about our Thai experience.

By Julia S

We were very pleased that Tui, a lady from Thailand, had come back to visit us again this year. Tui helped in our free activity time making recycled fish which hung from the ceiling, bird mobiles and colourful windmills which rotated. Tui taught us some of the language from her own country.

We also exchanged gifts with Tui and gave her things to remember us by when she returned back to Thailand. We all enjoyed Tui's visit to Woodlands Junior School.

By Chris N