Every year, in one of the hottest months in Thailand (the merry month of May), our school runs a "Swimathon" for all primary year groups to take 10 to 25 minutes of their school time to plunge in the swimming pool and raise funds for different causes.
It was a beautiful day and based on the energy, enthusiasm and smiles on our students' faces, we can say the whole day event was a success. We had schools of fish, shivers of sharks, and pods of dolphins in our 25-metre swimming pool each aiming to accomplish the most number of lengths. Check out some of the videos here.
The students were challenged with swimming continuously for a set period. Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 swam widths of the pool, whereas Year 3 and up swam the entire length.
All students had the support of our lifeguard, swim coach, teachers and TAs to ensure that they are safe. What's more, it was very sweet to watch Year 6 volunteers aid some of the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 students. Their respective teachers, Mr Goode, Miss Spencer, and Miss Forte jumped right in too!
Swimathon 2018 top performers are ...
Swimmers with the most number of accomplishments were given merit in today's Primary School assembly.
This annual event has two main goals: firstly, for the students to challenge themselves and secondly, to help different organisations and groups in their well-meaning projects. Last year, we raised a total of 34,110 baht which was divided in half to equally support Trash Hero Samui and Clean the Beach Bootcamp. This year, we decided it would be "family first"...
In the last couple of years, our school has been participating in more national and international sports competitions than before. For example, for the first time, we participated in a Netball competition for senior girls in Singapore last year; we have also been taking part in tournaments run by British International School Phuket (BISP) for two years in a row. These include football and basketball.
We have a young school (we just celebrated our 10-year anniversary last year) and an even younger sports involvement off the coast. That said, we are eager to support as many sports activities outside Samui as we can. But going to these tournaments costs additional money for parents (for transportation and accommodation).
To help ease the extra cost for parents, our Primary Student Council this academic year took it upon themselves to raise funds for sports teams' kits and trips. They recently held a bake sale and raised 4,730 baht which was very helpful.
In addition, the recently concluded Swimathon 2018 raised another 27,380 baht to help support ISS parents with the costs of students participating in future sports events around Thailand. Thank you to all the parents and friends who sponsored our swimmers!