Peter Assimakopoulos
petera@isb.ac.th
Dear Parents,
We have been closely monitoring the impact of COVID19 on our planned GCW trips in December. After much thought and investigating different options available we have made an early decision to postpone our GCW trips to the end of the school year. We have not yet finalised the exact dates for this postponement, but this will be firmed and communicated in the coming weeks as there may be some re-shuffling of the calendar that is required for this to occur.
The days that were to be GCW at the end of semester one are now replaced with regular school days as follows:
- 14 December: Day 6
- 15 December: Day 7
- 16 December: Day 8
- 17 December: Day 1 & Mid-Year Graduation (Moved from 10 December)
- 18 December: Adjusted Day Schedule & Closing Assembly (Moved from 11 December)
In reviewing the feasibility of running GCW as was planned with overnight trips in Thailand, the risks were simply too high due to the current COVID19 pandemic. We also considered adjusting GCW to a Bangkok based day trip option, however we are still experiencing difficulties in partnering with Bangkok based organizations and institutions we normally work with due to current COVID19 regulations.
We hold hope that by May/June 2021 the risks that have caused us to postpone GCW in December will have reduced and we will be able to run the full set of local Thailand GCW courses for our students. If this is not possible, we have already started work on an alternative day trip option for students that we will share with parents and students early in semester two.
Looking forward to the end of the school year, it is unlikely that we will be able to offer the GCW trip to our Senior Students, based on the timing of IB examinations and graduation. However this is still to be confirmed.
Although the postponement of GCW may be disappointing for our students, we do hope that we will be in a better position in May/June 2021 to host meaningful and purposeful GCW options for our students.
Many thanks,
Andy Vaughan
HS Dean of Students
Peter Assimakopoulos
HS Service Learning & CAS Coordinator.