Cambridge

I, Ms. Kanokwan Kaewmak, assistant head of EP, am in charge of EP academic affairs. I have been assigned to report on the history of how ACSP becomes an accredited Cambridge School. This dated back in April, 2016 when Bro. Thaksabutr Kraiprasit, the school Director advised the four lady teachers who were responsible for academic affairs of both MLP and EP to take a trip with him to Montfort College Secondary Section. At that time, Brother Anusak Nidhibhadhrabhorm was the Director there. The first question that Bro. Anusak put to us was “What does ACSP want?” The first idea that came into our mind was to move the school forward to become a leading school in Thailand according to the school vision of “Becoming the school with international standards and develop our life quality according to St. Montfort’s spirituality” and educated our students with sufficient knowledge to compete with all the students in the world. Then, the following question was “Where is ACSP at the National and international levels?” Finally, Bro. Anusak advised us if we would like to know where we stood at the international level, we had to use the international standard measurement. This implied the Cambridge examination questions, which have been recognized by almost 160 countries around the world. That was exactly what the English Program wanted because this program was taught mainly by foreign teachers. Then were introduced to various people who were involved with Cambridge Syllabus in Montfort College. They gave us detailed information about how to apply for the accreditation and what we really need to be successful.

After returning to school, in May 2016, a committee was set up to write an application form to Cambridge International Examination Office and prepare to school for the coming inspection from CIE before accrediting ACSP as a Cambridge School. Fortunately, everything went on smoothly and on September 6, 2016 ACSP was officially accredited as a Cambridge School. This allowed the school to become an examination center for Cambridge examinations, which consist of Cambridge Primary Checkpoint, Cambridge Secondary Checkpoint, International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) Advance Subsidiary and Advance Examinations.

Next came the step of empowering school teachers, students, parents and everybody concern with knowledge and understanding of the benefits and requirement of becoming a Cambridge School. The procedure is informing the parents during parents’ meeting and organizing various workshops for teachers to train them how to integrate Cambridge with the school syllabuses so as to be able to apply them effectively. We do this by analyzing both syllabuses and teaching materials in order to design appropriate activities that promote the students’ four communicative skills and whatever skills required for effective learning in the 21st century. We follow the 3 R’s and 7 C’s approach in every subject and we try to train our students to become familiar with past examinations. We also fix the calendar for the follow-up of students’ academic achievement. It is the responsibility of Brother Director and his academic advisor to inform the parents of the benefits of this change.

After using the adapted syllabuses until almost the end of the second semester, it was the time to evaluate the students with Cambridge Primary Checkpoint past examination papers for Prathom 5 and Prathom 6 students and Cambridge Secondary Checkpoint past examination papers for Matthayom 2 and Matthayom 3 students in three subjects: Mathematics, Science and English. From the results of the two examinations, we came to realize that we still had a lot of work to do to develop our students to the aimed goals. This the academic of EP considers as a challenge which would lead to the accomplishment of our commitment. Therefore, we decided to organize supplementary activities to prepare students for international standards. These activities include Promoting World Class activities to promote and evaluate English communicative skills of Prathom 3, Prathom 6, Matthayom 3 and Matthayom 6 students. In this activity students will be assigned to present in English in front of the morning assembly. Another activity is Smart Classroom which encourages students to do research using iPad. Another activity is to prepare students for IELTS English examination which consists of IELTS Preparation Course in the United Kingdom for Matthayom 6 students. Matthayom 3 students will have to be prepared for Cambridge Secondary Checkpoint in three subjects: Mathematics, Science and English. This will presents a clear picture for parents to understand how busy our teachers are to develop our students’ education quality to the international standards as stated in the vision and mission of the school.

*** ACSP comes from Assumption College Samutprakarn.