At 黑料网, we believe books are more than stories鈥攖hey are companions, mirrors, windows, and bridges. They help children make sense of the world, express big feelings, explore questions, and see themselves reflected with courage and curiosity. Through reading, children learn empathy, stretch their imagination, and strengthen their voice.

Each year, the highlight of the festival is the Elephant Trunk Awards鈥攐ur very own children’s choice book award. After weeks of reading and exploring a curated shortlist, children cast their votes for their favourite titles. These awards reflect the stories that made them laugh, think, wonder, and feel inspired.

Elephant Trunk Award Winners 2025
Here are the books that captured children鈥檚 hearts across each age group:

KI~KII

Y1~Y3

Y4~Y6

Want to experience these stories at home? You can find all of this year鈥檚 Elephant Trunk Award books in our library. We warmly welcome families to visit, explore the collection, and spend a quiet moment reading together. Because when a child falls in love with a book, they鈥檙e not just reading鈥攖hey鈥檙e growing.

#FestivalOfLiterature #黑料网InternationalSchools #TheCitySchool #ElephantTrunkAwards #JoyOfReading #ChildrensBooksMatter

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At 黑料网, drama is more than just performance. It offers children the chance to explore voice, character, and movement in a way that builds confidence and encourages teamwork. Whether delivering lines, moving across the stage, or supporting one another behind the scenes, our children learned through doing鈥攁nd discovered just how much they could achieve together.

What made the evening even more special was the sense of community that filled the theatre. Families, alumni, and staff gathered to support the children and reconnect with one another. There was laughter, conversation, and a warm sense of being together. These shared moments remind us how important our community is to all that we do at 黑料网.

We are truly grateful to our families and educators for their support, encouragement, and care throughout this journey. These events are only possible with your presence and partnership.

To our young performers: thank you for your courage, your effort, and your joy. You brought Sherwood Forest to life in the most memorable way.

It was a night to remember鈥攆or the learning, the laughter, and the togetherness it brought.

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Originally my background is in outdoor education with primary-age children in Canada. I was torn between my passion for the outdoors and my love of technology at this time, and then the opportunity came up for me to make a transition. Twelve years ago, I interviewed with Jackie (Founder of 黑料网 Family of International Schools) and fell in love with the philosophy of The City School and the Reggio Emilia approach. I began as a Year 3 teacher, a role I held for 5 years. At this time, technology was just starting to be integrated into some of the Projects and I was curious about how they used robotics and other technology tools. I started to integrate technology year on year, which became a wider mission to expand technology and incorporate it into learning across the school.

2. Could you describe your role?

The role of Head of Technology and Innovation is a new one. In previous years, our pedagogical consultant, Giovanni Piazza, drove much of our approach, and this responsibility has now been disseminated to me and some other long-standing members of staff. My role covers technology integration from the classroom to the curriculum 鈥� it is pretty wide in scope! We have organically built up a lot of the systems and technology pieces that we have, whether robotics, digital citizenship, or 3D printing. These elements have naturally connected with and facilitated learning, especially with our Project work, and the 鈥榠nnovation鈥� component which is inherently part of the learning process is now being more explicitly and systematically integrated into the curriculum. We have made great headway in the last few years in terms of building up both our digital literacy and digital citizenship curriculum, and now we are empowering teachers and coordinators to take ownership of all these elements of technology and innovation knowledge and practicum 鈥� it is not just an isolated subject but a necessary and important part of everybody鈥檚 lives. My main goal right now is to find innovative tools that we can inject into our learning processes and our forward-thinking Ontario Curriculum. 

3. How has your philosophy of teaching/approach developed over the years?聽

The commitment to project work at The City School has really helped to define the way I view children approaching their learning. When children drive the Projects they are intrinsically motivated; there is empowerment, autonomy, and ownership built in when the children create meaningful artifacts, drawing on our technology kits and tools. Personally, I am continually navigating if, when, and how to integrate what I am learning from external accreditations or courses in technology with the unique needs of the The City School鈥檚 teaching and learning context and the curriculum expectations. This really encourages an openness and flexibility in my approach. Whilst it is of course critical to innovate and stay relevant, I am always mindful that we are a low technology school by design and this is something upon which we have always prided ourselves. For example, the natural world features in so much of what we do as we 鈥榖ring the outside in鈥�, we refrain from implementing one-to-one devices, and above all, we want the learning to be very human-driven, with interaction at the heart of what we do. So, a big part of my role is folding in the technology meaningfully in ways that prepare your children for their next school and for navigating the 21^st century successfully. Being at The City School, we re-commit each day to setting children up for success, and this is about nurturing and building those transferable skills of knowing how to construct, create, and critique, to plan, design and engineer. Regardless of the technologies in their future, we always want the children to see themselves as creators. 

4. How is Technology and Innovation integrated into curriculum here at The City School? Can you give an example?

I think the way we鈥檝e been utilizing Microbits, which is one of our microcontrollers used typically from Year 4 onwards, is a good illustration of how technology and innovation is integrated in our learning programmes; it can be utilized with Project, with digital literacy, and ties well with the Math and Literacy curriculum expectations inside the classroom. We give children the space and means to naturally integrate technology and innovation into their creative process: children are learning how to code their own inventions; they鈥檙e able to write out instructions for how they did it; they鈥檙e able to create a 鈥榟ow to鈥� of its operations; and they can build and design in the atelier. For me, it is these personally meaningful artifacts, that have travelled in and across disciplines, and can be shared with their peers, which captures the 鈥榤agic鈥� of our learning.

5. Broadly speaking, I think parents have concerns with technology and

their child for two reasons. Firstly, the pitfalls in overuse and security/safety and secondly, with the arrival of generative AI, and more generally the speed with which technology is advancing, parents consider how to 鈥榝uture-proof鈥� their children. Could you say a little about how you navigate these issues in school? 

With regards to AI, we are still very much at the 鈥榯alking points鈥� stage, both as a school and directly with the children. Whilst we haven鈥檛 developed any specific policies or lesson on AI yet, largely because of the speed at which they鈥檙e evolving, with the older years we do talk about machine learning and how these AI large language models have been built and we talk about how bias can be injected into this. We discuss issues of privacy and security in our digital citizenship lessons across Years 1-6, including the importance of securing personal information and the concept of a digital footprint. In Media Literacy we have the help of Rachel Wright, Head Librarian, and Rachael Foster, Head of Literacy, to address issues of fact and opinion, algorithmic searches, and the importance of developing a hypercritical eye online. In a post-pandemic world, a lot of the research has shifted away from screentime as such, and is focusing more on what we are doing on the screens – are we being hypervigilant, critical, creative, or are we just consuming? As educators, we are trying to ensure our use of technology is all creator-driven with very little consumption. Of course, it might not be so easy at home! Our advice would be to try to use screens for as much creative content as possible, which could include your child coding, or even making their own Youtube videos as they get older!

6. Arguably the most in-demand skill for the future is 鈥榠nnovation鈥� and creativity.

How do you teach innovation?

I don鈥檛 think you teach innovation I think you inspire innovation. Specifically in my role, I am tasked with pushing the boundaries of what the best education for children can look like and thinking of new ways we can approach learning tasks that may or may not include technology. Innovation involves creating a space in which we encourage risk-taking and divergent thinking, and developing a mindset whereby children don鈥檛 feel constrained by conventional structures or materials. I think it is an inspirational role: I鈥檓 not going to be the educator who will introduce what follows AI – newer staff members will come along and generate new ideas, but rather I see my role as interweaving all these ideas together and being able to disseminate the information to everybody. So, in this way, I am trying to build and promote a culture of innovation.

7. Who or what inspires you?

There are a few I can mention! Mark Rober and Casey Neistat come to mind first. As Youtubers, vloggers, educators, and what I鈥檇 call 鈥榯inkerers鈥�, I admire the way they experiment, learn, and create things; the processes aren鈥檛 perfect or beautiful, but rather they are transparent and they invite us to witness the challenges, messiness, and learning inherently built in. When I鈥檓 working in the atelier with the children it鈥檚 so important to show the 鈥榖ehind the scenes鈥�; I welcome the aesthetic of the 鈥榠mperfect鈥� 鈥� the crossings out, duct tape fixups, all those things that show how children work upon things, in essence, making their learning visible. My daily inspiration is really a rich blend of all the things I have learnt from The City School, from Giovanni, from the Reggio approach, and folding into this my own 21^st century external inputs.

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How did you arrive in the field of primary education? 

Observing my son when he was six years old was a powerful experience that ultimately inspired my doctoral research in education. Along the way, I received my Graduate Diploma in Teaching and Learning. The joy a school community brings closed the deal. 

Stepping into the role as Head of Schools after a legacy of 38 years, what is your own vision for 黑料网, to ensure it continues to be a world-class bespoke learning experience for children?

黑料网 Forever is our biggest priority. Our founders created something special from both an educational and a social-emotional point of view. Our duty now is to honor and grow that legacy so that 黑料网 will be forever. We understand the importance of continuing the work that serves our children and provides an education worthy of them. An academically strong education; based on understanding each child as a learner and providing the socio-emotional environment where they can grow confidently and reach their full potential.

I joined The City School in 2018 as a Year 3 teacher and entered a community of exceptional educators. With a ratio of one educator to every four children, we can provide the individualized attention children deserve. These are the foundational years of learning that will carry with them their whole lives; our children deserve that bespoke attention that small class sizes and highly qualified teachers offer.  

In 2019 I became Head of Teaching and Learning just ahead of Covid. The pandemic crystallized and cemented my commitment to our personalized approach 鈥� this is what is best for each child and what we will continue to do. We will continue holding ourselves to high standards to provide the best of early years and primary education. 

What are the most important qualities as Head of School at 黑料网?

It is important to apply to myself those same high expectations we have of the children. Our image of the child as being powerful, capable, and full of potential is a high expectation indeed, and we see the children rise to it and thrive in this environment. I want to hold myself and our educators to that same high standard. The City School Scholar concept we have developed encapsulates the qualities we nurture in children as learners and the qualities we should strive for in ourselves as educators: what are our discipline-based competencies, how do we engage in critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, and compassion? The OECD, UNESCO, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Ontario Curriculum, among others, tell us that these are the skills the world expects now. If we meet those goals for the children and ourselves, we are in a good place. So I want to be a leader who unites us to achieve these expectations.

How do you define high-quality teaching and learning?

Our community promises are: academic strength, socio-emotional well-being, and personalized learning with skilled teachers, which are the foundations of a high-quality education. 

We want to know and understand every child and how they learn – their experiences, emotions, thoughts, theories, academic progress, friendships, and home environment – this all informs who they are when they enter the classroom. From there, we create lessons that really engage our children. We follow Canada鈥檚 Ontario curriculum and a Reggio Emilia approach, which we know ensures high academic standards and expectations. Still, we also know that it is our job to apply our programs in a tailored way that each child can reach their full potential. 

I believe that you really cannot get to know your children well enough as a teacher because that informs everything you do. Our priority on personalized learning is why we have small class sizes. With about 12 children in a class, we can give children the attention they deserve. 

High-quality teaching and learning also depend on a socio-emotional environment where children feel safe, seen, heard, and valued. When we can create that space for them, they can really reach their best selves as learners and global citizens. 

Another part of high-quality teaching and learning is academic strength. We know that numeracy and literacy are the silver bullets that empower children to engage in society in productive ways. Still, we must also deliver all the other outcomes of the Ontario curriculum; as society becomes more global and issues more complex, we are preparing our children for whatever future work and communities they may join. 

At primary educator level, how do you equip children with the skills in such an unknown future, especially with the advent of AI and changing landscape of education?

One book I recommend is David Perkins鈥� Futurewise: Educating our Children for a Changing World. Perkins comes from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and in fact, Harvard has collaborated with and endorsed Reggio Emilia as a high-quality approach to educating children with lasting skills. Perkins talks about a lifeworthy education for children that enables them to create big understandings. Big in insight, action, ethics, and opportunity so that they can transfer these skills into diverse high school; university, community, and work contexts. 

This very much coalesces with those 21st-century skills we nurture through Project each year: collaboration and communication, critical thinking, creativity, and compassion. Wherever you might be, whatever the future might look like, you will need these skills in your toolkit; we have an ethical responsibility to grow those in every child.

What does 黑料网 offer for children that prepares them for high schools and beyond?

The image of the child as competent, capable, and full of potential, and the voice, choice and respect that comes with that inform our daily interactions with the children. In this way, we grow confidence inside them, ensuring they have a 鈥榮eat at the table.鈥� Whether it is the first day of high school, the first day of university, the first day of work, or even moving to a new country, our children have the confidence to be seen, heard, and valued and to expect that from others. 

Every year 黑料网 children go to top high schools in Bangkok like NIST, Patana, ISB, and others (as well as 黑料网ly), and the feedback we get from these schools is telling; they report that 黑料网 children transition very well because they know themselves and know how to think, contribute, and collaborate. That lifeworthy engagement nurtured at The City School is something that serves our children very well into high school when they are required to be independent learners.

Within the landscape of International Schools in Bangkok, what differentiates 黑料网?

At all our 黑料网 schools, we have the most authentic version of inquiry-based learning that I have seen. We treat children as researchers because we know that research skills are critical for the future. With the advent of AI and technology developing apace, knowledge equity is accessible to everyone, but being a critical thinker and researcher are the key differentiators. This is what makes us high-quality, authentic, and accredited in our approach. And also what allows us to place children at the top 黑料网 schools in Bangkok and overseas in schools such as Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland.

Who or what inspires you?

My anchor is the children. Again, that is what differentiates all the educators at 黑料网 International Schools. We put the child at the heart of everything we do. And of course the parents. As a mother whose own sons went to 黑料网 schools here in Bangkok I understand the pressures on parents to ensure the best education for their child. I encourage parents to see 黑料网 as a partner from birth to 25 years. We are thinking about your child鈥檚 needs before they come to us, while they are with us, and also how we best prepare and place them in their next phase of education and development. My door is always open to parents who want to come and talk with me about their child and how we activate their success now and in their future.

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What brought you to Primary Education and your role here at 黑料网? 

My original training is as a high school science teacher, having completed my BSc in Science and BEd at the University of Manitoba, Canada. I first came to Thailand through a pre-certification teacher training programme, during which time I taught grades 5 and 6 science. Once I graduated, I returned to the same school in Thailand but in a different role as an upper kindergarten/grade 1 teacher. It was not my original plan to teach early years, but this experience changed my mind. I could see how excited young children were to learn, and that level of natural curiosity and raw passion they expressed made me reconsider my teaching plans. Any time I introduced an activity or experiment related to science or nature within class, you could see an explosion of pure joy, and ultimately I felt that teaching younger children would be more rewarding for me. After this, I had a variety of teaching roles in Thailand and Canada, including teaching high school biology and general sciences, and at the primary level, running an after-school science activities programme. I completed my MSc in Physical Geography at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, which included fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic, studying how lakes are affected by climate change. I wanted to have experience doing scientific research and participating in that process before returning to primary education to improve my skills as a science communicator and educator. 

I first came to 黑料网 just for a visit, on the recommendation of some former colleagues. During my tour of 黑料网 I saw Mr. Trevor building robots to clean up plastics from the river with his class; seeing the potential for these type of project explorations at the school completely captured me. The tour turned into a job offer and I鈥檓 now in my fourth year here.

Could you describe your role?

I have a dual role: I work with classes across the school years to support them with Project, and I also work 1:1 with children for learning support. There is quite a lot of crossover with these two roles; those classes that have a higher support caseload generally require more help with Project. This involves helping the class teacher and the children with any challenges they may have engaging with ideas or executing them. As part of the SSW team, I am also involved in strategy meetings to identify those children who might need some support, whether they are exhibiting certain social-emotional challenges and behaviours, having academic difficulties, or require academic enrichment. We make our learning support as personalized as possible to each child. As a team, we work together with teachers and families, to gather as comprehensive picture of the child as we can to provide the best support. We draw on different expertise, we are continually engaged in professional development and research into special educational needs and the latest evidence-based support frameworks, and where necessary, we can make recommendations for assessments and external providers such as educational psychologists. Having worked with many different families, I would say that there is sometimes resistance to accepting support, and one of the main things we want parents to understand is that help is a normal part of navigating life; no one gets through life alone and our school, every classroom, is a community in which we all help each other. Next year, I will continue to be in the SSW department, but my role will also include being Science Integration Lead. This will allow me to incorporate my science experience and expertise more deeply into the learning here, from an inclusion and SSW-based perspective. 

How has your philosophy of teaching/approach developed over the years? 

During my training I had some good mentors for science instruction, and it was largely inquiry based. My biggest struggle was in the way that I had learnt; I would be asked to simply copy down notes presented to me, which was hardly engaging. It was only when I went to university and had time in the laboratories and took some organic chemistry courses that something changed for me. I remember one experiment in particular; we made the chemical that went into the different flavoured Jolly Rancher sweets – this was a breakthrough moment for me. Most people prefer to learn when something is tactile 鈥� you can create something, build something, take something apart and figure out how it works. Over the years, I have been focused on how we make inquiry the core of teaching; I always try to start from an experience or goal of what you want to do or make, rather than starting with the answer and the prescribed formula. I continually learn and grow when I keep inquiry at the core of teaching. When children learn experientially it lasts.

As a primary educator, how do you best equip children with the necessary skills to navigate an uncertain future within the context of the development of AI and the fast-paced change in landscape of education?

One thing I鈥檝e learnt, especially working with children who need support, is that generally, children are a lot more resilient than we give them credit for. What may seem daunting for us as adults is all that children know; they will not have the same apprehension about technology as it is embedded in their everyday lives. As for my philosophy of teaching, I believe that children need, above all, to be taught to think critically and solve problems. Whatever challenges they may face in the future, if they have those critical skills, instead of reacting with fear or emotionally, they can understand the problem and break things down into smaller pieces. I feel that we must embrace the change that is already here and empower children to figure things out for themselves. I understand that the instinct of a parent is often to protect and shield their child from the outside world, but what happens in school 鈥� in classes, in social interactions with peers 鈥� is that your child is learning how to become an independent adult. We are here to support them but also to let them fail in a controlled way. Schools should provide a safe environment, but also empower children to help themselves. At 黑料网 and within the SSW department, we do a lot of work to develop children鈥檚 growth mindset 鈥� the skills and lessons to encourage positive self-talk and self-confidence, and to recover from setbacks or challenges in their learning and in their lives. 

What or who inspires you?

Someone I always gravitate back to is Carl Sagan, the US astronomer and science communicator. He co-wrote the 1980s original television series, Cosmos, which took us on a journey through the various elements and theories of the universe. Sagan was a very passionate science communicator and I feel his message of the importance of scientific research and critical thinking is ever relevant today. Sagan was also someone who appreciated art, poetry, and the beauty of our planet – 鈥榯he pale blue dot鈥�. Taking that perspective of Earth as a small, fragile, beautiful thing for which we are responsible, inspires me to take care of our planet and the children who will inherit it.

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On UN Earth Day this week, our Head of School, Dr. Lea, and our Y1-2 Project Coordinator, Ms. Sam, presented a webinar to the 黑料网 educational and development community entitled 鈥楥o-Constructing a Climate-Resilient Future: Putting Our Trust in the Children鈥�, with a participating audience of professionals from Bangladesh to Ethiopia, Nepal to the US.

Hosted by the Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood, and in collaboration with Save the Children, our educators showcased how 黑料网鈥檚 The City School is committed to empowering children to prepare for climate resilience and work for sustainable development, and how our Reggio Emilia approach to education cultivates those skills and character for our children to be world-changers. Our team led with a discussion on the educational foundations of our pedagogical approach, highlighting the centrality of our Image of the Child as competent, curious, and full of potential, the importance of the environment as a 鈥榯hird teacher鈥�, and how we make learning 鈥榲isible.鈥�

The Year 2 Project on Rewilding was used as a case-study to demonstrate our approach to learning and to encourage reflection on the way we view children, their power, and their capabilities. The concept of rewilding – which is the concept of nature taking care of itself – provided an incredible opportunity for the children to become researchers and to navigate concepts of environmental responsibility and global citizenship. Drawing on the knowledge of rewilding experts from the UK and Thailand, and through their own research, the children set about to plan an 鈥榓ctivist solution to rewilding鈥�. They became the architects, landscape gardeners, and botanists, to transform a disused corner of our school into a rewilding space. The children laid soil, made seed bombs, hung plants and vines, built a pond to attract frogs, created a space for the bees and insects, constructed a bamboo playground for the birds and squirrels, and mosaiced their own bird bath. The space is now an ever-evolving environment in our school, which allowed the children to learn about restoring ecosystems. But more than this, Ms. Sam paid special attention during the webinar to show how 黑料网鈥檚 approach to learning through Project is a process that allows children to develop an understanding of who they are as learners, of how to contribute to a working group, of how to take global action, and how to inspire change in others. Project also invites educators to reflect on the Image of the Child and cultivate the ideal environments and settings where children鈥檚 agency can flourish.

Our 黑料网 educators left the audience with a powerful message of hope and encouragement: this Rewilding Project is an example of the ways that a shift in mindset – rooted in the belief that all children are full of potential – can completely shift the education of our children, who are our greatest hope for the future, and therefore create a brighter, more resilient and sustainable future for us all.

#rewilding #earthday #ReggioEmiliaapproach

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