NATTAWUT 260

Natakorn Aj Nattawut

Mr. Abel Cadias

English 10 / 1004

June 4, 2018

What Types of School Activities do Grade 10 Students Prefer at

Mahidol University International Demonstration School?

Sometimes getting too much knowledge makes some students feel stress. In math

class, students are stress because they need to remember a lot of equations and know how

to solve problem. In many subjects, some students are having stress because of study.

Maybe some students having stress from studying because of assignment and exam. The

school should provide extra activities for students to manage their stress. Sport Event is

one of the activities that can help to manage students stress. In Thailand, they provide

different activities to make students relax. Club is the activity that can make students

relax because they can choose what they want to learn. At Mahidol University

International Demonstration School, they provide several activities to reduce stress such

as clubs, sport events, battle of the band, student market and science fair. Those activities

can help students manage stress because students can have fun from joining those

activities. The purpose of this research report is to find out what school activities do Grade

10 students prefer at Mahidol University International Demonstration School in order to

provide information about the students preferences of school activity at Mahidol

University International Demonstration School. The author uses eight academic articles

from different sources and a survey to gather data. Sport events and clubs are school

activities that Grade 10 students prefer at Mahidol University International

Demonstration School.
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School Activities

Sometimes learning too much make students stressful so school provided an

activity that reduces student stress, make them relax and they have a chance to choose

what activities they want to join. There are two main types of school activities. First types

of activities would base on academics and another one would be based on students

talents. (Valentine, Cooper, Bettencourt, Dubois, 2002). There are a lot of school

activities that are base on student talent. This kind of school activities helps students in

terms of self-confidence because they can show their talent such as performing a talent

show or set sports exhibition. The work of Simpkins, Sandra D. indicates that school

activities that are based on academics help student improving in terms of grades and help

student improving friendship. For example, students that have been joining science fairs,

they will get to know more information about science. They can take that information

and use in class. Some school activities help student make more friends such as sports

club. Students can be improving their friendship and make themselves relax by playing

sports. Some school activities also help students in terms of synergy such as student

markets, sports day or international day. In Sports days, every student needs to participate

and they need to help each other to make their team win. So it helps students to improve

their teamwork and makes them know each other more. In international day, Students

will have a chance to study about the country that they have been assigns. This activity

help students to learn about new country, respect other more in terms of belief and

religion.

MUIDS School Activities

At MUIDS, there are many activities that are provided to students. Sports day is

one of the activity that school provided for students. In sports day, students will be split

in four groups. Every student will be participate in different activities, some students will
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be athlete and some will be cheering for their teams. In sports day, there are many trophies

to win. For example, trophy for the best in cheerleading or trophy for the best in sports

so students can choose what they wants to participate. This activity makes students know

each other more and give students a chance to show their talents. For example, Week

Without Wall is another activity that school provided for students. This activities are

mainly about school will bring students to camp. The purpose of this activity is to make

students relax by give their a chance to go out of school and study new things for five

days. This activity helps students learning new things that they never learn such as

students will have a chance to catch insects. And student will have a chance to know other

students more. Battle of the Bands is one of the highlights activity at MUIDS. This

activity is a music competition. Students who love music will join this activity. The work

of Wilkinson, Irene G. indicates that some music can help students reduce stress, develop

their mood and help them about learning. College fair and Career day are an activities

that school provide for students to recommend what they want to learn in the future. In

college fair, there will be different university that come to introduce their course so this

activity help students find what they want to learn in the future. On Career Day, there

will be people who are experts in different jobs come to introduce their jobs. This activity

help students to decide their future what they want to learn and know what they need to

do to be success in their jobs.

Ways to Improve School Activities

There are many effective ways to improve school activities such as providing a

variety of school activities and increasing the duration. Some activities doesn’t provide

enough time for students to participate such as Pi day. On Pi day, every student will come

group up at the hall and there will be pie and pizza for every student to eat to celebrate Pi

day. Pi day is a day to celebrate the number of pie so there should be activities about math
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such as solving math problem game. It will make this activities more interesting. School

provided about one and a half hours for this activity so it would be better if school give

more time for this activity. School can improve school activities such as clubs by adding

more interesting clubs such as French language club or make more sport clubs like

separate badminton and table tennis so students can choose what sport they really want

to play. School can also let students make their own clubs so they can have a opportunity

to show what they like and what they are interest in. According to Bloom and Marley,

they discuss that having homework clubs help students to learn and make them finish

their homework. This club helps student to finish homework at school and make them

have less homework to do at home. Vichakarn day is one of the activity that school has a

problem with it. Some activities make students boring so it will be better to add more fun

activities instead of providing boring activities. This will make Vichakarn Day more

interesting for students.

Survey Findings and Discussion

The purpose of this survey is to find out what types of school activities do Grade

10 students prefer at Mahidol University International Demonstration School. There are

31 of grade 10 students took survey. The survey lasted for one week.

The first question asked about school activities that Grade 10 students wanted to

join at MUIDS. This chart demonstrates that students join Week without wall, Clubs,

Career day, Sports day, International day, Spirit week, College fair, Vichakarn day,
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Piday, Science fairs, Battle of the band, study hall and Vanguards.

Figure 1 School Activities

Question number two asked respondents to rate the varieties of school activities

at MUIDS. The results show that 51.6% of students rate to 8 which mean the

respondents think that MUIDS has an exemplary school activities. On the other hand,

there are 3.2% of respondents rate school activities 1 which means that they think that

MUIDS has insignificant rate of school activities.

Figure 2 Variety of School Activities

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The third question asked students to rate school activities in terms of students

interest. The result demonstrates that 58.1% of students rate 4 which mean more than

half of students interest in school activities in MUIDS. About 32.3% of students rate 3

that mean there still have something to improve with school activities. Maybe school

can provide more activities for students or let students vote what activities they would

prefer.

Figure 3 Interesting Rate

The fourth question asked what types of school activities that students prefer joining

in MUIDS. The result show that Week without wall is school activities that students

want to join the most in MUIDS and follow by clubs, spirit weeks, student market, sport

days, international day, battle of the band, study hall, college fair, science fair, pi day ,

vichakarn day. This chart also show that 3.2% of respondents want more school

activities so school can add more activities for students.

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Figure 4 Types of School Activities

Question number five asked about how much time do students want to spend on

school activities per week. This chart demonstrates that 29% of respondents want to

spend 3 hours for school activities and 12.9% of respondents want to spend more than 5

hours for school activities.

Figure 5 Times to Spend on School Activities

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Question number six asked about how school activities can be improve. The

answer are variety. The most popular answer is add more school activities that are

interesting. Some students answer that school should manage time well. There are

students say that school should provide exhibition about clubs and school activities at

the beginning of the year so students and teacher will know what activities will coming

in that year.

Conclusion

This research report aimed to find out what types of school activities do Grade 10

students prefer joining at Mahidol University International Demonstration School. This

research concludes that Week Without Wall is the activity that Grade 10 students prefer

at MUIDS. But there are students who want MUIDS to improve school activities by

adding more interesting activities such as French language, different kinds of instrument

and manage school activities better in terms of time. School can manage school activities

by using the whole day for school activities so school wouldn’t rush the activities. This

research report recommends further studies on how school activities affect students lives.
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References

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School Activity Matter?
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