MAD Week 2026 & Activities Week updates, and Year 9 American Cemetery visit
MAD Week 2026 & Activities Week updates, and Year 9 American Cemetery visit
![MAD Week 2026 & Activities Week updates, and Year 9 American Cemetery visit]([{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_1/v1764909592/britishschoolmanilaorg/gotg28dvub71d1bng3a6/SeniorSchoolNews_10.png","width":256},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto/v1764909592/britishschoolmanilaorg/gotg28dvub71d1bng3a6/SeniorSchoolNews_10.png","width":400}])
Dear Families,
We are very busy preparing for our incredible MAD Week Experiences in January. Our teachers are finalising the trips at the moment and completing the finer details to keep your children safe and to deliver on our holistic promise for their education.
Related to this, we are also working on our annual Activities Week offering for Years 7-10. Over the last 18 months, we have reflected on the best approach to this amazing week in our student calendar. We cherish the opportunity to connect our students to nature, culture, and shared experiences of adventure and appropriate challenge. We have been consulting schools in the region to look at best practices and identify the very best service providers in terms of experience, staffing and safety, and we have decided to go overseas for two of our trips.
The providers overseas are the companies our FOBISIA partner schools use annually, and this means we are working with companies and people who exist to deliver high-quality school trips.
We will share full details in January when MAD Week has concluded, and we will offer parent sessions to deliver the granular details that you will want to know.
Year 10 are heading to Thailand and staying with the Wild Planet Team on the edge of Khao Yai National Park. They have their own residential centre, which is taken by schools for 30+ weeks of the year already. They have added an additional week to their calendar to accommodate us in the second week of June.
Years 7, 8, and 9 will be travelling in the first week of June. Year 7 will be staying locally at the Quest Adventure Camp in Rizal. They will be there for two nights/three days. On the two additional days, we have a number of activities we will be delivering on the school campus.
Year 8 will be enjoying one of the trips we have run for many years. We have a close relationship with ISSC, which is a trip provider with a track record recognised across South East Asia. They will be travelling to La Union and participating in a variety of nature and adventure-focussed activities.
I have recently returned from Malaysia, where we finalised plans for the Year 9 trip to Semenyih, just outside of Kuala Lumpur. At this location, we are being looked after by the premier school trip provider in Malaysia, Big Ocean Dive. They began as a dive trip provider in 2015 by some ISKL Alumni and have evolved over the last decade into school trip specialists. Again, we will be experiencing a trip that they run repeatedly with schools like ours in the region.
Readers of the Lion's Roar will be the first to know, as we have not yet officially told the students about this year's Activities Week. Heads of Year will be sharing the details with their year groups in January. A reminder that there is no additional charge for Activities Week.
We look forward to speaking with you at the family information sessions next term.
Mark Attwood
Head of Senior School
English: Year 9 American Cemetery visit
On Tuesday, 18 November, as part of their War Poetry unit, the Year 9 students visited the American Cemetery, BGC. They were first taken on a tour of the cemetery, where they had the opportunity to see the graves of the 17,000 soldiers buried there and the names of a further 36,000 on the Walls of the Missing. This really emphasised the shocking scale of loss of human life during the Second World War.
Tap left or right to see more photos
Following this, the students proceeded to the visitor centre, where they watched a moving video about WW2 in the Asian Pacific and the role of the Philippines in the conflict, which featured powerful testimonies of many veterans who experienced it firsthand.
This was a meaningful excursion for our students, who were a credit to BSM with their respectful attitudes and genuine interest in the tours. They were particularly shocked to learn that the youngest combatants lost were only a year older than they were. Many of the students chose to write poignant messages in the guest book, reflecting on what a meaningful experience they’d had.
Mark Graham
Head of English
RELATED LINKS
- Senior School News