Primary News - September 25 2020

We have had another very busy week in primary and it is wonderful to see all the students now settling into the routines, working hard and enjoying time in the sunshine with their peers. The third Enrichment Day last Saturday was another fantastic opportunity for students to participate in various science, art, language, English and humanities activities organised by BISL teachers across the school.

A special treat this week for Y1-Y4 classes was a visit from the Y12 student volunteers, who visited primary classes to gain experience in assisting teachers during lessons through working and supporting students in various activities or tasks. We look forward to the Y12 students joining us again soon.

PSHE: PANTS

This week the primary school focused on child protection during their class circle times, the PSHE lessons and Virtual Assembly. We introduced a rule that was devised by the British NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). It is called the 'Underwear Rule' and is a simple way that parents can help keep children safe from abuse, using keywords that students understand. More information can be found here: The Underwear Rule NSPCC

Although the subject matter may be uncomfortable to talk about, it is important for children to know that they can talk to you about safeguarding issues. Here is a link to a brochure from the NSPCC, which gives parents advice about the type of conversations that they can have with their children to protect them from child abuse. The following song will also help to get the message across, especially with younger children. Please find some time to reinforce the message at home as well.

Assessment in Primary

There have been various assessments going on throughout the first three weeks, as it is important for the teachers to gain insight into their students’ learning profiles. This included the CAT 4 test as part of the GL assessment suite of standardised tests that support pupil attainment. At BISL, these tests are completed annually, to provide us with some very valuable information about the students' progress over the year. These also aid in identifying students that require SEN (Special Educational Needs), including the gifted and talented students, students with specific learning needs or students requiring EAL support.

Drop-off and Pick-up Procedures

To ensure safety for the students, we ask parents to follow the procedures outlined in the Update from the Principal on 28th August. For drop-off, the blue zone should be used, where staff members supervise a safe entry into the school. During pick-up, the passageway outside the pick-up gate leading to the cars must be clear at all times. We ask parents to wait in their cars and to display student name labels for quicker identification. This will speed up the process and secure safety for our students. Please also continue to check the latest Update from the Principal for other safeguarding and health and safety guidelines.

On a final note, we would like to wish our Principal Mr Walton a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY, with this song recorded by our Y4 students.

I wish everyone a lovely weekend,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

Early Years

In Early Years we are working on our number skills and we have been learning a new song to help us count or even better find one more!

Here is Ema working on her skills to count to 10!

Ms Rosa

Year 1

Year 1 have been challenging themselves in maths this week, counting, matching and writing numbers up to 20, some of them pushed themselves and went all the way to 50 and some even counted to 100!

Mr Hughes

Year 2A

Year 2A has been a fantastic class this week, they have worked incredibly hard together and focused well in class. This week our focus has been gratitude, thinking about ways we can show and express gratitude in our lives. In Literacy we have been looking at instructions, we have started by looking at features of instructions and next week we will move onto writing our own instructions.

Ms Harris

Year 2B

This week in Year 2, we have learnt all about the word gratitude. We discussed what it meant to be grateful and why it is important.

In maths, we have explored estimating and why we need to use it.

Ms Miller

Year 3

In Topic this week, the students made presentations on an element of their home cultures, such as dance, poetry, food or language. Some of the highlights were dancing from Kazakhstan, recipes from Poland, Bulgaria and Ukraine and poetry from Poland and Slovenia. Well done to all of the students involved. We look forward to many more presentations like them as the year progresses.

Mr Mulcahy

Year 4

This week, Year 4 have been honing their acting skills.

We have been delving into book characters and learning how we as readers are able to develop a complex understanding of the characters, even if little is written about them, simply by making judgements based on their words or actions.

Students are focusing on how to effectively portray their characters' emotions when delivering spoken dialogues in a play, and matching words to body language. It has been great to watch.

Mr Bishop

Year 5A

This week has been one to remember in Y5A. Students read and performed our book while comparing it to other Chinese proverbs. In Math, we completed our place value unit by looking at some mastery level questions.

Students learnt about the 5 classes of living things which lead to the research and the creation of a booklet containing the different adaptations of these extreme survivors.

Have a great weekend,

Mr Walker

Year 5B

Year 5 have been revisiting Roman Numerals up to the thousands. The students first recapped their previous knowledge of Roman Numerals and then further practised the skills of reading and writing Roman Numerals through a team game, in which the Algebrats won.

They then moved on to continuing number sequences that were written in Roman Numerals, which involved the following skills:

1. Reading the Roman Numeral
2. Working out the sequence
3. Continuing the number sequence
4. Writing the continued number sequence

A few of the students continued the challenge by designing their own Roman Numeral sequencing work-sheet which has now been posted in Canvas for the other Year 5 students to attempt.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 6

Year 6 students will soon be writing letters in order to apply for a leadership position in our Primary school.

BISL Primary is looking for students who possess the following qualities and skills:

• Detail-oriented
• Caring
• Respectful
• Reliable
• Strong leader
• Effective communicator
• Polished public speaker
• Involved in school and student life

The school is looking to appoint the new Head Boy and Head Girl, the Head of Student Council as well as several Prefects.

The letters to apply for these positions are due September 14th and expect the candidates who have fulfilled the requirements to be announced on September 15th.

We are all looking forward to another great Election year.

Mr Kokalj and Mrs Charlesworth

Election Organisers

Slovene

This week we have learned about Slovene greetings. Students were excellent at diverse activities running through the last two weeks.

We completed our display poster with lots of greetings from all over the world. It's an amazing experience to get to know so many different greetings indeed. Bravo Y3 and Y4!

Slovene Department

PE

In the PE department this week, students practised the skills learned last week. After we were all on the rollerblades, pupils focused on the new objectives. This week the tasks were to balance on one leg at the time, do a low bridge and stop with the break on their rollerblades.

All students were impressive and all the skills were learned quickly. Looking forward to what next week will bring.

PE Department

Student Council

Do you have what it takes to be a Student Council representative for your class:

• Feel Empathy for your classmates and our BISL community
• Strive for Excellence making BISL the best school it can be
• Challenge yourself and BISL to make BISL even better
• Respect our school and the people in it

We are looking for one representative from each class. Write a letter explaining why you would be the best choice for your class, share this letter with your class in Week 4 of Block 1. Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 may write their letters with drawings and simplified language! Vote in class for your Student Council Member by Thursday, 24th September 2020. Election results to be announced on Friday, 25th September during the Assembly.

Good Luck,

Mrs Charlesworth

After-School Provision

In week 4 we continue with supervision for:

• Early Years (age 3+) until 16:30 - To register go to form *
• Y1 and Y2 until 15:40 - To register go to form *
• Y3 and Y4 until 15:40 - To register go to form *

* for students already registered this is NOT necessary

For changes to registration, or in the event that your child will be picked up early on the day of the supervision, please inform the Class Teacher via email a day in advance or call/text Reception on 040 486 548 on the day.

Please note that the after-school activities and clubs will not be running at this time, due to the health and safety measures in place. We will continue to review this, as per the latest Update from the Principal.

Dear Parents,

It has been a very busy week at school as we have continued to plan online lessons alongside following a normal timetable. I would like to recognise this hard work from the staff across the school who are currently preparing, organising and thinking ahead. In the last week, we have seen the number of COVID-19 cases in the ‘second wave’ rise in Slovenia (over 70 new cases in each of the last two days), we’ve had nearly 190,000 students across the country return to school this month and the recommendations from the ministry of health have remained at a very high level.

Due to this information, we have maintained our guidance in place for everyone to follow. It is tempting to reduce areas and offer more quickly, but with safety the priority, it is imperative that we think of everyone in the community. I can appreciate that we will have differing opinions on safety measures such as masks, hygiene, and even handshaking, through to social distancing, but we have to make a decision that is in the best interests of everyone in our community.

Please continue reading my full update here with further details about safety measures, drop off and pick up procedure reminders, Adventure Days, Learning Walks and more.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal