Secondary News - May 29 2020

It almost felt like a new beginning of the year this week, with Year 7 and 8 students welcomed back to school. You could really feel the excitement amongst the students. Being able to see their friends and teachers again and discuss their learning face to face with teachers simply had them buzzing. It does take some getting used to; remembering a mask when moving about the building, ensuring that there is only one person in the bathroom at any given time, waiting for teachers to escort students outside during breaks, however these safety precautions are fast becoming a part of the routine. As evident in thereopening guidance released, safety of everyone at school has been of the utmost priority, so precautions are taken very seriously. The staff and students have been doing a great job at adapting to situations quickly, ensuring that not only risk is minimised, but also that students still achieve a good balance of learning inside the classroom and time outside during breaks.

Looking at the Assessment Calendar released in Week 1, the students have a lot to focus on this block, as they are working hard for their upcoming assessments and annual Progress Tests in KS3. It certainly remains a busy time for everyone, so I encourage students to ensure that they have their routine of study organised when at home.

I wish all students the best of luck for their upcoming tests and wish everyone an enjoyable weekend.

Ms Andronikos

Head of Secondary

As mentioned in our BISL Fees Letter for the 2020/21 academic year shared on 17th April, we are offering two weeks of free summer school to all students for the first two weeks of the summer. If you’re interested in joining, please complete this form. The deadline to sign up is Thursday 4th June. For further questions, please email admissions@britishschool.si.

Split classes in Primary will resume to their normal class sizes, class teachers and classrooms, starting Monday 1st June, as per the recent ministry announcement. For more information about our current guidance, please refer to our BISL Reopening Procedure Guidance article, updated regularly as new information becomes available.

Progress Test in Maths (PTM) and Progress Test in English (PTE) have been scheduled for all KS3 students over the next 2 weeks. Like the CAT 4 tests, these are a 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.

The Progress Test in Maths (PTM) is a standardised assessment of pupils' mathematical skills and knowledge. PTM assesses two dimensions of maths learning:

1. Mathematical content knowledge (Curriculum Content Category)
2. Understanding and applying mathematical processes through reasoning and problem solving (Process Category)

Progress Test in English (PTE) is a standardised assessment of pupils’ technical English skills (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and reading comprehension. This is designed for benchmarking student’s English knowledge, and measuring their progress over time.

For these tests students require:

- A charged laptop - Headphones

Please see the Assessment Calendar for the dates of these assessments.

Mr Bradley

Secondary Data and Analysis Lead

Dear Parents,

Thank you to everyone for your support and kind words of encouragement during this first week back at school. It is valued and very much appreciated.

I would like to recognise the huge effort by families, teachers and students in helping us return back to 'normal' school conditions with the added health precautions in place.

As you have seen from our Facebook and website updates, the students have had a wonderful time back with their friends and teachers.

It is because of this hard work and commitment from all members of the community that we have had articles published on various platforms and the reopening of the school has gone very smoothly. This was a real team effort and we all should be proud and delighted that many of our students are now back in school, happy, comfortable and looking forward to the rest of the term.

Here are the links to the articles:

• COBIS – Reopening After Lockdown
• Teacher Horizons – Re-opening international schools, a behind the scenes account
• TES – ‘Students must feel safe back at school – and have fun’

Our transition is not complete yet and we aim to maintain these high standards. We still have areas to monitor, review and check each day. I am fully dedicated to this and to making sure that safety remains a continued priority. We anticipate measures to be slowly relaxed over the coming weeks and will respond accordingly.

As mentioned in our BISL Fees Letter for the 2020/21 academic year shared on 17th April, we are offering two weeks of free summer school to all students for the first two weeks of the summer. If you’re interested in joining, please complete this form.

The deadline to sign up is Thursday 4th June. For further questions, please email admissions@britishschool.si.

As we receive further updates, we will add them to our BISL reopening procedures page and email out any changes to the guidance.

I wish all families an enjoyable weekend.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

This week Secondary classes have been participating in a number of different sporting activities during their PE lessons. Activities including Badminton, Ultimate Frisbee, Basketball and Football are just a few of the activities students have taken part in.

A gentle reminder to please send your child with an additional T-shirt to change into for their PE lessons.

PE Department

Mr Damjan

Head of PE Department

Last week's answer for the Maths question of the week is: 1/2.

Thank you for all submitted answers and congratulations to Shivam (Y7), Aleksander M. (Y8B), Divyansh (Y8B), Jasmina (Y9) who guessed correctly and received 5 House points each! Well done!

Maths question of this week is:

A cyclist covers a distance of 5 m in one second. The wheels of his bike each have a circumference of 125 cm. How many complete turns does each wheel do in 5 seconds?

Students who solve the question send their answer to my email by Wednesday (3rd June).

Good luck!

Ms Zupanc

Maths Department

The draw for the Football Frenzy raffle has been concluded, thank you to all who have participated. The winners are as follows:

0159 - In The Attic Framed Album

0132 - Autographed Liverpool Van Dijk Home Shirt

0278 - Autographed Manchester City Kyle Walker Home Shirt

If you have one of these numbers please contact Mr. Batson to receive your prize. Please be prepared to prove that you purchased the ticket by showing your half of the ticket to Mr. Batson.

You will be unable to claim the prize without showing proof that you own the other half of the ticket.

Thank you again to all those who participated.

And here is the link:-

https://www.facebook.com/britishschool/videos/528168784524858/

Mr Batson

Yr 13 Form Tutor

Year 7 worked on an extract from the famous story “War of the Worlds” by HG Wells, looked at conditional sentences and wrote their own account of a Martian invasion

Year 8A continued their work on the novel “Private Peaceful” by Michael Morputo

Year 8B worked on “The Navajo Night Chant” and learned some of the different ways to effectively use repetition which we also saw in use in the George Harrison song “Got my mind set on you”

This week Year 9s have been reading a short story from American writer Charlotte Perkins-Gilman entitled "The Yellow Wallpaper". This Gothic story explores how the narrator is forced into a spiral of madness and serves as a commentary as to how mental health was perceived by people long ago. Year 9 pupils have been analysing the language used in this short story as well as researching why this piece of literature was so popular among feminists of that time.

Year 10s have begun work on a new poem entitled "The Three Fates" as part of their poetry anthology. This poem is inspired by Greek mythology where it was believed that three goddesses controlled the destiny and fate of every mortal individual. Pupils have been analysing how the poet, Rosemary Dobson, has used language for effect in the poem, as well as discussing why a person should be careful for what they wish for.

Mr Eve and Mr Kirwan

English Department

Slovene Natives

This week Y7 was working on poetry by Slovene and Serbian poets.

Y8 started working on drama text Strip strup denarja kup by Miloš Mikeln, Y9 are reading the book Vesolje, me slišiš and Y10 were researching ''brain drain'' and its effects on Slovenia.

Well done, everybody!

Miss Kotnik

MFL Coordinator

Year 10 students have been focusing on describing food. They participated in a blind food tasting in order to describe the different dishes with precise adjectives. The winning team has been rewarded with house points. Well done!

Mrs Poulet - French Teacher

Our very talented Chloe Zhange played a Chopin Etude Op.10 No.5in G flat major as part of the school's contribution to the recent 'Igraj se z mano' (Play with Me) festival.

Also contributing were talented Year 9 students Ana and Jasmina singing 'We're All in This Together' from High School Musical.

A big thank you to all of them for their efforts.

Mr Austin

Head of Music

INVITATION TO THE 14TH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL "PLAY WITH ME"

It has been a pleasure for BISL to join the Play with Me festival (Igraj se z Mano) over the past number of years and this year is no exception. Connecting through play is one of the guiding principles of the events, which with their activities promote social integration or inclusion among children, adolescents, adults with special needs and the majority population of all generations and so.....

"We invite you to join us for the 14th year in a row at the International Festival "Play with me", organized by the Janez Levec Center Ljubljana and the Society for the Culture of Inclusion. The festival will take place from 27 May to 7 June 2020. This year we promise you a varied and entertaining program content, this time in a slightly different form, as we will transfer our activities from the congress market to the Internet."

The programme of the "Play with me" festival can be found here. The event will take place on online platforms:

- Facebook: www.facebook.com/igrajsezmano

- Youtube: www.youtube.com/igrajsezmano

- Instagram: www.instagram.com/igraj_se_z_mano

- Zoom.

Primary teachers will be taking a look at some of the workshops during the day with their students, but please feel free to join at home after the school day ends. You might even see some of our secondary students perform and Miss O'Hara read one of her favourite books online on the 2nd of June at 18:30.

Tanya Charlesworth C4C

What are soft skills, and why are they important to develop?

Soft Skills, also sometimes called social skills and are often overlooked. These skills help students know how to cope with daily situations as well as long-term choices. Student success relies on many factors, and research shows that soft skills are essential for not only academic achievement but there is also evidence that many future employers will make employment decisions based on soft skills. These skills are malleable into early adulthood. Educators and parents can encourage and instill these skills in students just as they do for traditional academic skills.

Some critical soft skills include collaboration, decision-making, problem-solving, time management, and critical thinking skills. Below are some ideas for helping to develop your child's soft skills at home:

Social Cue Development - Letting your child spend time interacting with others will allow them to become familiar with social cues and useful communication forms.

Emotional Regulation - Let your child spend some "quiet time" playing by themselves. This will help them to develop better emotional self-awareness.

Play Make Believe - Encourage your child's imagination by engaging in make-believe play. You can co-create an imaginary world and have an adventure in it together.

Listen to Your Child - Listening to your child as they tell a story, talk about their ideas, or try to express a feeling will help them develop excellent soft skills through practice and affirmative action. Start by simply listening to them and encouraging them to express themselves through open-ended questions.

Ms Fairchild

SEN Department

We are often asked about footwear. A comfortable, elegant and good quality black shoe is required for the school day as part of the uniform all year round and also important as students frequently represent the school at events, presentations and ceremonies. We have included photographs below of examples of our students to help you.

Please find a link to our school uniform page here to guide you with the expectations at our school.