Secondary News - Nov 9 2020

This week began with an assembly outlining the Fundamental British Values as well as promoting the exciting new display in the top floor corridor for students to enjoy when we return to the building. These values of Democracy, Fair Play, Tolerance and Civic Duty are exercised in our daily life at BISL, ensuring that everyone is respected and treated fairly. This is also reflected in our Values as a school.

Additionally, this week, Ms O’Regan shared some tantalising and torturous tongue twisters that proved to be deceptively difficult. They certainly take some practise! I very much enjoyed hearing the students’ attempts.

As the block comes to an end, it is a good time to take a moment to reflect. It has certainly presented its challenges; however, online learning has highlighted everyone’s ability to be organised, motivated and independent to strive to achieve academic targets. It has also highlighted the importance of regular communication, to ensure that instructions are followed, and a clear and consistent schedule is maintained to keep up with work. I personally commend the students and their efforts overall this block, as well as all families for their support. With upcoming assessments next block, I encourage students to have a productive break, setting aside some time to recharge.

I wish everyone a lovely break.

Stephanie Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Miss Ross has left the British International School of Ljubljana. We would like to thank her for her contribution to the Secondary school and wish her the best for the future. She passes on this message to the community:

"I have taken the decision to move back to the UK for career purposes and have taken on a new challenging job role. I've enjoyed working with all students during my time here at BISL, it has been a true pleasure to see the progress over the last year and I wish everyone the best for the future."

We welcome experienced Biology teacher, Mr Yates, to begin supporting students from November 16th. More information will be shared introducing Mr Yates with the Secondary community directly via email.

We also welcome our new Slovene teacher Ms Anja Rofenik, to begin from November 16 with the Slovene Advanced classes. More information will be shared introducing Ms Drofenik with the community directly via email.

A year on since the planting of the Founder's Tree, we can reflect upon a great deal of change, improvements and steps forward for BISL as a school.

During these challenging times, we have once again come together as a community to proudly celebrate Founder's Day, remembering Jeremy's vision and the progress we have made towards this thus far.

With outstanding academic outcomes, exciting learning experiences, new facilities, a growing school and above all, a positive energy together, we are excited by what the future holds for us as a school.

We are honoured to present the annual Founder's Awards to the following students:

Academic Achievement Award - Micky W., Year 13

Music Award - Ivan L., Year 13

Community Award- Elena C., Year 12

Coming soon, BISL winter accessories will be available on the uniform webshop, we look forward to sharing these with you soon.

Here are some fun photos taken during online lessons this week:

This Block our theme has focused on the Humanities subjects and students and teachers throughout the school have been learning about the importance of our subjects in different ways. We have been encouraging teachers and students to explore the humans behind the other subjects to better understand the role people and society have played in their development.

The Humanities are a broad range of subjects that are interested in understanding human behaviour, culture and society. Students of the Humanities think critically and speculatively within a historical context about the world around them and consider the interrelationships between people and their natural and social environments.

Here in Secondary school, classes have been celebrating and learning about the Humanities in different ways. It was wonderful to receive so many “Heroes of Humanity” applications and recognise the positive and immeasurable impact they had on the lives of others. Year 7 had the chance to visit Ljubljana Castle and appreciate the important role it played in the past and still today (as a tourist attraction at least!).

The Humanities were also explored in different ways in English (looking at Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a Dream” speech, World War One poetry), Sciences (speak to Mr Herrera about Aristotle and how philosophers understood the world in Ancient Greece) and many other subjects.

A big thank you from the Humanities Department to all the teachers, students and parents who helped us celebrate the Humanities this block. We hope you learned something new and appreciate the value our subjects bring to our world!

Mr Bradley and the Humanities Department

It has been a brilliant last week in PE as students have taken part in their badminton assessment. As students continue to work at home, they have been submitting their videos of how specific components of fitness within badminton can be tested and improved. We’ve received some fantastic videos over the week and have high hopes that some of our students may use their presenting skills to pursue careers in sports journalism and sports media. Students have highlighted their advance use of technology as they have edited and formatted their videos to beyond the hopes of Miss Sharpe and Mr Damjan.

Congratulations students and enjoy your block break! When we return, we shall turn our attention to the sport of football.

Miss Sharpe, PE department

This Thursday Secondary Forms were given the challenge of performing one of 3 tricky Tongue Twisters. It was great fun and the winners this year were year 7B whose performance can be enjoyed here:

Runners up were Year 10 and Year 11B with a special mention to Gabriel of Year 9B for the best and fastest solo effort.

Year 9B have been learning about Social Media, Fake News and Internet Safety in Citizenship. To finish the unit they were asked to create a poster that informs young people of how to be safe online. Well done to Maria, Begum and Gabriel who created these excellent posters!

Miss Clayton, Citizenship Year 9B

As we wrap up our Humanities theme in Block 2, we’d like you to dig a little deeper in getting to know our brilliant Head of Humanities, Mr Gary Bradley, in this week’s Teacher Feature.

Please read Mr Bradley's Teacher Feature here.

Slovene

This week we have been learning about the past tense. Year 8 was excellent at making interviews about their previous weekend. They shared with each other their weekend activities while using the past tense in Slovene. Well done students!

Miss Košec, MFL Department

French

Years 7, 8 and 9 have been studying a number of topics in French, such as Food, School, Life in Paris and various other related subjects.

Ms Tatjana Struna Berden, French Teacher

KS3 students have been calculating averages for sets of data and learning some key concepts in statistics. Year 9B took charge and presented the topic themselves.

Year 10 discussed earnings, finances, interest and exchanging currencies, while year 11 has been exploring, drawing and interpreting different types of graphs.

Last week's answer for the Math question of the week is: 48.

Thank you for all submitted answers and congratulations to Aleksander (9B) and WIlson (11A) who guessed correctly and received 5 house points each. Well done!

Here we have an example of a presentation from Gabriel from 9B

Maths question of this week is:

Ria and Flora compare their savings and realise that they are in the ratio 5:3 to each other. Then Ria buys a tablet for 160€. The ratio of their savings thus changes to 3:5. How much money did Ria have before she bought the tablet?

Students who solve the question send their answer to my email by Monday 16th November.

Miss Zupanc, Maths department

Year 7 this week continued further into their class literature study and learnt the shocking truth about the character Shelter in the story “Stone Cold” by Robert Swindell. They also wrote some outstanding pieces of writing about a significant event in their own lives.

Year 8 delved further into “A monster calls” and completed a unit of work about the terrifying climax to the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. They also took on the challenge of creating their own autobiographical efforts. Here we can enjoy Elise’s impressions of her visit to New York.

New York

After an 8 hour flight from The Netherlands to New York we were all jet lagged, we quickly checked in at the front desk, and we could tell that the receptionists were done and tired. However they escorted us up to our rooms anyways, it was now nearly 1:00am but I couldn’t sleep. In the morning we of course were tired, and hungry so we decided to get up out of bed, enter the cold windiness and go to a small bakery that was part of a library. The coffee was disgusting but the cinnamon brioche was one of the best pastries i’ve ever tasted.

Skipping forward to the evening… The subway was a whole other experience. On one of the subway trips three tall guys came in and started singing. Anyways we took a subway ride to time square. ( I never knew that there were so many people dressed in disney costumes in time square but apparently there are plenty). It was such an incredible moment when one of the screens switched to Billie Eilish’s HUGE face one of the widest tallest buildings in collaboration with apple music. It was truly beautiful

Apart from the bakery where we had breakfast, there were two other incredible bakeries we went to. We went to the Magnolia Bakery where they are famous for their banana pudding, which was creamy and sweet and fresh and SO GOOD and we also went to another bakery called the Levain Bakery and they’re known for their giant cookies. So we ordered a few cookies and sat down in central park to eat them, but we kept a few which we ate in our hotel room whilst watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians. And that’s it that was my very short summary of one of my favorite holidays I’ve ever had.

Year 9b have been mastering PEEL (Point, Evidence, Explain and Link) paragraphs.

Year 10 have been discussing the dystopian world of Oceania through its appearance in the novel 1984.

Year 11 classes have continued their examination of the Crucible.

Miss O’Regan, Mr Kirwan and Mr Eve, English Department

Many of us have felt a little stranded recently, but where there's a will, there's a way, and MEPI is no exception. Once again we, like our mainstream classes, have found a home on Zoom. It has proven invaluable to keep in contact with each other, and stay on course with the programme. Although we face our individual challenges, participants are choosing and adapting activities which can be undertaken 'at a distance'. The training for the Adventurous Journey section is being adapted to online learning, with more practical applications to follow (either individually, or in small groups at home as the situation dictates). We are all here to support each other, and our friends at the MEPI National Office complete the team. We wish everyone continued success!

Mr Irving, MEPI Coordinator

Dear Parents,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support during what has been a very busy block. Please take a moment to read through my extended Update from the Principal here.

Wishing you a relaxing and restful block break.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All of our upcoming events and term dates can be found on our website with further information, links and details here.