Secondary News - April 10 2020

Welcome to Block 6! This block has started with a bang- with over 220 live Virtual lessons scheduled! To ensure that these sessions can be the most productive they can be, I encourage students to make sure their laptop camera and microphone are working and that students are set up with all of the necessary equipment they usually require for that subject. Having to use lesson time to retrieve and organise materials is not recommended. It is a safety requirement for teachers to be able to see that students’ working environment is appropriate and conducive to work. For more information, please refer to the Online Learning Policy.

Another key aspect of this block are the assessments throughout all year levels in Secondary. For any information regarding assessments for Years 11-13, please refer to the correspondence emailed out by Examinations officer, Mr. Batson. All other Year levels will be assessed according to the dates collated and shared out this week by Data and Assessment lead, Mr. Bradley. There are so many tasks and subjects to be studying for, that students are working harder than ever to achieve the very best grades they can. Please, I encourage all students to monitor their emails carefully and contact their teachers directly if they have any questions at all. Keeping up with regular communication will assist in understanding what is required at this time.

In the spirit of communication, on Monday bookings for Virtual Interviews will be open for families to book teachers during Week 4 starting on Monday 27^thApril. Please refer to my email for details on how to book.

Lastly, I want to thank and congratulate the teachers and students for their hard work! Everyone has had to get used to an entirely different way of working in a very short amount of time, and the professionalism and response from the entire community has demonstrated unity and support of each other in these otherwise very strange and trying times.

I do hope that all families are safe and well.

Ms Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Dear All,

With a busy week behind us, please do not forget that next Monday 13th April is a Public Holiday. As such, there will be no online sessions with students.

All school activities resume on Tuesday 14th April.

This will be announced to parents in the Newsletter today and it is published on the school calendar under Term dates. The HOS will also send a reminder to parents with the updated Virtual Online Schedule and Guide on Sunday.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all restful prolonged weekend,

BISL Secondary Team

Dear Parents,

I hope you have had a restful block break and we welcome you back into block 6 of this year at the British International School of Ljubljana. I hope everyone is as safe and well as possible during this difficult time.

Following on from my block break update on Monday 30th March, I shared that we would discuss at school "the strengths that the staff and students have excelled in, equally identify and work on the areas we need to improve. Like all schools, we can now standardise and focus on creating clear guidelines for online learning for the near future".

We appreciated all of the feedback that you have sent through via email, it is very much valued and as a school, we want to make sure that we do the best job that we possibly can do. A 'best fit' for all of our students to help them continue to learn at home. I would like to share some of the areas we have been working on as a school during this first week:

1. A timetable of lessons. This has been shared out at the start of the block and staff have announced further lessons that will be added to this to make sure that the students have more video conference lessons. An updated timetable will be shared with the increase of video conference lessons. It includes expectations, routines and guidelines to follow referencing ouronline learning policy.

2. More online contentextension tasks, forums and wider resources on Canvas. Staff have used the block break and the INSET day to develop further courses and learning materials for students to access and then to receive feedback on.

3. Recorded videos. These have been requested as students can watch the content on demand. We all need to revisit material at some time and this is very useful for the students to learn key concepts and consolidate learning. Many of these are shared on Facebook and uploaded to YouTube.

4. PE and Exercise videos. These have been created by the PE team and posted on Facebook to show students what activities they can do on a daily or weekly basis. New activities are shared out weekly and cover a wide range of ways to enjoy exercising and staying fit and healthy at home.

5. Assessed work. Time is needed for students to complete work, submit them and receive feedback to improve upon what they have done. We have also shared exam guidance for the relevant year groups amidst the changes from CAIE and the exams process this summer.

A challenge we face is to balance the 5 areas above during the day so that we have a provision to cover them all as a school. We evaluate this at the end of each week and aim to fine tune this over the coming block. Your feedback has helped us move forward with these areas and I would like to thank you for the way in which you have communicated and offered ideas through this period of time.

Other areas in which we are monitoring daily and planning ahead are:

• Health and Safety guidance
• Communication
• Quality of Teaching and Learning
• Re-opening procedures
• Examinations Provision
• Virtual Parent/Teacher (student) Interviews
• Examples of student work on Facebook
• Class updates of work covered in the Newsletter
• PE videos for a Healthy Lifestyle on Facebook
• Student voice and further useful articles on the Website/News and Events
• Examinations updates in the Newsletter

If you have missed any communication in the previous weeks, some of this areas might be of interest:

Thank you for your support during this challenging time and I hope you have a good weekend.

Stay safe and take care.

Kind regards,

Mr Walton

Principal

Last block Mr Collop took extended leave and we wish him well. We welcomed Ms Zupanc back to BISL and she is doing a wonderful job supporting students during learning.

Last block Mr Sartakov also took extended leave and we wish him well. The Year 11-13 students have been working with experienced Physics and Computer Science teacher Mr Ljubin and are well prepared for exams. All other year levels are working hard submitting work with Mr Cox.

Ms Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Dear Parents and Students,

We have prepared a lot of different challenges this block as Block 6 is a Sports block:

Whole School House competition

7 different challenges

Uploaded proof brings double the amount of House points

Live stream PE sessions (every morning from 7:30 - 8:00)

SCHEDULE:

DAY EXERCISE MEETING ID (Zoom)

Monday Stabilization 978 276 7124

Tuesday Yoga 978 276 7124

Wednesday Cardio workout 376 070 1947

Thursday Early years PE 978 276 7124

Friday Aerobics 376 070 1947

PE Department has also decided to move the whole school distance learning to a new platform CANVAS, which is already in use with most of the other subjects.

We would also like to thank you all for sharing videos and photos for us to see the students progress and would encourage you to please continue with your help also in the upcoming weeks.

Kind Regards,

Mr Damjan

Head of PE

The Maths department would like to contribute to the Newsletter by posing math questions every week. These questions will be from random math topics that make you have to think outside of the box and keep your brains active. I would like the students who solve the question to send their answerto my email by Tuesday next week (14th April).

Maths question of the week:

Three racers take part in a Formula-1 race: Michael, Fernando and Sebastian. From the start Michael is in the lead in front of Fernando who is in front of Sebastian. In the course of the race Michael and Fernando overtake each other 9 times, Fernando and Sebastian 10 times and Michael and Sebastian 11 times. In which order do those three end the race?

Ms Zupanc

Maths Department

Our Year 7 students studied the former plight of how wild bears were mistreated to give tourists the spectacle of Dancing bears.

Year 8 students worked on topics as varied as Descriptive writing, Star Wars the Phantom Menace or learned about the history of Superheroes and discussed if we had good female Superhero role models.

Mr Eve and Mr Kirwan

Here we would like to share an excellent piece of writing from Eddie in Year 7.

Getting Older

When I was small,

I thought,

Getting older was simply fun,

To learn more, to do more,

But I was wrong…

As I get older,

More assignments are given,

To help me learn,

To show me the world,

But it uses up my playtime.

As I get older,

More pressure is on my back,

To be good,

To be competent,

To be successful in life.

As I get older,

I take more responsibilities.

To follow rules,

To get good grades in school,

To bear the consequences of my deeds,

As I get older,

I sometimes feel lonely.

I get busy, everybody gets busy,

People stop hanging together,

And go separate ways.

As I get older,

I have to accept failures,

Which make me frustrated,

Which force me to learn.

Which keep me strong.

As I get older,

I have less fun, but more knowledge.

I become less free, but more confident.

Growing up is a painful job,

But I am willing to embrace it heart and soul.

Writing competition.

Last block I spoke to all secondary students about the English department's writing contest. Given that we are all at home at the moment and may have a little extra time on our hands, we have decided to extend the contest throughout April.

The task is to write a poem, short story, description, or essay on the topic of 'Transformation'. This is a very broad and all-encompassing theme: we are looking for those with original, creative, relevant and/or entertaining interpretations of this theme! You might wish to write a poem about the transformation of the seasons, write an essay about scientific, mathematical, or historical transformations, or write a short story about a character's transformation. The more original, the better!

Short stories, descriptions, and essays should be around 500 words (no more than 550!). There is no word limit on poems, so if you wish to write a one-hundred page epic, please go ahead! The new deadline is April 30th.

We are aware of the range of literary talents our students possess and we would love to be able to display some shining examples of students' writing on our school facebook page to keep us all entertained during these challenging times!

Entries should be emailed to your English teacher with the subject heading: 'Writing Contest Entry'.

Best of luck!

Mr Newsham

Head of English Department

Y11 are currently studying three songs from Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: With a Little Help from My Friends; Within You, Without You and Lucy With the Sky of Diamonds. John Lennon always insisted Lucy With the Sky of Diamonds was inspired by the title of a drawing by his son, Julian. He called his drawing 'Lucy'. However, the Beatles acknowledged the influence of a hallucinatory chapter from the 1871 novel Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol. Within You, Without You features a host of Indian instruments: Tabla, Swarmandal, dilruba, tambura and sitar. There were four Indian musicians performing with George Harrison who played the sitar on the song after taking lessons from the renowned master of sitar, Ravi Shankar.

The Y10 GCSE student is practicing in isolation, Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 4 for an online recital Y8 and 9 continue to perfect the art of performing complex rhythms in an ensemble.

Mr Austin

Music Department

Slovene Zoom conferences started today and it was great to see how students are working on different tasks. Many essays and presentations are happening and it is great to see how each student is progressing.

Ms Kotnik

MFL Department

Y11 - We focused on the upcoming 1st assessment in Reading and Listening in German. In particular on topics like holidays, healthy eating and drinking, health and body parts, some information on Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, how to shop for clothes and for food. We also focused on speaking. It is a huge success that the students are able to express themselves freely in German after only a year and a half of learning this second language.

Y12 - We discussed different aspects of translation from German into English and vice versa, in particular the cultural differences. We also focused on the upcoming holiday, Easter and the traditions in Germany, Slovenia and Russia. The 1st assessment in Listening, Reading and Writing in German next week is ahead of us. We will put particular emphasis on some grammatical aspects, like the passive voice and the conditional tense, as well as on vocabulary used in aspects of German speaking society and the artistic culture in the German speaking world.

Mrs Osolnik- Kunc

German teacher

Year 8 have been studying climate change in geography and have most recently been looking at causes of climate change. Some excellent work was produced, in particular by Divyansh, Begum and Alex Z.

Mr Rogers

Humanities

Even though we are unable to physically come together either inside or outside of school, distance learning has been proving to be a huge success, and so we very much hope that 'Distance MEPI' will prove to be equally so, for all of our participants. At the moment MEPI participants are encouraged to edit and update any past entries in the Online Record Book (which is being monitored on a daily basis), pursue the purposes and goals in all four areas of the programme, and maintain their level of fitness for the Expedition/Adventurous Journey (AJ)!

Mr. Irving, Ms. Tušar, Mr. Hughes, and the MEPI family as a whole, are here to support our participants at this challenging time. We can help participants modify their activities, prepare for the AJ, and provide any further support via email and group/one-to-one sessions scheduled on 'Zoom'. Just for this year, the Practice Expedition won't be compulsory for Bronze level participants, which hopefully, will allow everyone time to complete the programme within the year, and enable them to be recognised and rewarded for their concerted efforts. The type of person who undertakes the MEPI Award Programme, is someone who knows how to rise to a challenge, and we look forward to enjoying their success this year.

Remember: 'There is always more in us than we think!'

Mr Irving

Mepi International Award Coordinator