Primary News - April 16 2021

Dear Parents,

We are delighted with the news of students returning to school next week starting on Monday 12th April, as per the Update from the Principal. Please read the Safety Guidance to ensure students are prepared for the safe return. Further information for individual classes will be emailed out by Class Teachers as normal.

Online lessons continued this week for all yeargroups, alongside some students joining the childcare provision at school. Please see the Class section below to find out what the students have been up to, but it has certainly been a very busy start to Term 3.

We are also extremely proud of the outcome of the recent BSO inspection, which rated BISL as 'Outstanding in every category'. We would like to thank all of the students, parents and staff for working together. This is an incredible achievement and a journey to be celebrated.

I wish everyone a good weekend and look forward to having students back on Monday 12th April.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

We are incredibly proud to announce that, for the first time in the history of the school, the British International School of Ljubljana has been awarded the rating of 'Outstanding in every category' following our recent BSO inspection by PENTA International, accredited by the British Government.

With such fantastic students, a dedicated team of professionals, and continued support from our parents, this achievement is something that our community truly deserves.

Click here to read the official announcement, which includes the full inspection report covering all areas of the school.

Early Years

Early Years moved to online learning this week and have taken part in Show and Tell, phonics, Maths, Performing Arts, PE and Slovene!

The students did extremely well participating in each online session and listened to their friends when it was their turn to speak. Here is a photo from Show and Tell. The children asked each other questions about their toys and games.

Ms Rosa

Year 1

Year One learned about the Legend of Robin hood, reading about his life, trademark green feathered hat, and singing a short catchy song about him!

Meanwhile, at school, students worked as a team, with other year groups, to make a great big snowman.

The question is, will he still be guarding the playground on Monday?!

Ms Blundell

Year 2

Year 2 had a positive start to term 3 this week. We have started this block online, recapping some areas of our learning and we have also started our new topic H2O. We have been discussing what we already know about water on the planet and we have thought about things we might like to learn and questions we would like to find the answers to. In Literacy, we have been writing our recounts and in Maths we have been revising our knowledge of multiples and multiplication. Well done Year 2!

Ms Harris & Ms Miller

Year 3

This week, with classes moving to online learning, Year 3 never missed a beat and kept up their usual high standards, by producing some excellent work across the subject areas.

Noteworthy were the recounts of their Easter holidays which the students wrote, detailing their highlights and favourite experiences from their adventures over this time. The students also began with their study of the Rivers of the World, mapping some of the major rivers around the planet before examining the common features of all of these great geographical giants! Thank you to everyone in the Year 3 community for another productive week online and we wish you all a great weekend ahead.

Mr Mulcahy

Year 4

This week saw students return to Zoom; however, we made the most of it by starting a few different creative projects. Students made their own short animated films in art and converted short stories into play scripts in preparation for their own short film productions which will get underway shortly. We are looking forward to getting back into the classroom to get the projects underway next week and delve into acting out various plays.

Mr Bishop

Year 5A

This week Y5A helped each other out in Maths revision sessions for the term test. It was brilliant to see the way in which the students were speaking to each other and the explanations helped both the students and the teachers. Well done everyone!!

Mr Walker

Year 5B

All of the year groups write their recounts after each block holiday. This is used to show the students' progress and their targets. It is always wonderful to see the students knowing what their targets are and aiming to achieve them - from the spelling of new power words to paragraphs to remembering to included figurative language and new forms of punctuation to name a few. Each Year 5 student goes through the Year 5 extended targets on the rubric to ensure they meet their targets. Once they have completed writing about their holiday, they check their work against the rubric and then peer assess using the same rubric. Each student writes two stars and a wish for their partner to improve their work. The Teacher marks the work, using the same given rubric and also gives two stars and a wish, along with other feedback. The students use these pieces of feedback to rewrite their recount, ensuring it meets even more targets.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 6

The Year 6 students marked the start of their new unit by being invited to a live rocket launch. On the NASA TV education website, we found a variety of both pre-recorded and live video footage of recent rocket launches and cargo dockings to the International Space Station.

On a second viewing of the video, the students were assigned different observational tasks, research or investigations.

Space geographers needed to identify the launch site and mark the location with a flag on a map of the world.

Space mathematicians needed to find out how far and how fast the rocket travelled.

Space scientists needed to find out and name the forces, including gravity, that were acting on the rocket as it launched from Earth into space.

Space technologists needed to identify and record how and why different parts of the rocket are jettisoned during the launch.

We will have an opportunity to revisit the questions later in the unit.

You can enjoy the launch too by following this link: YouTube hosts this video of Expedition 51-52 launching to the International Space Station.

Mr Kokalj

Onsite Childcare Group

This short week has seen our merry band in 'Childminding' come together as a wonderful little community in its own right. It has been a joy to see a broader age range occupy the Early Years environment for a change, and I believe it has been a learning experience for both young and younger!

A more relaxed situation has led to a broader choice of what, when, where, and who to play with, and has seen a two-year-old and a six-year-old collaborating on the same jigsaw puzzle, whilst practically everyone also engaged in chasing games in the playground. It's not all been 'freeflow', though. The Year Ones have checked out a 'Topic' session on Zoom, and we all joined a Zoom PE session, assembled in front of the Promethean Board. Additionally, due to the 'interesting' weather, the children have been able to bask in the warmth of the sunshine the day after building a snowman!

PE News

This week with all students back to online learning, the aim of the PE lessons was to encourage students to spend less time on screen and more time outdoors where possible. They were involved in a Scavenger hunt which enabled students to exercise based on what they saw outside. Students were able to stay on Zoom to do this with the PE Team, off Zoom independently, or with members of their family. It is wonderful to be able to get the family involved in the learning of children, and so we thank parents very much for their support.

PE Department

Slovene News

Our Early Years have been enjoying singing and playing colour hunt despite the fact we had a Slovene lesson on Zoom. They were engaged and prepared for their first online Slovene lesson this school year. They were totally ready to revise the colours and find them around their rooms. Of course, they have shown us various things from a yellow pen to a red frisbee.

Zelo dobro Early Years!

Ms Košec

Year 3 and 4 at Slovene Advanced lessons have been practising the correct use of prepositions "na, s/z, v, iz" in sentences this week. They have done an excellent job! Učenci, le tako naprej!

Ms Drofenik

EAL News

The EAL students took the opportunity of online learning to delve into some storytelling and exploring of world myths.

One group discovered how Norse mythology gave us the names for the days of the week we use today in the English language, whereas another group read about the myth of Romulus and Remus and how ancient Rome was created.

Mr Siter

EAL Topic Packs

The EAL department is extremely proud to announce that this week marks the launch of our EAL Topic packs for most of the primary classes. Each EAL Topic pack is a collection of resources that class teachers will be able to use with EAL students during their Topic lessons. They are based on exploration and application of keywords for a specific topic and are aimed at supporting individual students and enabling them to access the curriculum fully.

We cannot wait to see them in practice and watch how they will help our students achieve their full potential.

The EAL Department

MEPI News

We would just like to acknowledge everyone's support at a time when we have had to postpone the Red Cross first aid course yet again! For our MEPI participants - looking forward to seeing you all at our regular Zoom meeting this Monday. Don't forget to update your Triglaving/Everesting log online as well!

Mr Irving, MEPI Coordinator

After School Activities

In Week 2, there will be after-school supervision for:

EY (Pre/Nursery) and Y2-Y6 until 15:40

EY (Reception) and Y1 until 16:40

In Week 3, we aim to start with the after-school activities, with more information to come.

We will continue to review this on a weekly basis, following the health and safety guidance.

Teacher Feature

If you haven’t had a chance to read our recent Teacher Feature profiles, here’s what you may have missed:

• 25.03.2021 - Mr Dominic Hulse
• 10.03.2021 - Ms Emina Begić
• 24.02.2021 - Mr Chris Bishop
• 27.01.2021 - Ms Mateja Košec
• 13.01.2021 - Mrs Tanya Charlesworth
• 16.12.2020 - Ms Sarah Fairchild
• 09.12.2020 -Ms Polly Tušar
• 25.11.2020 - Mr Tobija Siter
• 04.11.2020 - Mr Gary Bradley
• 28.10.2020 - Ms Laura Harris
• 21.10.2020 - Ms Katarina Miklavec
• 14.10.2020 - Mr Nino Kokalj
• 06.10.2020 - Mr Jason Batson

Dear Parents,

I hope you have all had a restful, safe and relaxing block break.

I am delighted to confirm that all students will be able to return on site on Monday 12th April. Please read my full Update from the Principal for details.

I am also proud to share with you that, for the first time in the history of the school, we have been rated ‘Outstanding in every category’ following our recent BSO inspection by PENTA International, accredited by the British Government. You will find more details of this fantastic achievement in my Update from the Principal.

Thank you to those parents who were able to join me this morning for our monthly virtual Coffee with the Principal. Details of what we covered are included in my Update from the Principal as well.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and look forward to seeing everyone again on Monday.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal