Primary News - May 10 2021

This week, our Y2-Y6 students started their PTE and PTM assessments, which are a part of tracking students’ progress and help to inform further teaching strategies and planning. Together with formative, ongoing assessments, teachers will be able to more accurately report on students’ areas of strengths and further targets. Please remember to bring your own headphones to school for any continuing assessments next week, as per your Class Teacher’s instructions.

As part of the Science Block, students continue to focus on the environmental issues during their PSHE, Assembly and Topic lessons, through discussing and thinking about ways to find solutions for the problems that the world faces now and in the future.

Preparations are underway for the International Days celebrations next week. The Student Council has created flags to represent all of the nationalities at BISL. These will be waived on the Tuesday opening ceremony. Many parents have already come forward to support this event. If you would like to participate, please contact the PTA or the Class Teacher (for class activities). Parents are invited to watch the Tuesday opening parade at 8:30 and support activities throughout the week. We look forward to seeing you there.

During the PTA Second Hand Uniform Sale on Monday and Wednesday next week from 14:00-15:30, parents and students will also be able to look through the Lost and Found items (which have not been labelled). Uniform items that can be reused will be donated to the second-hand uniform (PTA) or will be disposed of/recycled, if not collected by the end of the school day next Friday. It is important for any school items to be labelled so that they can be returned to students directly.

Last but not least, congratulations to all the Stars of the Week and to Hessonite House as this week’s winners!

As always, please continue to read the latest Update from the Principal.

Enjoy your weekend,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

Early Years

In Early Years, the children have been exploring insects as part of our topic on animals. The children have been particularly fascinated by the black and red bugs outside (Lygaeus equestris) but have named them all 'Sarah'! The children have enjoyed looking at the wild spring habitats around the planters. We have spotted butterflies, moths, ants, spiders and even a slow worm dropped from the sky!

As we enter the final part of the block, the children are becoming more independent and able to create more of their own resources including making playdough with Miss Karla!

Ms Rosa

Year 2

In Topic this week, we have been learning about oceans, seas and continents. We have also been working on our artistic skills and techniques. We painted the world map and looked at the work of David Hockney, learning about the techniques he uses when painting water. We had a go at using some of these techniques when painting in his style.

Year 3

This week in Year 3, the students continued along the science trail, testing and investigating the forces in the world around them, which included both magnetism and air resistance. Some of the fun things the students used magnetism were to make their own board games using magnets to manoeuvre the pieces around the board and also magically made some paperclips levitate in midair.

In English, the students finished writing their mystery stories, with the students producing some edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting suspense stories, with many wonderful 'red-herring' and 'show-not-tell' examples. Well done to the students for all the enthusiasm and creativity they showed in their work this week and we look forward to seeing more of the same for International Week next week.

Mr Mulcahy

Year 4

This week, students completed their films, ready for the exciting premiere next week. BISL Academy Awards ballots have been prepared in order for the students across primary to vote for their favourite film, actor, actress, cinematography and soundtrack. I look forward to presenting the winners in the newsletter next week.

We are all looking forward to celebrating International Week next week also, and students have been tasked with coming up with a few ideas for class activities. A few of the students were reminiscing about the wonderful event in the past - the fun activities and delicious food - we can't wait to see what this year brings!

Mr Bishop

Year 5A

Year 5A have been moulding their island project by using their past knowledge in poetry to create a poem using the rubric or describe their island in a recount as if they had just sailed onto the island and discovered it. In addition, students have been creating flags and anthems to represent their island.

Mr Walker

Year 5B

GRAMMAR REVISION

What can we do during a rainy break time? Play hangman of course! Why not make it where you have to use an apostrophe in your word or phrase as a form of revision for this morning's English lesson. Try creating guesses which involve both contraction and possession.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 6

During our investigation on global warming, the Year 6s were offered a large collection of digital media, including books, videos, and websites to refer to.

Their task is to compose an article about a particular factor of global warming.

The students were introduced to success criteria for this task and it asked them to label the photographs and graphs and to cite all sources.

The due date for this task is on Friday and some of the students' articles are starting to look fantastic.

Mr Kokalj

PE News

In primary PE this week, students kept on focusing on skills and sports they have missed during the distance learning. Students were challenged with a beep test for a warm-up, and all of the students did very well.

After the warm-up, students focussed on the pivot handball, where they have to find an open space and catch the ball, without the other team interfering with the pass and work their way towards the opponents' goal.

PE Department

French News

Year 6: Learning the verb "to be" in French in different forms and different sentences. They were practising French with board games: Questions - Answers

Year 5: Is discovering where do we live (la montagne, la mer, la ville) and what type of rooms do we have in our houses/apartments:

la cuisine, la salle de bains, la salle `a manger, la chambre, le jardin, etc

Year 4: Learning about domestic and wild animals. The Quizlet "game against the time" encouraged them to do the game again and again... and by the end, they've memorised many new animals.

Year 3: Doing revision of everything that we've learned till now. They impressed me with their french knowledge: body parts, clothes, colours, songs, numbers, etc

Mrs Struna-Berden

Slovene News

Our Years 3 and 4 have been working on a delicious menu this week.

They were the creators of the menu for all 7 days. Firstly, we separated work fairly, so students could realize their own food and drink preferences. Secondly, we have found the name for our lovely restaurant - LEO and contributed with many ideas to design the cover page of our menu. In addition, we have designed the final page with a few pictures of very tasty food you can order in our restaurant Leo!

Finally, our Slovene menu is available to everyone. Now we just need a real restaurant to run successfully and completely enthral our guests!

Ms Košec

Performing Arts News

Years 1 to 3 have been practising the words and dance moves for the International Days song 'Wavin' Flag' for next week's celebrations and Year 5 have been learning the drum rhythm on the African drums for the song. Students will be involved in creating an International music video they are excited to be a part of.

Year 6 are currently filming and putting together a trailer for their upcoming play 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Watch this space for more news!

Ms Kenealy

Trieste International School Visit

On Wednesday, we were visited by 9 students from Trieste International School who were completing their final assessments for IGCSE English as a Second Language. During the day they undertook a listening assessment, a speaking assessment - many thanks to Mr Kirwan for conducting them - and a reading and writing examination.

They enjoyed pizza at the school for lunch and the day was completed with a presentation by BISL alumni member Ana Milanez who spoke to them about the importance of research when deciding where to continue their studies after high school. This was an excellent opportunity to strengthen the links with an international school and we have already made plans for future visits and collaborative projects.

Find out more about their visit here.

BISL listed on the UK Department for Education website

It is a privilege for our school to appear on the official list of worldwide schools on the UK Department for Education website, showing all of the fully accredited British Schools Overseas across the globe, and now includes the British International School of Ljubljana, with our recent Outstanding report.

Read more about this here.

Enrichment Days

To register for our Enrichment Days, taking place on consecutive Saturdays, 12th and 19th June, please complete the sign-up form here.

These will include a range of supervised activities for our students to have further opportunities to enjoy learning and having fun together.

Summer School

With the summer holidays just around the corner, find out how your child can join this two-week summer adventure with the British International School of Ljubljana - details here.

To make up for some of the lost face-to-face interactions with friends due to the period of remote learning, we are happy to be able to offer 5 Days of Free Summer School for BISL students in the first week of the summer, starting Monday 5th July.

Teacher Feature Series

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

• 29.04.2021 - Katherine Blundell
• 15.04.2021 - Mr Brad Eve
• 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

International Days Details

A huge thank you to our volunteers for signing up to help organise and run this event, we are very excited for next week. Some details are below:

Opening Ceremony, Tuesday May 11, 8:30am - 9:30am

This will be streamed live via Zoom in case you are not able to come along.

International Fair, Friday May 14, 10:00am - 14:00pm

This is a dress down day - everyone is encouraged to wear national dress or colours of their flag.

To adhere to current guidance, groups of students will visit the fair at set times:

• Year 10 - 10:00am activities
• KS3 - 10:30am activities
• KS2 - 11:00am activities
• KS1 + EY - 11:30am activities + food
• KS2 - 12:30pm food
• KS3 - 13:00pm food
• Year 10 - 13:30 food

There will be no after-school clubs on Friday, but extended supervision will be available as normal.

Second Hand Uniform Sale:

We are organising two afternoons for a second hand uniform sale, on Monday May 10 and Wednesday May 12, from 2pm-3:30pm, to give you an opportunity to purchase gently used items of uniform. Don’t miss out! Look out for our tables by the Early Years entrance.

Dear Parents,

It has been yet another busy week here at BISL with lots going on, including a visit from colleagues and students from Trieste International School, who were here to complete their English as a Second Language IGCSE examinations. This great collaboration between our two schools.

Thank you to those of you who were able to join this morning's Coffee with the Principal. If you weren't able to join, you will find the points discussed, with some further details as promised, in full my Update from the Principal.

I look forward to seeing you next week at one of our upcoming events and wish you a restful and relaxing weekend ahead.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal