Primary News - October 18 2021

Dear Parents and Students,

This week in PSHE sessions, students have been learning about healthy lifestyles and how to make good choices about healthy food in order to promote physical and mental wellbeing. We also looked at how early experiences shape the development of the brain, particularly social and emotional skills. This is a very interesting subject and for those looking for further information on this subject, see this link.

We have continued to expand the Canvas learning platform for primary students and parents to access learning resources and activities, be it from school or home. All parents and students from Y3 upwards have access to their class Canvas courses. In the early year’s classes, Tapestry is used as a secure online learning journal that helps teachers and families celebrate students’ learning and development. Parents are able to view their child’s progress, the activities provided for them, and access further resources to support their learning.

Parents can contact their child’s class teacher for more information about Canvas or Tapestry. Should the class teacher be absent, please email me, should you have any concerns or questions.

Ahead of Remembrance Day, Poppies have arrived at reception this week, for those that would like to make a donation, please go to the British Legion website to do so.

For any important updates, please continue to check the News section and the latest Update from the Principal.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

Early Years

As we continue to learn about all various modes of transport, the children were developing their listening skills, paying special attention to transport environmental sounds using the book “We all go travelling by”. The story that took us on a journey to school, inspired the children to discuss with their peers different modes of transport they see on their way to the school, whilst using their newly gained transport topic vocabulary.

Sunny days this week were just perfect for outdoor learning, specifically about how to stay safe on the road. Children were learning how and when to cross the street and had fun role-playing road safety using the scooters and lollipop lady role-play equipment. In Free Flow learning we were exploring tire marks left in the sand and mud using scooters and compared their wheel patterns, which the children made with paint, using toy vehicles.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

The Toymaker has been sending us some more challenges to complete, one of them being, to make stick puppets! We have been talking about different types of puppets this week and materials we use to make them.

We compared characters from two different stories in English and we practiced subtraction in our Maths lessons.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

This week in Topic, we have really enjoyed creating projects about sleep and healthy eating. Year 2 has worked well together to create some fantastic pieces of work. They have thought carefully about why each of these elements is important for our brains. In English, we have been learning about characters and thinking about their feelings throughout the story.

Next week we will continue with some fun and interesting projects that we can't wait to share.

Ms Harris & Mrs Bradley

Year 3A

This week in Topic students have been researching which countries in the world grow cocoa, and locating these on our class map to find patterns.

Our conclusion is… we sadly don't think we'll be growing chocolate in Slovenia any time soon.

Ms Blundell

Year 3B

This week the students were exploring descriptive language in English. We connected one of our lessons with our Chocolate topic and so the students were asked to describe their favourite Chocolate cake using powerful vocabulary.
We first watched Michael Rosen perform his famous 'Chocolate Cake', before drawing the best picture for the most tempting Chocolate cake. Finally, we wrote a fantastic, persuasive, tempting description of it so that it would be too difficult to resist sneaking to the fridge to eat it!

The students really enjoyed this writing task and they were super proud of their final piece of work.

Mr Kokalj

Year 4

LOGO - CODING IN YEAR 4

Last week the Year 4 students were introduced to creating instructions for coding. The students were put into groups of 3 or 2, each group had a “Turtle”, and had to give detailed instructions to the Turtle to draw particular shapes.

This week the students began using their newfound knowledge of really precise, short, mathematical statements to program the Turtle online using Logo language.

So far, they have learnt how to move the turtle - forwards, backwards, at angles, repeating instructions and changing pen colour. It has required some very logical, mathematical thinking and we look forward to using different programs to test our coding skills.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

What a great week we have had. The children have researched inspirational leaders and have learnt who Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Mother Theresa, and Malala are. From this we have had some great discussions about what makes a good leader. In maths, we have been learning about fractions and decimals and how to convert them - some tricky stuff!

In English, we have written our own poems about the city at night, and they are fantastic. I am so very proud of everyone!

Ms Thomas

Year 6

This week’s Maths lessons in Y6 were coloured in algebra. In each lesson, we heightened the difficulty of the equations and problems we were solving.
In English, we delved deeper into poetry, discussed poetic terms, and looked for examples in the poems that we were comparing. After reading and examining the content of the poems, a few interesting thoughts and opinions arose - those led to interesting discussions between students.

In Topic, we continued our journey in learning about Ancient Cultures. We continued researching ancient Maya cities, searched for interesting facts and explored what remains are left on site today.

We also tackled the topic of the Middle Ages. The students researched daily life and culture. To display the newly gathered knowledge, they prepared plays where they took on the role of a person from the past. The students did an amazing job, their performances were absolutely wonderful!

Ms Strok

PE

We continued our boundball theme this week during primary PE lessons, with students undertaking a tournament in their year groups - focusing on the importance of fair play and healthy competition. Students were then required to score and umpire their own boundball games, as part of giving them a more holistic understanding of the sport. We also looked at the importance of effective movement when playing net and barrier games - focusing on recovering to a strong court position after every shot.

PE Department

Slovene

It was a very dynamic week. Our Years 5 and 6 have been presenting their dream houses in a creative way. They have done such a great job and shared their ideas within the class.

Afterwards, they have focused on Slovene prepositions practised through the game Kje je žoga?

V, na, pod, ob, za ... Of course, they expressed their creativity on papers as well.

Zelo dobro!

Ms Košec

Advanced

Very enthusiastic week for Year 5 and 6 students at Slovene Advanced lessons! They are continuing this block with literature. Students have started reading a book by Svetlana Makarovič Kosovirja na leteči žlici.

This is a story about two fluffy animals called "kosovirja" who decided to travel around the world. The rest needs to remain a secret, but you are more than welcome to read a book with us!

Ms Drofenik

EAL

Some of the EAL groups started to get themselves acquainted with the basic parts of speech, like verbs and nouns. One group even went on a noun hunt outside the school and enjoyed it immensely, despite the cold.

One of our groups started learning about the poem "We're going on a bear hunt." We’ll keep you posted about this project, as we believe it will be a great success!

The more advanced groups tried themselves at some grammar games and learned about how to change the verbs in order to add the -ed inflection for the past tense.

Mr Siter

Head of EAL

Staff Information

We wish all the best to Mrs Kenealy as she goes on maternity leave this week.

Ms Predan has taken on the role of a Performing Arts Teacher and is really excited about the opportunity to work with students in her specialist field.

The Y1 students will now have Mrs Fordham as an Assistant Teacher in class, who joined us from the UK at the start of this block. Please join us in welcoming Mrs Fordham to the BISL community.

MEPI News

On Sunday, we enjoyed our first off-site expedition training. We used all of the theory which we had learned in the previous session. For example, plotting coordinates on the map, recognising some of the symbols on the map, and basic compass use. We met in Tivoli Park, where we practised using our new skills in a practical situation.
I have to say, some parts were quite challenging, but it was fun for sure, and a great learning experience. The following Monday session was mostly used as an evaluation of our performance on Sunday, but there was also time to decide which activities we would choose to undertake for some of the other sections of the Award.

A new project called the BISL Triglaving and Everesting Challenge was also introduced. It's a project where you have to hike, bike, or run a total distance based on the altitudes of either Triglav or Everest.

think it's a great opportunity to condition the body in preparation for when we go on the expedition in May, as well as just encouraging you to spend more time taking care of your bodies and spending time in nature.

Report written by Zoja (MEPI Participant)

Community News

Dear Parents,

Our new School Canteen is open from Monday 18th October!

Food will be served to students following the NIJZ and safety guidelines which were confirmed yesterday in writing. This is excellent news for everyone.

Having the canteen will:

• Reduce packaging/help the environment.

• Provide higher quality meals.

• Give more choice (Soups/Salads etc.).

• Avoid using the classrooms as a place to eat.

I am very excited and the staff have worked incredibly hard to set up this new area for our students. Thank you to everyone involved.

Also, thank you to all the parents who supported the Teacher Appreciation Day last Friday 8th October. A special thanks to Siu-May, Nicole and Urša for working with parents that provided a fantastic breakfast for our staff. This was amazing! We had over 40 parents attend this wonderful event to celebrate our teachers, read the thoughtful and caring cards written by our students and spend a moment to thank the great job they do each and every single day. Following this, we had a Coffee with the Principal, updates about the school and a tour of the new building. A great idea has been raised to ask our students to name the new building! - this was a great suggestion, thank you.

Our Poppies have arrived at reception for Remembrance Day and we will celebrate this as a community at the end of the block, for those that would like to make a donation, please go to the British Legion website, link in my full update.

As winter feels like it is now here, I hope everyone wraps up warm for the months ahead as I had a shock the other morning walking outside to the car as it was -1! the summer feels a long time ago now..

Please read my full Update from the Principal for more details.

Have a lovely weekend!

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.