Primary News - November 3 2021

Dear Parents and Students,

BISL opened its doors for the Open Day on Wednesday 27th October. Visitors included current parents and new families, who were able to walk around the school and see learning in action, as well as the colourful display of student work along the corridors. It was lovely to see parents also joining in with various student-led activities outside during the primary break. Thank you to everyone who attended the event.

The classrooms are looking magical, ready for the Halloween celebrations on Friday. Don't forget your costume for the dress-down day. If stuck for ideas, see the photo below or simply dress in black and you will fit right in!

Primary students took part in the Flag Quiz as part of the Humanities Block.

Congratulations to the winners!

Monday 1st of November marks Remembrance Day of the Dead in Slovenia, also known as the Day of the Dead (Dan mrtvih). It is a national holiday and many families take the opportunity to go visit their loved ones at the graveyard, with flowers and candles left as a token of their visit. This is a traditional and important celebration in Slovenian culture.

I wish all families a safe and relaxing weekend and look forward to seeing you back on Tuesday 2nd November for the last four days of this Block, followed by the Block break until 15th November.

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

What an exciting week this was for our Early Years students!

The children used junk modelling to create rockets as a part of our Space transportation topic. As an integral part of their learning, children were using various cutting techniques and manipulating paper to create paper aeroplanes and rocket mice, which helped them understand air motion and travel.

Alongside role-playing going into space, students have continued learning about transportation as they role-played on the Early Years big red bus.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

It has been such a busy Halloween themed week! We made Halloween pumpkins and ghosts to decorate our classroom, we wrote our very own secret potions and listened to some Halloween stories and a puppet show read and performed by some of our parents!

Even the Toymaker kept us busy, asking us to make our very own Domino sets.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

Another fantastic week in Year 2. We have really enjoyed celebrating Halloween towards the end of this week. We were very lucky to have parents join us to read stories and put on a fantastic puppet show. It was so much fun.

During lessons, we have been learning about multiplication and division, settings in stories and about various mindfulness techniques. We have really loved Maths this week and we have been putting our knowledge of multiples of 10s and 2s into practice.

Ms Harris & Mrs Bradley

Year 3

This week students had great fun decorating pumpkins with the help of budding parent volunteers! Thank you to all the volunteers!

Year 3 also learned some interesting facts about the origins of Halloween. Do you know what vegetables people originally carved before pumpkins? We do!

Ms Blundell

Year 4

Year 4 ENGLISH VICTORIAN TIMES

Students used Forum Theatre to investigate how characters’ actions are affected by the setting.

The scene where the story is originally set has two orphans approach a young street sweeper of about their age, to help them earn money to buy food. The new settings are a park, a rubbish heap and a marketplace; each place has the potential for different characters to be in the story and different scenarios to play out.
The Year 4 students have vivid imaginations, and each group designed wonderful ways for our orphans to make it out of the streets with loads of money.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

This week the children were data collecting and putting their information into charts. Year 5 went outside to count how many different coloured cars passed the school. From this, the information was then put into a bar chart - very exciting! The children wrote some fantastic poems linked to fantasy stories and I have to say, they are out of this world.

The children decorated the classroom and very much enjoyed transforming their pumpkins.

Happy Halloween!

Ms Thomas

Year 6

Year 6 has been studying the ancient African kingdom of Benin this week. We had an art class where students sketched artefacts found in this kingdom and they also drew maps and sketches of the main features of the city, including the Oba's palace, market stalls, and a bird's eye artist's impression of the city itself, using only words to paint a picture in their minds. We have also created some lovely poetry about sea creatures and spooky Halloween settings.

We are all looking forward to having a class Halloween party this week, amongst the scary decorations the students and parents helped to put around the classroom.

Mr Bishop

Slovene

We always start a lesson with a starter. Students love starters and they are always ready to be part of it. This week, a few students helped me to lead a starter to review school stationery supplies.

Our leaders were saying: "Poišči, poišči lepilo" and the students' mission was to find a particular school stationery supply and show it to our class. They were very engaged and quick at searching for the right one.
Zelo dobro Years 5 and 6!

Ms Košec

Slovene Advanced

Year 3 and 4 students at Slovene Advanced lessons are learning about poems. They have read different poems, talked about the content, stanzas, verses and rhymes.

In the upcoming weeks, the students will also recite a poem. Those who have poetic sparks, however, will also try to write their own poem. We will share it with you later on.

Ms Drofenik

PE

Throughout primary PE this week, we have been focusing on developing our hand-eye coordination skills when playing volleyball. Students looked at the key movement patterns when working as a team on court and the importance of working together. Students also learnt how to develop the underarm serve and continue to use their dig, set & spike skills in conditioned volleyball games.

PE Department

French

This week during French lessons, all Primary students were excelling! Starting from learning the days of the week, but also how to express our emotions and talk about food in French. We learnt many language skills and culture, and we are getting to learn more and more things. We played some games to practice the French accent and to memorize the vocabulary.

Well done to everyone for this week!

Now, what do you think we will learn in week 5: French monuments? How to buy food in a market? How to ask for directions? How to write a letter to a pen pal?

Follow this section for the answer...

Ms Tatil

MEPI News

Last week we were preparing for a practice walk as part of the training for the main expedition, which will be taking place in May. We are practising now in order to familiarise ourselves with all of the equipment that we might need later! As well as getting ourselves in better condition, we are undertaking a number of walks to improve our skills in the lead-up to our ‘Qualifying Journey’. This walk will be executed on Saint Mary (Šmarna Gora).

In the classroom, we were introduced to the ‘Ride with GPS’ app, which is a really useful tool when learning to plan your route for the first time. We used the app when planning the Šmarna Gora route. (That we will attempt after the Block Break.) The Map shows how far we got with the planning. It was a lot of fun using new tools and learning new skills.

This Monday we continued with our planning by transcribing the route from the app onto a hard copy of a 1:25000 scale walker’s map. This allowed us to plot points on the route using a six-figure grid reference, and we also used a compass to calculate the direction (or ‘bearing’) in degrees. We then transferred this information onto a route card in order to create a more detailed account.

Zoja, MEPI Participant

Teacher Feature

As we continue to celebrate Humanities during this block, we turn to Geography to introduce this week’s Teacher Feature, Mr Astbury.

Read Mr Astbury’s Teacher Feature article here.

Dear Parents,

Happy Halloween from everyone at BISL!

We look forward to more Halloween activities today, staff and students dressed up, enjoying the occasion and celebrating. Pictures of the students will be shared out in Newsletters, Social Media and through the website. Thank you once again to the parents who came in to decorate the school and do activities with the children, this has made a very positive impact on the students and made the whole school feel 'spooky' with a great atmosphere.

It has been a very busy week with events as we head towards the end of the block next week.

On Wednesday, we had our School Open Day, with over 40 visitors to the school, popping in from 8.30 am to 11.00 am to see teachers, lessons and to get a feel for the school as students are in class and learning. Thank you to everyone who attended, it is always wonderful to invite parents in to see what our students are doing, how they are learning and the great job our teachers do every single day. In school, we have a huge amount of student work displayed and celebrated around every corridor and this is another great opportunity to signpost the amazing work from all of our students.

This week we have had great news regarding the delivery of a new school stage. This will be a 7-metre stage for the Performance Theatre and is a very welcome addition to our school to create an area for our students to sing, dance and perform in front of parents and students. This will be fully assembled and painted during the next week.

I have also included a detailed update regarding COVID guidelines, routines at school and FAQs below as we continue to navigate through the high amount of positive cases confirmed in Slovenia. At school, we are taking every precaution to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible.

As we finish this week, I am very happy to share with you photographs of lessons (see below) from the new building on the top floor with our Sixth Form students and Mr Batson as we transition the Year 12 and 13 students into the top floor. The rooms are over 70m2, fully equipped and the views over Ljubljana add to a very special learning environment. We continue to have Library lessons for all students, Computer Science lessons in the Technology Suite and Music & Performing Arts in the Performance Theatre.

The next Coffee with the Principal will take place on Friday December 3rd, I look forward to connecting with many of you then, to give you another opportunity to hear about school updates, news, and upcoming initiatives and events.

Please read my full Update from the Principal for details.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.