Secondary News - Jan 12 2021

Happy New Year to everyone! Welcome back for Term 2, it certainly has been a busy start to the year. I trust that all families and staff have had a restful break and despite the current measures in place, I hope that everyone was able to spend some time with family relaxing before the start of another term.

The Year 11 students were very well prepared this week, sitting the first round of mock exams. Following the announcementfrom Cambridge and their update for exams, we are monitoring all the information very carefully and adapting our provision as required to ensure that students are provided with as many opportunities as possible to demonstrate their academic abilities. We thank everyone for their patience as the world navigates this ever-changing uncharted territory.

The rest of the Secondary students resumed their studies virtually, back into the practice of online learning. It is so important that students maintain a regular routine even when working from home, to ensure that they are awake, have had breakfast and are on time, ready for their day of lessons. Out of respect for their peers and teachers, we insist that cameras are always on and properly angled, so that teachers can ensure that all students have asafe working environment.

This block we celebrate the Languages theme and look forward to seeing the activities that are planned during this time. As a very culturally diverse school, it is a wonderful way to celebrate the many cultures that BISL is fortunate enough to host.

As a reminder, please ensure that you check the website for the latest Principal’s Update and upcomingevents. Further information and sessions for IGCSE and A-Level subjects are scheduled this block to aid Year 9 and Year 11 students in choosing the best subjects for them in the next academic year.

I wish everyone well and a restful weekend.

Stephanie Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Enjoy some snaps from our virtual classrooms:

Dear BISL Students,

A new Block has begun, therefore the new edition of the BISL Magazine is in the making with a fresh theme of New Beginnings in which the articles will have a positive and hopeful attitude towards the new year. I would like to encourage and remind all students to contribute to this edition and make this a diverse reading experience, with plenty of intriguing and fun articles covering a variety of topics.

The only way we can accomplish this is by working as a team. The opportunity in becoming one of the writers of this magazine is open to students from Year 7 and onwards. Some of the magazine categories are the following:

• Top World News

• Coronavirus updates

• All sciences (biology, chemistry, physics)

• History

• Art

• Creative writing

• BISL lifestyle (anything from decor, to cooking recipes, opinions, health and more)

I hope to have most of the articles link to the theme, New Beginnings, and to relate some to the current Block theme of languages.

For more information, and help in deciding upon an article you would like to write, please feel welcome to contact me at any time using this email, Mr. Kirwan and myself will be very happy to help you in any way we can. By challenging yourself to write articles, you will improve your writing skills, your overall knowledge, and you will gain a feeling of accomplishment for contributing.

I hope to see a flood of emails coming in soon! You have until the end of Week 3, 25th of January to send me any articles you may have.

Happy writing!

Julia K.

If you would like to take a glimpse at the first edition, click here: BISL Student Magazine - Issue 1 | Block 3 | 2020-21

The PE Department would first like to wish you a happy New Year and all the best in 2021.

We would also like to inform you about the updates starting in Block 4.

• The PE Department would like to welcome Ms Fairchild-Gojkovic who, as mentioned in the newsletter at the end of the last term, will be replacing Ms Sharpe. We are excited for her to join our team.
  

• Mr Damjan together with Mr Cerni will be teaching all Year 9 PE classes from this Term from the rest of the year.
  

• All of the Zoom links to the PE lessons can be seen on CANVAS PE homepage.
  

• The PE Department will continue to implement SPORTS KNOWLEDGE for all Secondary students, as the last block, in order to enhance the physical and practical sporting skills taught in lessons. It will delve into sports knowledge including topics such as Health and Well-being, Anatomy, Physiology in sports. This will allow students to increase their understanding of many different sports topics and broaden their understanding of the theory beyond just the practical skills. Sports knowledge will also be included in PE assessments as outlined on the Assessment calendars.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE:

Mr. Cerni created a new and fun Weekly challenge for all the students to try and complete it themselves. With uploading the videos of completing the challenge students have a chance to collect extra house points. CLICK HERE

HEALTHY DIET RECIPE:

As the topic of this block is Health and well-being the PE Department will share some delicious, healthy and easy to make cooking recipes that you can try to replicate at home.

This week we are sharing a recipe for Stuffed Cabbage Rolls.

Please CLICK HERE to view the recipe and share with us your photos of the dish.

KEEP UP WITH THE TEACHER / STUDENT:

We are continuing with the fun challenges in this Block as well, with a small twist. Each week a different year group (house captains, prefects, year group,...) will come up with a fun challenge that will be presented among the rest of the students.

By completing the challenge and uploading their videos, students will have a chance to collect extra house points. The student challenges will be presented in week 3.

PE Department

Who will be the winner of this Kahoot? Who will bring the most points to their House? Let’s see…

As you can see in the photo below, students were revising their knowledge with Kahoot. They were pretty successful to find the correct answers even though some questions were challenging. After the knowing result, I am sure they will continue revising the work that we cover in classes.

Well done Year 8!

Miss Košec, MFL Department

It has been a fantastic first week back in Mathematics lessons. All of the students worked really hard on their Over the break assignments, which kept them on track with algebra and other topics. Year 8 had an additional assignment to create a scale drawing of their room and the Maths department received some great submissions.

Key stage 3 and Year 10 demonstrated their algebra knowledge in our revision lessons this week, while Years 11, 12 and 13 were busy sitting in Mock exams.

Key stage 3 continues with the topic Statistics, Key stage 4 continues with Algebra.

Maths question of this week is:

a) How many regular hexagons are in the picture?

b) What percentage of the big triangle is one small triangle?

Students who solve the question send their answer to my email by Wednesday 13th January.

Firstly we would like to welcome Mr. Siter to the department who is covering for Mr. Eve whilst he is recovering. If anyone wants to email Mr. Eve get well wishes, please email Ms. O’Regan to have them forwarded. He loves hearing from the students, and hopes to see them all soon.

Secondly a huge well done to the students who entered the Immerse essay competition to win a 14 day summer school place at Oxford University/Cambridge University this summer, which includes accommodation, breakfast, dinner, trips in Oxford and a graduation ceremony and certificate on completion.

We wish all our applicants good luck, and if you wish to read more about it click here.

Year 7: Have started looking at persuasive vocabulary and language this week, exploring the language used in persuasive advertisements. Students have mastered the acronym DAFOREST, and are able to identify 8+ persuasive devices.

Year 8: For their double lesson year 8 started the classic book Private Peaceful with Mr Kirwan, and are practising creative writing this week with Mr Siter.

Year 9B: Are learning all about the pigs and allegory in Animal Farm. This week 9B have learnt the context of the novel and have started chapter one. The big question on our minds is ‘Are all animals equal or are some more equal than others?’

Year 10: Sadly has been our last week with Winston in room 101 in 1984. On Thursday students completed their final mock exam question assessment, and we moved onto poetry on Friday.

Students in year 10 have been the first year group to democratically vote on the ‘group’ of poems we are going to study for their GCSE exams in May 2022. They have chosen the selection of poems by the author Carol Ann Duffy. Students had to create presentations discussing her background, which will enable them to understand her motives behind writing poetry.

Year 11: Some year 11s joined Ms O’Regan on Monday for a quick 40 minute revision on how to approach the poetry section of the exams (paper 1 and 4 for literature). We were impressed with the students' commitment to the exams, and we are looking forward to marking their mock examiners.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the students for working so hard, and doing extra essays over Christmas break and really pushing themselves hard. We know your hard work will pay off.

Year 13: In literature our students have been finishing off an in depth analysis of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Zooming on on key themes and symbols before we move onto King Lear.

Miss O’Regan, Mr Kirwan, Mr Siter and Mr Eve, English Department

Year 10: This week year 10 finished their module looking at leadership styles, they are all able to identify various leadership styles such as laissez-faire, authoritarian, democratic, paternalistic and so on. They gave presentations this week on fictional leaders from TV shows. They used fictional leaders to show the differences within the style. Check out some of the presentations below.

Year 12: Have finished looking at business operations this week, they now understand the role that operations play in any business.

In Economics we have been learning about macroeconomic intervention, looking at money supply and government fiscal policies. We also looked at the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.

Year 13: In business students have been looking at lean production methods such as Kaizen and cell production. In Economics students have been studying developing and emerging local economics.

History at BISL this week has been very busy: Year 11 and Year 12 are working hard on their mock exam preparation and revision. We wish them the best of luck in the upcoming exams!

Year 10 have been preparing for their assessment in Week 2 by debating a core question in the topic: was Adolf Hitler a gambler or a planner with regards to foreign policy? Congratulations to Felix and Jasmina, who won the debate with their convincing arguments about why Hitler was more a planner than a gambler.

While Year 10 have looked at the breakdown of international peace by 1939, Year 9 have focused closely on the impact of the Second World War for Germany, looking at the effects of rationing, area bombing, opposition, refugees and employment. Over the holidays, they interviewed family and friends as part of an oral history assignment to uncover the effects of the Second World War on their family history. We look forward to exchanging stories and research next week!

Year 8 are finalising their study of the causes of the English Civil War this week in anticipation of their assessment essay next week: Year 8 have proven themselves to be excellent historians by drawing out themes and conceptual areas of focus within the narrative of the build-up to war in 1642.

It's fantastic to reconnect with the students after a well-deserved Christmas break, and we look forward to our first post-break MEPI meeting at the usual time this coming Monday. It will be quite revealing to see who has achieved a level of success in creating their own route card, and also to discover how many participants actually managed to complete their route. We wonder if there might be any photos forthcoming?

Another much anticipated event is the Red Cross first aid course, which will be held at the school. Due to the current COVID situation, we have moved the date to Saturday 13th March. It is a six hour course that covers all the basics plus a few bits that will be useful when hiking and camping (sprains, burns, snake bite...). Our Red Cross medical professional is a native Slovene, but the course will be delivered in English. (A rare opportunity in Slovenia!)

There are still a few places left on this essential course, so if you are a student, member of staff, or even a parent that would like to know what to do in a medical emergency, please email simon.irving@britishschool.si (The course costs thirty euros and fifty cents, and you will also receive a Red Cross certificate.)

Mr Irving, MEPI Coordinator

Everyone at the Zveza Prijateljev Mladine Ljubljana Moste-Polje would like to send a huge virtual hug and thank you to the BISL community on behalf of all the children and their families that you've gifted through your support of this year's C4C & PTA Christmas Action project with ZPM and Trije Zimski Botri! Over 150 letters were distributed - Thank You!

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

• 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

• 6.10.2020 - Mr Jason Batson

Mr. Hughes will sadly be leaving BISL next week. We are certain that the Year 1 students will miss Mr. Hughes and his boundless enthusiasm for teaching, and we wish him all the best in his new post.

Ms. Blundell will be taking on the role of the Year 1 Class Teacher fully from 13th January. Ms. Blundell has assisted and supported students across Primary since joining BISL in 2014, and has been focusing her teaching practice on the Y1 class this academic year. We congratulate Miss Blundell on the new role.

Joining our Assisting Teachers team from week 2 will be Miss Predan, whose international experience and background in teaching includes specialisation in Performing Arts.

Ms. Drofenik fully took on the role of Year 7A Form Tutor this term. It has been a very positive start for her and her students.

Ms. Fairchild has joined the P.E. department from Term 2 and has already engaged students with a renewed energy and passion for fitness and healthy living.

We welcomed both Mr. and Mrs. Yates to BISL. Having arrived in Slovenia during the break, they have had a very positive start to the Term already.

Dear Parents,

Happy New Year and welcome to Term 2 of 2020/21.

We've had a very busy and exciting 4 days back in the building with high-quality online lessons, activities and events in full swing. As always, we are following the daily guidance from the news, government and worldwide websites to keep updated with the pandemic. We miss the students and hope they can return to lessons back in the building as quickly as its safely possible to do so.

Thank you to all the parents who attended the 'Coffee with the Principal' this morning and also for the many positive emails to our teachers and staff. We really appreciate your kind words and this has a huge, positive impact on our school. I would like to personally thank you for this.

During this time we are also monitoring the discussions and ideas from the exam board regarding the plans for next summer. As plans from the exam board are proposed, debated and changed, we have worked as a team to ensure that our students do not miss out for next summer and receive the same outstanding grades we achieved last year in 2020.

Please read my full update here for more details.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal