Secondary News - Oct 25 2021

Block 2 Week 3

Another productive week that saw students in KS3 using the Lego Robots and building some incredible creations. Please look at the engaging Facebook post to learn more. The Year 7s had a wonderful time exploring, learning, and applying their knowledge building these Hopper Robots!

Additionally, this week students enjoyed the full capabilities of the canteen after a year and a half of individually packaged food. Having meals return to a buffet style with plates enables them to benefit from seconds and for the meal to always be warm. Students have relished this opportunity again.

On Wednesday, Mr Malden with the support of Mr Batson presented University Guidance for all families at BISL. This was valuable information for students and parents to be aware of when it comes time to selecting subjects and applying for universities. The Cambridge Examination board is the most internationally recognised examination board in the world and our students are in an excellent position to get into their first-choice university anywhere in the world. Should families have any further questions regarding this, they are encouraged to contact either Mr Malden or Mr Batson via email.

I wish all students a wonderful and restful weekend. We look forward to next week’s Halloween celebration on Friday October 29^th and all of the spooky costumes for this dress down day.

Stephanie Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Maths News:

Well done to secondary students who sat in their Block 2 quizzes this week. They have really worked hard to measure their progress this Block. It is wonderful feedback to know where to improve for the main summative assessment in Block 3, as per the assessment calendar.

Year 7 students created strategy posters to help deepen their understanding about operations with fractions.

Year 8 students came up with their creative ways to recall how to multiply and divide with powers of 10. They made some brilliant games for 2-3 people, strategy posters, poems, cover songs and rap songs.

Year 9 students have been setting their targets and refining their knowledge of Block 1 and 2 concepts.

Year 10 students demonstrated their knowledge of index laws and were not shy to explain the laws to their peers and participate in competitive tasks.

Year 11 students applied their knowledge of factorising quadratic expressions into solving quadratic equations by factorisation.

Year 12 students were introduced to the equation of a circle and they made connections with the equation of a straight line.

Maths mistake of the week:

Thank you to the students who submitted the mistakes, including Peter and Valentin from 8B, Milena and Haruki from 7B. Well done! Find next week's mistakes in front of room 316, as per usual.

Ms Zupanc

Mathematics Teacher

PE News:

During PE this week, we completed some sporting units and carried out practical assessments across a range of sports. Year 7 & Year 9 completed their tennis playing block, whilst Year 8 concluded their badminton unit. Year 10 were assessed on their overall volleyball playing level, with Year 11 focusing on continuing to develop their fundamental cricket playing skills.

Mr Hayes

PE Department

English News:

Year 7: Year 7 explored what life would be like for a homeless person on their first night sleeping rough in Ljubljana to connect to their understanding of the characters in the novel “Stone Cold.”

Year 9: Year 9 explored some of the main characters in their analysis of George Orwell’s famous “Animal Farm” in their literature study.

Year 10: Year 10a were assigned roles and began to read and perform the play “Crumbs from the table of joy” while 10b looked at the motivation of some of the characters under the influence of grief and how it affected their behaviour in the play.

Year 11: Year 11 looked at the relationship between the characters of Abigail and John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”

Mr Fordham, Mr. Wilkins, Mr. Staines, Mr Siter and Mr. Eve

English Department

MFL News

Slovene beginners

Year 8 has been working on two different topics. One group was focusing on exploring school stationery supplies and their colours in Slovene, another group was focusing on exploring buildings and other attractions around Ljubljana. It was nice to see their enthusiasm while they were working in the groups. We totally agree that group work is very efficient and enjoyable to share our own ideas from different perspectives. They especially enjoyed the starter activity where they were searching pairs and making Slovene sentences.

Kar tako naprej 8. razred!

Slovene advanced

Year 9 students at Slovene Advanced lessons are continuing with literature this block. Students have started reading a book by Anne-Laure Bondoux Čas čudežev. This is a heartbreaking story of exile, sacrifice, hope and survival. A boy named Blaise travels a long journey from Kavkaz to Europe to find his relatives and try to live a decent life. But what exactly is the truth about his past? Students will discuss the content, characters and the relationships between them.

Ms Drofenik, Ms Kosec

MFL Department

After School Activities:

Here we have a few photos from some of the afternoon activities we have. These show our students enjoying the Secondary Art Club and the Debating Club.

Open Day at BISL

We have a brilliant opportunity coming up for families to visit BISL, to see lessons, pop into classrooms and see how our students learn. This will be on Wednesday 27th October as part of our school Open Day from 9-11am. If you are free, this is an ideal time to come in and see what our students experience each day!

Please register in advance here.

Problem Solving with LEGO Robots at BISL

Our students have thoroughly enjoyed using our LEGO Robots in the past few weeks to develop their problem-solving, critical thinking and collaboration skills.
In our new Technology Suite, we have a full class set of LEGO Spike Prime robots with the extra expansion sets for students to further stretch and challenge their thinking.

Using the LEGO Robots helps the students to further develop their computation skills and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) learning. STEAM-based learning gives students tools and methods to explore new and creative ways of problem-solving, displaying data, innovating, and linking multiple fields, effectively teaching them how to think outside the box.

Read the full article here to find out more about how our students have been embracing this new opportunity here at BISL.

Dear Parents,

Halloween is approaching!

Thank you to parents who have volunteered to come in for various days during next week for Halloween, we have some fantastic and fun activities arranged such as pumpkin carving, Halloween story time, decoration making with art activities, etc. We look forward to continuing this great buzz of excitement as we build towards our Halloween Dress Down Day on Friday 29th October for all staff and students! I still haven't decided on my costume...

Coming up we have a brilliant opportunity for families to visit BISL, to see lessons, pop into classrooms and see how the students learn. This will be on Wednesday 27th October as part of our school Open Day from 9-11am. If you are free, this is an ideal time to come in and see what the students experience each day! Please register in advance here.

Thank you to parents and students for attending the University Guidance evening on Wednesday, we had over 25 people at the presentation to find out more about the process at BISL, scholarships, successes of our Alumni and next steps in applying to universities. Mr Malden and Mr Batson did a great job in taking us through the guidance we offer.

I have also been delighted to see our students develop their problem solving and programming skills in Computer Science. In our new technology suite, we have a full class set of LEGO Spike Prime robots with the extra expansion sets for students to further stretch and challenge their thinking - take a look at what our students have been doing here.

Friday 5th November will be a time to mark Remembrance Day at BISL, poppies are available at reception, we will have students and staff reading poetry, short stories and other activities to mark this important event. If you wish to donate, a link online can be found here.

Finally, as winter approaches I get excited about the weather and then the potential of snow. Each year this looks amazing in Slovenia and is great fun for the students. At school we encourage all students and staff to interact and be outside in the fresh air as much as possible, as this is part of an active healthy lifestyle. We are very fortunate to be in a beautiful country with clean air, fantastic nature and wonderful seasons so we will absolutely take every opportunity to take advantage of this. To support this, we have purchased a range of hats, scarves, coats, snoods and gloves for staff so everyone can be warm and enjoy being outside. Let's hope for lots of days without heavy rain so we can enjoy and have fun learning and being outdoors!

Please read my full Update from the Principal here with further details and upcoming events.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.