Secondary News - Nov 3 2021

Block 2 Week 4

This week BISL opened its doors to the community to showcase the wonderful work happening daily at school. Students engaged with the learning in all classes and teachers organising exciting and interactive activities for students to do was at the forefront as parents and visitors had a rare preview of everyday life at BISL. The Sixth Form students helped to organise for the event, baking in the morning in preparation, to cater for those who came. Thank you to everyone who was able to safely attend the event, as we love learning and being able to share that, when possible, with the wider community.

Additionally, this week, students dressed up for the much-anticipated event, Halloween! We have enjoyed the decorations that the parents placed all around the building for several weeks, so have looked forward to this event for some time. Students from across the school looked fantastic in their costumes, excited to have this day out of uniform. Thank you to all for the effort they put into getting involved in the day, it was a lovely way to finish the week, ahead of the long weekend.

As Covid cases rise, staff and students are reminded of the safety guidance out currently, and to please ensure that they have read the latest Update from the Principal.

I wish all families a restful long weekend.

Stephanie Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Sixth Form News:

Sixth Formers helping out

On Wednesday of this past week, we had a wonderful open day event and we had a great start to the day with members of the Sixth Form preparing croissants for the visitors to our school. It was great to see members from different parts of our school getting involved and promoting the school we are all so very proud of.

A Level Mathematics lessons in the new building

"The Year 13 Pure Mathematicians began their transition to lessons in the new building, we will now have regular lessons in our new classroom on the top floor. Lessons in the new building began some time ago, with the class making use of the library. In the past week, the Year 13 Pure students and the Year 12 Statistics students have been making great use of this new classroom. With such spacious rooms, two huge white boards and a beautiful view, the room on the top floor of the new building is a great place to learn such an advanced level of Mathematics. Studying top level Mathematics, on the top floor of the new building, will ensure top marks."

News from Psychology

This week Charlotte in Year 12 gave an excellent presentation on one study in Psychology. The study looked at which mechanisms are used to appraise our emotional responses. Basically, when we feel an emotion, do we label and recognise that emotion due to physiological or psychological/cognitive feedback. The presentation was very in depth, informative and well organised. This was the first of the Year 12 Psychology study presentations and Charlotte has set the standard very high for the rest of the class.

Mr Batson

Head of Sixth Form

Maths News:

Key stage 3 students engaged in various activities to deepen their understanding of operations with decimals. They came up with and executed some brilliant ideas including creating matching cards in Year 7 and writing songs in Year 8.

Year 10 students learnt about index laws and their applications to scientific notation and exponential equations.

Year 11 students mastered solving quadratic equations using 3 different method and were not shy to take the hot seat and answer questions about quadratics.

Year 12 students worked collaboratively to solve geometric problems involving angles measured in radians, the length of an arc an area of a sector.

Maths mistake of the week:

Thank you Valentin, Laura from 8B and Milena, Haruki, Dalen from 7B for identifying the mistakes correctly and receiving at least 2 House points each. Well done! Do not forget to check out the display board in front of room 316 next week to find new posts with new mistakes and a new chance to earn up to 8 House points.

Enjoy some photos of Year 8A performing their rap songs about decimals:

Ms Zupanc

Mathematics Teacher

PE News:

Following the practical assessments last week, we introduced a range of new sporting topics through week 4. Year 7 were introduced to the fundamentals of badminton, with year 8 beginning their tennis block and Year 9 commencing their volleyball unit. Year 10 students progressed to Sepak Takraw, with Year 11 developing their matchplay skills when playing cricket.

Mr Hayes

PE Department

Science News:

In science we had a busy week with many fun practical activities.

Y7 students investigated forces this week. They did a series of experiments to meet different types of forces and to further investigate balanced and unbalanced forces and friction.

In Y8 students were learning about loudness and pitch of the sound. They used an oscilloscope to see how the waves change properties if we shout, whisper, make a deep or high pitch sound.

In Y9 Students investigated pendulums and how the length of the swing can be affected.

In Y10 Students did food tests to prove presence of glucose, proteins, starch and lipids in different foods.

We are already looking forward to a busy week ahead, with many great opportunities for students to learn.

Ms Tušar

Science Department

English News:

Year 7: Year 7 continued their reading of Stone Cold and examined the problems you might find if you were forced to spend your first night sleeping on the streets.

Year 10: Year 10 explored the concept of grief and the idea of the power of identity through your name through the context of the characters of Godfrey, Ermina and Ernestine in the play “Crumbs from the table of joy.”

Year 11: Year 11 looked at the character of Tituba from the play “The Crucible” and examined some of the more interesting questions in the play related to her character.

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

English Department

MFL News

Slovene beginners

Year 7 have been creating a dialogue. The students role played heading to the shops and asking about school stationery supplies in Slovene. They used questions such as: "Ali lahko pomagam?, Še kaj?, Kaj pa?, Koliko stane? ... They prepared vocabulary-rich dialogues and presented them as a play in front of their class.

They really enjoyed being actors for one day.

Zelo dobro 7. razred!

Slovene advanced

Year 10 and 11 at Slovene Advanced lessons are currently reading a book Gimnazijec written by Igor Karlovšek. The story is about a teenager who is accused of murdering his best friend. It is also about family relationships, friendship and first love. Students have been analysing content, characters, and individual events as they are preparing for the upcoming essay. They are doing well so far!

Ms Drofenik, Ms Kosec

MFL Department

Halloween dress down day:

Here we have a few photos from some of the spooky Halloween costumes displayed by staff and students

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.

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.

Article written by: Zoja Cotar

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 8.30am to 11.00am 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.