Secondary News - Nov 8 2021

Block 2 Week 5

A short week but a flurry of activity with many events that happened this week. Firstly, the Sixth Form students celebrated their fantastic results from last year finally receiving their certificates from Cambridge. Please see the article here. Mr Batson and the Year 12 and 13 tutors held a breakfast for students to mark the event. The cohort have not only been performing brilliantly academically, but have also been busy volunteering at school, helping in the Primary cohorts and also in Early Years. These students are working very hard and doing a remarkable job, so they deserve the recognition so far this year. Well done Sixth Form!

Additionally, this week, the students commemorated Founder’s Day on the 3rd November, with a presentation shared during morning form time.

The Day of the Dead was commemorated on the 4th November with students participating in a morning activity with Ms Hawkins, which has them completing some fantastic artwork to mark the event. Thank you to Ms Hawkins for organising this.

Also, this week Mr Bradley created some presentations to commemorate Remembrance Day. From this, Ms Hawkins put together a brilliant display in reception utilising the poppies that were submitted by the students. The students then had a minute’s silence to pay tribute to those who served in wars.

Stephanie Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Sixth Form News:

At the end of October, our Sixth Formers had a celebratory morning as they were presented with their IGCSE and AS Level results certificates from their June 2021 examination series.

Take a look here.

Mr Batson, Head of Sixth Form

Humanities Block News:

Last week for the Humanities Block Theme, the secondary students began competing against each other in Seterra, a browser-based map game that asks you to identify countries in a set time.

We had some pretty amazing results in the first round and the following students got into the second round this week after getting at least 98% of Europe correct!

Jon, Naomi, Ewa, Adrian, Tjasa, Dalen, Valentin, Ema, Iori and Georgi

These final ten students then competed for the best score and time in Asia and the final five students managed to get into last round, all with 100%:

Naomi, Tjasa, Ewa, Ema and Georgi

Yesterday they then tried to identify African countries on the continent map and from that the winner was determined to be…

Naomi- 8A! Scoring 100% in 1:40! Congratulations!

Second place…

Ewa- Y12! Scoring 100% in 1:48!

Third place…

Georgi- 10A! Scoring 98% in 2:01!

Naomi (8A) - Seterra 21-22 Competition Winner

Congratulations to all the finalists and thanks to all the students who took part. I am constantly amazed by your geographical knowledge! You even put some teachers to shame...Not me of course...

Mr Bradley, Head of Humanities

Maths News:

It has been a hardworking Block 2 for Mathematics students as they sat in the Block 2 quiz and discovered various new concepts.

Year 7 and 8 students worked on a statistics project collaboratively, in which they learnt how to present, interpret and compare data from frequency tables. They had some very interesting ideas to present their findings.

Year 10 students discussed money and finance concepts and how they apply to real life. They calculated simple and compound interest with ease and expressed percentage profit and loss correctly.

Year 11 students represented linear inequalities in a coordinate system and applied the inequalities into linear programming. They also revised number sequences and were introduced to exponential sequences and simple combinations of them.

Year 12 students worked with radians and extended the concept of trigonometric ratios to angles of all sizes.

Maths mistake of the week:

Thank you to Naomi and Valentin from 8B, Milena and Haruki from 7B who correctly identified the mistakes. Well done! New mistakes will be displayed after the break, Monday 15th November in front of room 316 so make sure you take the chance to win at least 2 House points.

Ms Zupanc

Mathematics Teacher

PE News:

Throughout PE this week, we continued to develop our understanding and skill level across a range of net and barrier games. Year 7 focused on the importance of court position and spatial awareness when playing badminton, whilst year 8 focused on developing their technical understanding of tennis. Year 9 developed their matchplay skills when playing volleyball, with Year 10 furthering their understanding of Sepak Takraw and Year 11 improving their fielding, batting and bowling competency when playing cricket.

Mr Hayes

PE Department

Science News:

In the expectation of the Science assessments, students had to mainly revise and study during the shortened last week of Block 2. During the revision lessons, there was sadly less time for Science practicals. However, there were a few lucky students. Year 7s students had a chance to investigate the relationship between a force and the extension of a spring.

While students in the Physics club had a chance to do a fun experiment with Mr Stanič. They created aeroplanes and made them fly with the help of balloons.

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 looked at what motivates a protagonist and antagonist in a story. We also did a comprehension exercise on Kafka’s spooky novella #The Metamorphosis.”

Year 8: Year 8 worked on writing a persuasive speech based on events of “Private Peaceful.”

Year 9: Year 9 continued their evaluation of “Animal Farm”

Year 10: Year 10 explored the modern and sassy character of Aunt Lily and looked at the way she thought in “Crumbs from the table of joy.”

Year 11: Year 11 continued studying “The Crucible” and compared how the events in the play mirrored the real life Communist witch hunts by McCarthy of the 1950s.

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

English Department

MFL News

Slovene beginners

KS3 has been focusing on revising all topics we have done this school year. With all the effort they have put into studies, they are almost ready to take upcoming assessments. We were revising our topics through a range of tasks inside the groups. Of course, students practice their Slovene skills in Kahoot as well.

Le tako naprej!

Slovene advanced

Year 7 at Slovene Advanced lessons were revising for the upcoming assessment after the block break. We talked about a book we read this block written by Louis Sachar Zeleno jezero and also watched a movie about it. This was the best way to finish this block and we all really enjoyed it.

French

This week was marked the last week of the Block, but also final term assessments in French! All the students worked very hard and tried their best during the test, which is why they deserve a treat. What can be better than French croissants for breakfast?

Well done to everyone for this Block and what you have achieved in French so far!

Ms Drofenik, Ms Kosec , Ms Tatil MFL Department

Founder’s Day

Every year on November 3, as a school we celebrate Founder's Day, in honour of our late founder, Mr Jeremy P. Hibbins - an inspiration to colleagues, students and families, with an unwavering energy and passion for education.

The recipients of this year’s Founder's Awards are as follows:

• Academic Award - Chloe Z. Year 13

• Community Award - Irmak T. Year 12

• Music Award - Maria N. Year 10A

Book and Barter - The Book Exchange:

Do you happen to have any books at home, which you don't read anymore, enjoy or are taking up a lot of space in your home?

This is your chance to not only replace some of those old books with new ones from your classmates, but also expand the collection of books within our school library by giving back to the community.

On December 3rd, Book and Barter - A book exchange and donation event initiated by the MEPI programme and led by Taja and Chloe from Sixth Form - will be taking place and open for students to pick up new books and enrich their knowledge on new topics, by exchanging and/or donating books

You’ll find more information and details here.

Taja & Chloe, Sixth Form

Dear Parents,

We had an amazing Halloween celebration last Friday at school and it was great to see staff, students and parents dressed up together and making this a day of fun, enjoyment and activities. Many of the pictures have been shared out on social media and I've also included some in my update. Thank you to all parents who must have spent a long time preparing costumes and helping your children get ready for the day, I must say it was well worth it and this event gets better and better each year!

This has been a block packed with events, trips and student projects across the entire school. Thank you to all staff for their efforts and extra time in creating such wonderful opportunities for our students.

Earlier this week we have celebrated Founder's Day and shared it with all students in the school. It is an important annual event at BISL and one that we hold dear to us and cherish. In the past few years we have had class presentations, assemblies, created a memorial garden, planted a tree dedicated to Jeremy and continue the tradition of the Founder's Awards in lasting memory of him.

We also have held our Remembrance Day commemoration today, which has seen some incredible art work, poetry and presentations produced by our students. This is another opportunity for students to learn about, remember, respect and celebrate the lives of those impacted by conflict and families who serve in the armed forces.

I have included the COVID guidance in my update as we continue to monitor the number of daily cases and the situation in Slovenia. If any decisions are made, we will communicate out to all parents together and we are ready for any possible transition to online learning if this occurs. Thank you to all teachers in advance for the work they have put in preparing resources, activities and online pages for students ahead of time. We continue to plan, but hope for the best.

Please read my full Update from the Principal here.

I wish everyone a safe and relaxing block break ahead and look forward to another successful Block 3!

Have a lovely weekend.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal