Secondary News - Feb 22 2021

Welcome back to a new block and certainly to KS3 and Year 13 who are now back in the building for lessons! It is wonderful to see students back in classes, learning with each other and their teachers.

Students have made many comments that they are excited to be back, however, interacting with their class in person has taken some getting used to again. Students have had to settle back into the routine of the school day and are always reminded to ensure that they are displaying the BISL Values in the classroom, towards one another.

This week also marked the introduction to the English Theme of this block, and the English department has been planning many activities for students to celebrate. I am excited to see the projects and events they are hosting.

On Tuesday, the Year 7, 8 and 13 students returned to school just in time to celebrate PUST in the building, with all other cohorts celebrating it online. A big thank you and well done to the students and teachers for their enthusiastic costumes and the PTA for the lovely doughnuts. It was certainly a colourful celebration!

I wish everyone good health this weekend, and all the best for the exam preparation ahead of the assessments that continue next week.

Kind regards,

Stephanie Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Pust celebrations were in full swing at BISL this Tuesday for our classes both online and in school. Enjoy a selection of photos from our Pust celebrations live and on Zoom.

A full collection of photos from our Pust Celebrations can be found here.

To kick start our English themed block and to celebrate our different cultures, students were set the challenge to write haikus about their traditions. Enjoy a few below.

Pancakes are some sweet

and delicious plainly cakes

that look like frisbees

- Gabriel 9b

The chubby pancake

fries on the very hot pan

Let's eat the pancakes

- Emma + Frances 7b

Fancy dress for pust

let's dress up as the kurent

chase away the winter

- Mrs Kenealy

Fancy dress for pust

covered in pancake syrup

mom's gonna be mad

- Ms Zupanc

Click here to read more fabulous Haikus from our students.

We were thrilled to welcome Years 7, 8, 9 and 13 back into the building. Here are a couple of photos of our students enjoying some hands on lessons this week - without computers!

We are delighted to share with you the results from our 2020 Parent Survey and would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for taking the time to share your opinions and feedback with us, it is very much appreciated, valued and useful for us as a school. Don’t forget to join our next Coffee with the Principal, where Mr Walton will talk through the main areas of the findings and discuss these further with you in more detail.

If you missed it over the break, check out BISL’s student magazine - a massive 55 pages. A huge well done to all students involved in the creation of this masterpiece!

Read the Block 4 edition of the Student Magazine here.

Congratulations to Artur from 7B on becoming one of the 5 Junior ambassadors of UNICEF Slovenia.

"I am excited to represent children’s rights on any platform and any opportunity I get. I am open to all our students and I am ready to listen to anyone who wants to talk with me about their home and school problems at any time. My mission is to stop bullying and discrimination between classmates. And I want to help the school become a better place.

I chose to represent UNICEF Slovenia because I think it’s important to help children all over the world and to let everyone know about this organization. UNICEF’s primary goal is to help kids with vaccines, food, water, vitamins, a place to live in, and so much more.

UNICEF Slovenia also promotes children's rights and speaks up against their violation. Nearly 700,000 children in the U.S. get abused each year. Think about how many kids get abused in the whole world! I would like to spread the word about this matter all over the school or even Ljubljana! I know that if we work together as a team, we can try and decrease the number of kids who are suffering around the world. My role as a Junior Ambassador is to try to stop bullying in our school and make every kid aware of their rights."

- Artur, Year 7B

Years 7, 8, 9 and 13 have progressed back into learning in school this week, whilst Years 10, 11 and 12 are still on distance learning. Here are some snaps of our online learning this week. Students are in high spirits, and championing on with the work. We can’t wait to see them back in the building soon.

Short Story Competition

To celebrate English Block, we are hosting a short story competition. We encourage students to write a short story (max 800 words) titled one of the following, “The Haunting”, “The Game” or “The Enchantment”.

Please send your entries to Ms O’Regan by 12th March.

Poetry Competition

We are also having a poetry writing competition. Students are encouraged to write a poem on any subject/theme they choose.

Please send your entries to Mr Kirwan by 19th March.

Prizes: Box of chocolate for the best entries per key stage and 10 house points (per key stage) - that is x4 prizes up for grabs and 3 house points to all entries!

English Block Spelling Bees

As part of English block we are organising two spelling bees, one for teachers, and one for students.

The teacher spelling bee will be on 26th and 27th February where students can challenge a range of teachers with challenging words and ‘bet’ on which teacher will win. Students who ‘bet’ on the correct teacher will win a bar of chocolate and 5 house points.

Our student spelling bee for KS3 will be on 9th for round 1 and 15th March for round 2. The words will be sent out at the end of February. All students who enter will receive 3 house points - and the winner will receive 10 house points and a box of milka chocolates.

Our student spelling bee for KS4 will be on 10th March for round 1 and 16th March for round 2. The words will be sent out at the end of February. All students who enter will receive 3 house points - and the winner will receive 10 house points and a box of milka chocolates.

Sign up sheets for the student spelling bees will be emailed to students at the end of February - look out for them in your inbox!

Year 7 worked on presenting arguments on both sides of a topic, even when we are strongly for or against it. We looked at the controversial topic of big game hunting and the impact the invention of the motor car had on it. We also read from our class reading novel "Stone Cold" and learnt about the difficulty and dangers of sleeping outside on the concrete.

Year 8 worked on a unit about the mysterious tale of the Cottingley Fairies. This is the story of how 2 young girls claimed to have seen and photographed themselves with a group of fairies in their garden in Cottingley in Yorkshire, UK and how experts have argued for nearly 100 years over whether they were fake or real. We continued to read from out class reading of "A Monster Calls".

Year 9: 9b are currently finishing off animal farm, and practising analyse language from chapter 7 and 8. This involves developing students' skills skim reading to get the right quotation. Students are being encouraged to dig deeper and think of implicit meanings. We are pleased to welcome year 9 back into the building - so they can actually hold a real book rather than read a PDF document.

Year 10: This week year 10 had a double assessment. The English language assessment students had a past IGCSE exam paper and had to choose to write a piece of narrative writing or descriptive writing. For the English literature assessment students had a past IGCSE exam paper on both poetry and 1984 (literature paper 1). In both assessments we had many students get A*s and As, and everyone passed. A huge well done to all the hard work students have put into revising and focusing. Their hard work is paying off.

Students also explored the poem ‘Death of a Teacher’ as part of their IGCSE poetry series by Carol Ann Duffy. They also had the chance to spend a lesson revising the poem of their choice and making a poster or a powerpoint, which will be shared into a collective revision folder for all students to benefit from.

Despite the heavy IGCSE work this week, our year 10s had the pleasure of ‘’an option’’ lesson where they got to choose a piece of writing to do just for fun, some students made blogs about pust, some students wrote about lent in their own country and some students wrote poetry. It is important students learn to love writing for pleasure and have time to be creative, even with the pressure of IGCSEs.

Year 11: Also completed assessments this week in both language and literature. A huge well done to all of our students, with many students getting As and A*s - we are very proud of how much effort students put into these assessments and the dedication they are showing to achieving top grades for their IGCSEs.

After assessments our attention turned to revision this week. All students need to revise different areas, where they feel less confident or need more practise, so this week we encouraged students to reflect on this and choose an area to revise (with teacher guidance of course), with a range of activities such as annotate poems, create revision posters/ppt, create a revision kahoot. Revision doesn’t have to be dull on zoom, we can still have creative fun. We hope to be welcoming Year 11 back to school soon.

Year 13: A huge well done for completing so many assessments this week, the first one they had hand written in a long time. Aside from assessments this week, year 13 in literature continued with King Lear. We thought we’d take a break from computers, and decided to make some visual timelines and some mind maps to help us remember quotations from the play.

English Riddle of the week:

A boy and his father get into a car accident. When they arrive at the hospital, the doctor sees the boy and exclaims “that’s my son!” How can this be?

Thank you for all the right answers last week, house points have been added accordingly.

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

This week in P.E. secondary students were introduced to our block five student-led projects. During class, the students created thought-provoking statements of exploration they will research and explore throughout this block.

Students also began to investigate the sports knowledge principles of training and overload through both teacher lead theory lessons and teacher-led workouts. Additionally, a questionnaire was given to students to help guide them in the creation of personalised fitness goals and workouts this block.

Ms Fairchild-Gojkovic, Mr Damjan and Mr Cerni - PE Department

Slovene Second Language

Year 8 has been discussing their favourite animals. We found out that we have lots in common: We love animals! They wrote a few sentences about their favourite animal. Now they just need to express their creativity with drawings of chosen animals.

If you ask them about their favourite animal, I am pretty sure their answer will be in Slovene. You can see a photo of the students further up in the newsletter.

Zelo dobro Year 8!

Slovene Advanced

Welcome back Year 8! In Slovene Advanced Lessons students are currently learning to write uppercase and lowercase letters in “lastna" and "občna imena". Their understanding of the subject matter is at a high level. Ever since the students returned to school, they have been even more committed to learning. I’m already looking forward to seeing their progress in the upcoming weeks!

French

The word SURREALISM first appeared in Paris during the summer of 1917. It was coined by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Y9 Students became French poets like the beginner of surrealism Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918). They followed his work Les calligrammes and wrote/paint some amazing poems! Félicitations!

Well done to Years 11, 12 and 13 on their Mathematics Mock exams this week.

KS3 and Year 10 have been busy revising and preparing for their upcoming Term 2 assessments, creating strategy posters and flashcards.

The answers for the last Maths question of the week is: Jim.

Thank you for all submitted answers and congratulations to Emma, Frances, Rem, Samuel from 7B, who guessed correctly and received 5 house points. Well done!

Maths question for this week is:

Students who solve the question send their answer to my email by Wednesday 24th February.

Physics

Another fantastic set of results this week regarding physics and chemistry (A2) assessments. The Y10s have continued with their amazing results, staying in average well over a B. The Y11s have averaged an A on their latest further assessment, which is encouraging to say the least!. All the KS5 physics students have gotten A/A*, and similar results have been obtained in A2 chemistry. Very well done to all and I look forward to maintaining these amazing results!

Mr Herrera - Physics Teacher

Year 12: A huge congratulations to year 12 economics students, with a 100% rate of A in their assessments. Especially to Chloe getting a record of 95%. Another huge well done to Taja and Rosemarijn in business both getting A grades in their business assessments.

Year 13: A huge well done to Gal achieving a B in his assessment, I am proud of all his hard work.

As we want to be as inclusive as possible to those still learning at a distance whilst their peers are in school regarding assessments, enjoy a photo below of a ‘hybrid’ assessment.

Mr Dalton - Business and Economics teacher

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

• 27.01.2021 - Ms Mateja Košec
• 13.01.2021 - Mrs Tanya Charlesworth
• 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

Dear Parents,

It has been amazing this week to welcome so many of our students back into the building to see their teachers and each other after this online learning period. From the moment they arrived in the morning, the joy, excitement and energy from the students has been incredible and a delight to hear echoing through the corridors. During this week we have also been fortunate to celebrate Pust together, our students and staff produced a wonderful range of costumes and I would like to thank all parents for your support in this first event back at school. It added a wonderful moment to this busy week for our students.

I would like to also recognise the families supporting the students who are still away on online learning and look forward to more guidance changing over the coming weeks to hopefully enable us to transition the final year groups back into the school building. The attendance this week has been excellent on site and it has been fantastic to see everyone come together during this challenging time. We must continue to balance the safety of our community, following all of the guidelines and health advice while also enjoying this significant step forward in seeing the children together again.

Read my full Update from the Principal here for more details.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal