Primary News - January 7th 2022

Dear Parents and Students,

Welcome back to the New Year 2022 and the start of Term 2! We hope everyone has had a good break. It was lovely to see students returning to school, energised and ready to learn. We have had a number of new families joining this week and welcome them to the BISL community. Students have been able to enjoy a variety of activities indoors and outside, in many kinds of weather, including some fresh snow!

Our Block 3 celebrated Visual and Creative Arts and got everyone involved across the school. Have a look at the highlights, including videos of performances and the virtual art exhibition on the school website here. Don’t miss the COBIS Art Competition on March 22 and get your entries in! Here’s a photo of the wonderful display of student work from the Year 2 Topic of Celebrations.

Block 4 will promote the theme of Languages. Students will be able to teach their own language/s, as well as, learn some new language skills from their peers. With more than 40 different nationalities at BISL, this is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the cultural and linguistic diversity of our community. To start off their new Topic, the Year 4 class took a trip to Japan - find out more in the pages below!

Students will continue to self-test at school three times a week, with guidance from their class teacher and under the supervision of the school nurse. Please ensure that students wear a mask upon entering the school building and bring with them a self-testing kit (except for Early Years and Year 1). We currently have the Y2B class offsite, after transitioning to online learning at the beginning of the week. We aim to minimise disruption to learning and to keep everyone as safe as possible. I thank all parents, teachers and students in advance for following the guidance both in the school and in our wider communities.

Please continue to check the News section on our school website and read the latest Update from the Principal.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

Early Years

The Early Years would first like to wish everyone a happy New Year and all the best in 2022. It was an enjoyable first week back for Early Years after the winter break, with many students eager to tell all their stories from their holidays. In the Early Years, we have started our traditional tales topic and have learned to retell the story of the Gingerbread man. The children had fun working in teams and challenging themselves to compete in Gingerbread man relay races. To practice their fine motoric skills, the children manipulated homemade playdough into the shape of the Gingerbread man.

In Maths, the students were practising their counting skills, while helping the Gingerbread man count his buttons and match them to numerals. Our focus this week was on fast recognition of up to 3 objects without counting. With a little help from the Gingerbread man, the Nursery group was learning to compare quantities using language: ‘more than, ‘fewer than’, while the Reception group was learning about the relationship between consecutive numbers ‘one more than/one less than.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

Our new topic ‘Let’s dress up’ has offered us a wonderful opportunity to work in teams and make mind maps. Students worked extremely hard and were great team players. We have also been playing some fun games to practice our topic vocabulary.

In English we are focusing on traditional tales, this week we were reading different versions of the Three Little Pigs. In Maths, we practised skills of recognising one more and one less than a given number!

Ms Miklavec

Year 2A

As we have started a new Term and new Block, we changed to our new units across all subjects. In Topic, we have begun learning about living things; we thought about what makes something a living thing. During PSHE this week, we discussed what makes a good friend and how we can be good friends to others.

We created friendship flowers and we will use these in Topic to label parts of flowers. We are very excited about the coming weeks and learning about Living Things.

Ms Harris

Year 2B

This week 2B transitioned onto online learning. Children demonstrated an excellent attitude to learning and bravely set sail to their learning adventure in this new format. It has been fantastic hearing all about their Christmas holidays whilst planning our holiday recounts for English. In Maths, we are concluding the Unit on Data and will start learning about Fractions next week. We long to be back in school and wish everyone to stay safe and healthy.

Mrs Bradley

Year 3A

For the introduction of our new topic ‘Life on an island’ students took their survival bags and enjoyed picking the local fruits before a thunderstorm hit, and they had to find, or should I say build a shelter!

Ms Blundell

Year 4

Year 4 had a whirlwind trip to Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday, travelling from Year 4 Air Airport. It took us a while to get through check-in and security, with almost all students bringing in large suitcases filled with many items. The flight was exceptional - delicious food and drinks were served, along with multi-entertainment plus individual gift bags all delivered by 3 dedicated stewardesses.

The pilot and co-pilot worked hard to arrive on time, but unfortunately due to severe turbulence, we had a quick emergency landing. In the end, albeit late, we arrived safely in Tokyo and had the opportunity to partake in many tourist attractions (eating sushi, trying out chopsticks, sipping matcha tea, stroking lucky cats, and playing with Pokemon).

We are all eagerly awaiting our next trip, as Year 4 continues on with the Topic - Let's See the World!

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

This week, the children kicked off the block with a Roman fashion show. All of the children looked absolutely fantastic and made convincing Romans. The class also shared facts about a famous Roman which was interesting. Did you know Emperor Caligula loved his horse so much, he fed it oats and gold flakes… lucky horse.

In English, the students started to learn about what an autobiography and biography is and are excited about writing their own versions this block.

In maths, we have been recapping on subtraction, addition and fractions and have begun exploring measurement. This block is going to be so much fun.

Ms Thomas

Year 6

It was lovely to see (most) students back in school this week after our extended holiday period. Some winter snow has brightened the playground and students have come back revitalised and full of enthusiastic energy for the new term. This week, we have been continuing our unit of drugs education and the Human Body, which is enthralling students as they find out about the dangers of legal and illicit drugs, and how to stay safe regarding prescription medicine. Question time has never been so popular, I must say!

Mr Bishop

PE

Across primary PE this week we introduced our new unit, focusing on gymnastics and fitness. All students focused on the basic movement patterns required when taking part in gymnastics, developing their understanding of how the body moves and the importance of balance and flexibility. Using flashcards, students were then tasked with creating a small, gymnastics routine in groups - before performing it to the rest of the class.

PE Department

Slovene

Year 1 have been revising animals through diverse activities as a guessing game. This week students have been focusing on their own stories about animals they like. They were pretty creative and enthusiastic about their group projects and focused all their energy on them. Some of them have found a few ideas in fairy tales about animals, others have used their imagination. They can't wait to present their stories and name all animals which are part of them.

Year 2 students were learning about full stops and question marks and how it affects reading aloud. And where did they practice reading? Well, everywhere!

Slovene Department

MEPI News

A big welcome back and ‘Srečno novo leto!’ to all of our MEPI participants, dedicated MEPI staff, and All! The big news this week is that the MEPI team at BISL has organised a first aid course with the Red Cross (Rdeči Križ), to be held at school on Saturday 29th January, starting at 8:30, and finishing at 13:00. ALL are welcome!

This is a mandatory course for our MEPI participants (and the price is already covered in their MEPI Annual Fee), but there are extra places that we need to fill. So, staff, parents, secondary students, family etc. are all invited to sign-up for this invaluable experience, which will give you the skills that could save a life one day!

The cost is €30.50, and I urge anyone who doesn't have first aid training to attend. The course will be in English, although the medical professional is a native Slovene speaker, so a little translation will not be an issue if you have Slovene as your first language.

Please confirm your attendance, and/or direct any questions to simon.irving@britishschool.si.

We very much look forward to seeing you there.

Mr Irving, MEPI Coordinator

Language Block

In this block, we are celebrating languages. It aims to promote the rich linguistic diversity of our school and raise awareness of the importance of lifelong learning for everyone. Languages are related to each other like the members of a family and it will be great to see how students will show their knowledge of their mother tongue as well as support each other in learning new languages.

Teacher Feature

The first Teacher Feature of 2022 introduces our Head of English, Mr Fordham - read it here!

Dear Parents,

I hope you have had a restful and relaxing Christmas and I'd like to wish you all the very best for 2022 and a Happy New Year!

We've had a busy week back at school as we arranged extra self-testing on Tuesday and Wednesday this week to ensure that we were all as safe as possible. As sent out on Wednesday, we have one class currently online learning and with the daily cases increasing this week, we hope that everyone in the community remains as safe as possible. Thank you to all parents for making sure that children had self-testing kits during the first day back, this really helped and I very much appreciate this.

Two changes to guidance we have made are below:

• If a class is sent home for online learning for 10 days, any siblings of students who test negative on the 6th day can return after the 7th day to their relevant year groups. We would need proof of a negative test and vaccination to proceed. Otherwise, they would have to wait for the full 10 days with the other students.

• To avoid quarantine, there are 3 scenarios where this can occur: 1. triple vaccinated students and staff; 2. double vaccinated and recovered from covid; 3. those that have recovered from covid in the last 45 days but not within the last 10 days avoid quarantine if they do not have symptoms.

Our testing will return to Monday, Wednesday and Friday next week from Monday 10th January. We continue to follow guidance from the ministry and also to ask our contact directly for information pertaining to our school and community.

For parents who have recently joined the school, online learning may be a new experience for you. Please click on the Virtual Learning Guide for a few guidelines about online learning at BISL.

Again, I have to praise our students that continue to approach self-testing very calmly and in a very mature manner, the students who have been vaccinated, and for how well they have all followed health and safety guidelines since they have been back to school this week. The students have been fantastic and we are all so proud of them. This has been a huge positive this week and they have been able to focus back on lessons, learning and having fun!

We have had an amazing Creative Arts block before Christmas during Block 3, please click here to see the wonderful write up and list of the many activities that we had.

Also, we have had some wonderful experiences this week from our students learning outside in the woodland area, in the snow and enjoying being with friends. This is a very important part of school life at BISL:

• Thank you to parents for ensuring children have warm coats, gloves, hats and footwear to play outside.

• We will keep encouraging students and staff to enjoy the fresh air

• We all promote an active and healthy lifestyle

• Unless there is heavy rain or extreme weather, we dress for the conditions and enjoy the climate of Slovenia.

Health and Safety - Please Drive Slowly

Thank you to all parents who have supported our 'Drive Safely' campaign we have started this week. We look forward to many projects from our staff and students as we encourage all parents to drive slowly and carefully throughout the school campus.

Our projects will include:

• Primary and Secondary Poster Competition

• Safety Slogan Competition

• Student Articles - 'Drive Safely'

• Student Council projects

• New safety signs at the entrance of our campus

• Working with our local police to report any unsafe driving

Next week, we will have a police presence on the road joining the school and on site. The speed limit on our road is 30 kph (Cesta 24. junija, from the train line and Ludus to school) and on site is 20 kph. We will continue to do our very best to ensure that all students can arrive to and depart from school safely.

Health and Safety - No smoking on site

I would like to ask all parents to not smoke on the school campus as we had an incident this week on site with a parent smoking. This is a no smoking campus and this is not allowed anywhere near the building or around the students. Thank you in advance for following this and supporting the health and safety of the students, staff and parents.

Next up we have a very exciting Languages block! - we look forward to a range of interesting, engaging and fun activities from our languages team!

Thank you to everyone who joined me for the Coffee with the Principal online this morning! I have included the points shared from the meeting, as well as other health & safety guidance in my full Update from the Principal.

Have a great weekend.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.