Primary News - April 8th

Dear Parents and Students,

Block 6 has started and the first week back has already been packed with various events, trips and competitions. On Wednesday, the Y1 and Y6 students delivered wonderful and passionate performances for the second Spring Concert in the new theatre. Thank you to all parents who came to support and applaud our talented students. You can see photos of these and other events on our school website Galleries. We look forward to Y4 and Y5 students performing next week on Wednesday 13th April at 4 pm.

The second round of the Kangaroo Maths competition took place on Wednesday. The selected Y6 students that made it to the second round competed with students from other schools and we await the results. Good luck to all!

The Science team has prepared many exciting activities for students across the school for this block to celebrate and promote the love of the subject. Activities include students taking part in demonstrations, experiments and projects, as well as, learning about exotic animals. The Y6 and Y4 class were able to explore areas of science, technology and innovations on their trip to the Tehnopark in Celje this Friday. These are fantastic opportunities for students to expand on their skills and knowledge in related subjects.

I would like to wish all parents a happy Parent Appreciation Day, which was celebrated on Friday. The students did an amazing job in showing their gratitude and thanks in the cards and messages created, and we hope you enjoy these. It was also nice for staff and parents to be able to meet for breakfast and appreciate the delicious treats. It makes a huge difference to be able to have parents coming into the school for these events and we hope to be able to continue to do so in the future.

Have a lovely weekend ahead.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger, Head of Primary

Early Years

What a busy week it was for our Early Year’s students! To kick-start our next topic “Plants and Flowers” the children had fun discussing and exploring the changes in nature. Sunny spring days make our outdoor area a perfect learning environment. We set the planters, ready to plant sunflowers, and practised how to take care of flowers in the new Flower Shop role-play area.

For an immersive flower experience, the Early Years students made playdough flowers and created colourful fingerprint flowers too. Besides getting familiar with the lifecycle of flowers, the children have also learned how to name parts of a flower and sort them into groups.

In Maths, the Reception children were learning how to count and recognise numbers up to 20 through the sunflower number lines activity, while the Nursery students were learning how to order the numerals from 0 to 10.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

What better way to begin the new block than with an excellent performance in our new Performance Theatre! I am sure you could feel how excited Y1 students were to perform on a big stage.

We have taken advantage of the wonderful warm weather and had a ‘letter hunt’ to find out the name of our new topic. After numerous word combinations, we formed the new Topic name - ‘Life on our planet’! In Maths, we have been breaking down numbers into tens and ones and have been practising counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s without the Maths spider friend. We have been writing cards in English lessons, which you will see very soon!

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

What a great first week back we have had in Year 2! We started our English this week by writing the recount of our holidays.

They were great and the children have clearly had some fun on their break. We have also started our new class text of the Green-Eyed Monster and will be learning about fantasy fiction this block. In Maths, we have been finishing off time and in Topic we have moved on to ‘H2O’ thinking about water around the world.

Ms Harris and Mrs Fordham

Year 3

This week Year 3 began their new Topic subject on 'Saving Planet Earth' named The Lungs of the World. Much of the focus in the coming weeks will be on Rainforests. What better way to gain an understanding of the environment than to research and make our own classroom Rainforest!

Ms Blundell and Mr Kokalj

Year 4

READING CAROUSEL

As a fun way of practising the spelling and comprehension of this week's spelling words, Mrs Charlesworth's reading carousel group wrote short stories including all of the 10 spelling words. It was not an easy task, but the students rose to the challenge.

Mrs Charlesworth

Read one of the year 4 stories here:

Detective Magic by Dominic

“It's been three years since I overheard the discussion about me going to an exhibition. What was that????” said Mark. A peculiar thing stood in the distance. The position was 30° to the east and 30° to the west.

I touched what seemed to look like an orb and it zapped me and zapped me until I fainted. A nearby team found me and the operation team got me admitted to a special car to transport me to the hospital. When I woke I felt very weird and it turns out when I looked in the mirror I saw that the orb I touched was literally in both my left and right eye, making me look like a herobrine!!!

The doctor said that I have extraordinary powers but I would learn to control them. So I admit I was in the temple that I should not have been in.

Dr Luke said ‘You were 5280 feet from this city, the calculation of the temple was at 20° to the east, 30° to the north, 50° to the south and the west.’

I said ‘Thank you!!!’

So I was off on my way to my hotel but I stopped at a local construction building (a museum). I looked at the top of the museum and I teleported to the top of the building.

’Wow! I am going to become a detective so I can learn how to control these powers and the ones that I have not unlocked.’

To be continued….

Year 5

This week has been very exciting. The children have been introduced to their new Topic - making things go, and they cannot wait to begin their science investigations. This week, they experimented with cookies and tested gravity with lots of different materials.

During this block, they will be visiting the science lab and using the robotics room - very exciting lessons ahead.

Mrs Thomas

Year 6

Year 6 students have had a very eventful week. Firstly, I was really proud of them as 7 students from the year level, progressed to the regional stage of the International Kangaroo Maths Challenge, where they all performed admirably. Alongside a Year 8 student, this was the largest number of students we have ever had progress to the 2nd stage.

We have also just returned from a fantastic trip with the Year 4 students to Celje, where we visited the Tehno Park, a brilliant science and technology museum where the students learned various scientific concepts and principles through interactive activities, and even experienced VR hangliding and plank walking from a 30 storey building to get the heart racing.

Mr Bishop

Slovene

Years 1 and 2 have been revising food vocabulary this time. Students have observed pictures of diverse international cuisines such as Slovene cuisine, British cuisine, Italian cuisine, Mexican cuisine and American cuisine ...

Their mission was to draw one of the cuisines and name any food they like and recognise in Slovene.

They have also collaborated in plenty of activities such as guessing the food, dancing and singing with enthusiasm. Well done Years 1 and 2! Kar tako naprej!

Slovene Department

EAL

Some of the EAL students got to experience some grammar through more than just the usual senses, by eating crackers. While one of the students was eating the crackers, the others had to guess how they were eating them. Adverbs!

Needless to say, everyone loved the experience (and hopefully, some even remembered what adverbs are for).

Mr Siter

PE

We introduced new sporting units throughout PE this week. Years 1 and 2 undertook some basic nitroball activities, working on how to position the body in relation to the ball and the concept of rallying. Years 3 and 4 began their football unit, focusing on the importance of passing and possession when trying to achieve a collective team goal. Years 5 and 6 were introduced to the fundamentals of floor hockey, focusing on how to hold the stick, keep the ball under control and pass to a teammate effectively.

PE Department

Primary Art Club

WE STILL NEED PLASTIC AND CLOTHES DONATIONS

Art Club Students are going to create some outdoor artwork on the playground, by weaving designs into the metal fencing. To do this we are asking for help, to collect materials to cut up and use.

We would like your help to collect single colour old clothes such as:

• T-shirts

• Shirts

• Skirts

• Dresses

We are also collecting old, colourful plastic bags for the same purpose

Art Club Student say:

Thank you for your help!

Ms Blundell

Sixth Form Bake Sale

A word from our Sixth Form students:

As we continue our donation drive, we would like to announce a bake sale that we are organising at school on Wednesday the 13th of April. It will be taking place in the woodland area for both primary and secondary students during the morning break and then during lunch break. We will be selling brownies, chocolate muffins, chocolate chip cookies etc.

There will be nut-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, and vegan options included so that everyone will be able to enjoy the goods. Allergens contained will be displayed in front of the product along with the price which will start from 1.50 Euros.

All the money collected from the bake sale will be used to fund Humanitarian Aid, which is why we would really appreciate your participation and support.

Thank you.

Ewa, Semiha, Ekaterina, Year 12

Technology Club

The British International School of Ljubljana has registered for the 2022 Coding Challenge, using Discovery Education Coding. Students aged 5-12 will be guided through a sequence of activities to familiarise themselves with the platform and develop their coding skills, before unleashing their creativity to design their own app!

For the past few weeks, the Technology Club pupils have been gaining a thorough understanding of coding concepts like algorithms, sequences, and variables - as well as developing computational thinking skills through decomposition, logical reasoning, and problem-solving.

This year the theme of the COBIS competition is A difficult journey. Students should create an app that simulates a journey to find an important object. Students can make their journey difficult or dangerous, with obstacles to overcome along the way. The adventure is in their hands!

Mr Kokalj

Science Block Challenges

Block 6 celebrates all things Science - and throughout the block, the Science team will release a bank of practical challenges to ignite everyone's curiosity for science and engineering!

You’ll find new sets of practicals on our website here each week to try at home.

Spring Concert - Year 1 & 6

What a fantastic performance from our Year 1 and Year 6 students this week! Take a look at our Spring Concert Gallery here.

Parent Appreciation Day Gallery

It was lovely to see so many of you on Friday morning for our Parent Appreciation Breakfast! Thank you to all parents for everything you do - enjoy the handmade cards that the students will be taking home for you this weekend.

You will find our Gallery of photos here.

International Day Planning Meeting

Come along on Thursday, April 14 at 8am if you are interested in getting involved in International Day! We will be meeting in the Assembly Hall to discuss ideas and logistics for the International Day Fair, taking place on Friday May 13, where there will be a variety of cultural and educational activities, stalls, traditional dress, flags, international cuisine, games and performances for our community to enjoy.

See you on Thursday April 14 at 8am in the Assembly Hall for the Planning Meeting!

BISL PTA

Pro Peace Football Tournament

Last Saturday, 2 April, the diplomatic representations in Slovenia, friends of Ukraine, and the European Commission, together with a team of Slovenian journalists and our local hosts (a local high school), organised a “Pro Peace Tournament/Turnir za mir”. The British International School of Ljubljana were proud to provide trophies, certificates, student-made posters and a plaque for the event!

Library Book Donations

In partnership with the PTA, we are accepting donations of books to our library throughout block 6 and encourage everyone to bring in their used books - in any language - and drop it off at Reception.

In the final block of the academic year we are also looking to organise a book fair - watch this space!

BISL Summer School 2022

With summer just around the corner, registration is now open for BISL Summer School 2022!

Click here for details.

Dear Parents,

It is very exciting to be in Term 3 as we have many events ahead of us to enjoy!

First of all, thank you to all Parents for attending the Parents Appreciation Day. It is a wonderful annual event and a great way to recognise the support from parents in the community, a day solely to focus on thanking parents for your positive contributions is very important and something we look forward to each year. Today is simply about showing appreciation and gratitude in a positive and heartfelt way.

During the block break we had a great LEGO robotics workshop on the Monday for students to attend. Thank you to Ms Burtrand and all students involved, as we are passionate about creating many opportunities for students to code, problem-solve and think creatively.

A quick shout out to our wonderful MEPI team who continue to offer a range of activities for students (14-18 years old) to explore Slovenia, develop further knowledge and life skills, teamwork and to embrace a range of challenges as part of the Duke of Edinburgh's International Award! Well done to all students and staff involved and good luck in the coming months in the future expeditions and events!

I have included a gallery below of photos from the Pro Peace Tournament last Saturday 2nd April. Thank you to the diplomatic representations in Slovenia and a special mention to Mr Anton Niculescu and the Romanian Embassy for organising such a wonderful event.

I really appreciated being involved, it was amazing to see a range of people playing football, and I am very grateful for the support of everyone who attended. It was a real privilege to provide trophies, certificates, student-made posters and a plaque for the event. In school, we have also had a very successful donation drive by our Sixth Form students, a collection of clothes, a gift to the Red Cross and now have a further Bake Sale event on Wednesday 13th April to continue our support. Thank you to everyone for helping out with these 5 events.

We have had further recognition at BISL this year through our 'Exemplary' EAL provision by the Bell Foundation. The support and development of students in their English language acquisition and the wonderful progress they make, is a real strength of our school, and is a true testament of the hard work and dedication by our staff.

As mentioned in my last update, during Term 3 and in this next block, we have a variety of parent events and opportunities for you to come into school. Please see the events page of the website to find out more as these include:

• Spring Concert (Year 4 and 5) 4pm, 13th April

• Coffee with the Principal 8am, Friday 6th May

• International Days Thursday 12th and Friday 13th May

Have a lovely weekend!

Kind regards,

Paul Walton, Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.