Primary News - May 27th

Dear Parents and Students,

The theme of Block 7 is Physical Education (PE). Everyone is encouraged to participate in a variety of challenges and activities, including BISL Olympics and Run for the Oceans.

With the summer approaching and hot temperatures rising, students have learned about keeping safe from the sun and ticks and staying hydrated. Advice and tips on these topics can be found on the school website. Please remind students to bring in a summer hat/cap for outdoor play and to have a refillable water bottle at school.

In weeks 2, 3 and 4 of this Block, students from Reception class through to Y9 will be taking the Progress Tests in English and Maths (PTE and PTM). Together with other GL and formative assessments, these serve to track and report on student progress and inform future planning by identifying students’ academic strengths and areas to develop. Please read the email sent out for further information on BISL assessments and ensure that your child has a set of headphones (for Y2-Y6 only).

Primary Summer Reports will be issued at the end of the school year. These include reports on core subjects of English, Maths and Topic, as well as, Slovene Advanced and EAL classes. Parent-Teacher Interviews in Primary will be organised online in the last two weeks from 13th-24th June. Parents will be able to book these from Monday 30th May, as per instructions sent out.

EY Reception and Nursery students enjoyed a visit to the Fridolin kindergarten this week, to meet and interact with other international students. Next week, the Y5 students will be exploring the Postojna Caves and Castle. We are also excited to be hosting students from OŠ Šmarje pri Jelšah visiting the Y5 and Y6 as part of their collaborative projects in Slovene lessons.

A very special occasion this week was the Year 13 Graduation Ceremony, marking the end of the educational journey at BISL for these graduates, some of which have been here for a decade. We are very proud of all Year 13 Graduates, their achievements and their contribution to the school community during their time at BISL, and we wish them the best of luck in their future endeavours.

Please see the sections below for more exciting news from classes and subject departments. As always, you can keep up with the latest News and Events on the school website.

Have a lovely sunny weekend.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

Early Years

All aboard!

This week we started with the topic that we have all been waiting for: Pirates! The story “Pirate Pete” by Nick Sharratt has inspired us to make one large-scale pirate ship on our own. Children used junk model resources to work together to create portholes and didn’t forget about the most important part of the pirate ship: the plank. The children were learning to identify and name different parts of the pirate ship as well as practicing pirate-related vocabulary.

When they didn’t sail the ocean with their new pirate ship, Early Years students had fun in the pirates' small world area, where the ships were smaller, but the battles seemed to be even more heated.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

We started our last school block by practising comprehension skills during our English lessons and we began looking at telling time in Maths lessons. We have been speaking about clockwise and anticlockwise turns and making half and quarter turns to begin with.

In our Topic lessons, we have been looking at vehicles from the past and the present and have taken many of our lessons outside. We even had a relay race through which we practiced new vocabulary. It has been lovely to see students independently writing stories in their own time and sharing them in class.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

We have had a good first week back in Year 2. The children have enjoyed the start of the BISL Olympics as part of the PE block, doing some fantastic long jump! Thank you to all parents and students for bringing in headphones. In English, we started the week off talking about what we did during the break and writing up our recounts. They were very interesting and you all clearly had wonderful breaks.

In Maths we have completed our assessment and been going over multiples of 2, 3, 5 and 10. Then in Topic we have started our new topic of Let’s Go, which will be taking us all over the world!

Ms Harris and Mrs Fordham

Year 3

As part of their new topic, the year 3 students have been measuring their heart rate whilst exercising.

They are learning about the effects of regular exercise and eating healthy on our hearts and the rest of our circulatory system.

Ms Blundell and Mr Kokalj

Year 4

SHARK TANK TIME

As part of the Literacy unit on explanation texts and information texts, Year 4 students created their very own unique inventions. Some of which were even physically created in 3D or in Minecraft. They then created their own brochures to sell these products: including the purpose, market, how it works, size, cost etc. Some students even included statistical analysis from their market.

The final task was for the students to present their inventions to the sharks of Shark Tank in order to require funding. As you can see from the photos both the sharks and investors took things very seriously.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

This block kicked off with an exciting entry point in Topic where the children became the creators of a new country.

They explored time zones, seasons, and coordinates and looked at continents in detail. The children are very enthused to continue with this topic and learn more about our beautiful world.

Mrs Thomas

Year 6

This week, the Year 6's have been very busy doing all the end of term tests, and now that almost all tests have been done, we can look forward to completing our films and going on a wonderful residential trip in a couple of weeks. We will also be continuing our space exploration unit and doing a lot of problem solving tasks until the end of the term, mixed in with a bit of cricket and running to save the oceans, with an aim of hitting 5km until the end of the block!

Mr Bishop

Slovene Foundation

Years 5 and 6 have been preparing a short video of our school for students of OŠ Šmarje pri Jelšah. Firstly, a couple of students prepared and read the text about our school in English and Slovene. They have been working really hard on this project and have done amazing work. We then recorded our school and ourselves waving at the end. Finally, we combined everything and shared it with our friends at OŠ Šmarje pri Jelšah.

We can't wait to see a video of their school and students as well.

Well done Years 5 and 6!

Ms Košec

Slovene Advanced

The Year 1 Slovene Advanced group have been working really hard this week. We started the week with a listening activity about giraffes in a ZOO. The students showed excellent listening and memorising skills and were able to answer even the tricky questions. They then practised reading and gaining new vocabulary with Svetlana Makarovič`s poem Črni muc, kaj delaš?

Well done, everybody!

The Year 5 & 6 Advanced group worked on grammar this week. They learnt what adjectives are and are now able to name them with new terminology - lastnostni, vrstni and svojilni. They also explored a Croatian island called Jabuka and listed all pros and cons of why it would be good to visit. They then described the island using only adjectives.

Good job, Y5 & 6

Ms Kotnik

PE

We kicked off the PE Block with the BISL Olympics, with all of the students taking part in a range of events.

All year groups took part in a long jump competition, with some superb athleticism on display.

Every student taking part registered one point for their house, with the top 3 participants in each year group scoring additional points.

Here are the top 3 jumpers from each year group so far:

• Year 2: 3rd - Elton, 2nd - Paskal, 1st - Jim

• Year 3: 3rd - Alexander, 2nd - Max, 1st - Žak

• Year 4: 3rd - Dominic, 2nd - Christina, 1st - Luka

Year 3 & 4 also completed a long throw event, with the results as follows:

• Year 3: 3rd - Darius, 2nd - Alexander, 1st - Gabriel

• Year 4: 3rd - Luka, 2nd - Urs, 1st - Dominic

Here are the current BISL Olympics scores (correct as of 26/05/22):

• Zircon: 53

• Sapphire: 56

• Hessonite: 63

• Emerald: 76

The BISL Olympics will continue throughout the whole school, across Block 7.

PE Department

EAL Presentation for Parents

The EAL department would like to invite you to the EAL Presentation for Parents on Monday May 30 at 4pm in the new Assembly Hall, where we will discuss various topics regarding the EAL Provision at BISL such as:

• Identification of EAL needs through EAL assessment of new students and tracking of student progress.

• Why early intervention through effective EAL provision is important for ensuring success in students' educational journey.

• Continued development of the EAL Programme using the latest research and professional training for teachers.

• Quality assurance of the EAL Programme through the BELL Accreditation.

• Further areas and questions (from participants).

The event will be held on site:

• WHERE: in the Assembly Hall of the new building

• WHEN: Monday 30th May 2022 at 16:00

Please park your car in the public parking area and access the school via the main entrance of the new building.

EAL Department

Coffee with the Principal

Join Mr Walton for the final monthly Coffee with the Principal on Friday June 3 from 8am in the Assembly Hall. The agenda will include updates and plans moving forward for the next academic year.

BISL Summer School 2022

Registration for BISL Summer School 2022 is closing soon! Don’t miss out - register your child(ren) for their summer adventure by clicking on the link below.

Register Here

Dear Parents,

It seems only yesterday since the International Days and yet so many events, activities and projects have been completed since!

Before I run through these, I would like to thank all parents for supporting our International Days events, from the Opening Ceremony to the Food Fair, it was a succession of wonderful experiences for our students, thank you.

During the block break we hosted a Year 6 LEGO Robotics programming workshop. Thank you to Mr Kokalj for leading this!

We've had maintenance updates (new stage curtain pictures in my full Update!) with improvements in the new building in the Performance Theatre, outdoor storage for Early Years (gardening tools, resources and equipment), an upgrade with our Wifi throughout the school, textbooks arriving for 2022/23 and new student work displayed in school. Also, painting, air-con service, health and safety checks, and woodland area and site maintenance have taken place. Thank you to Andrej and the admin team for your work on this to keep our school looking fantastic and running well.

All parents should have received a list of the new teachers joining next year and the parents of our Primary classes will have received a letter from the teacher your child will have from August 2022 to introduce themselves and include some useful links.

In my full Update, I have included some important links sent out by our School Nurse, Mrs Rismondo. These include information regarding prevention and protection of various health areas - sun protection, tick prevention and hydration - as we enjoy the summer term. Having the privilege of such a beautiful outdoor environment, warmer sunny days and working near nature also brings the opportunity for us to help keep everyone safe.

A huge well done to all students involved in the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust International Junior competition. Mathematics is a strength of our school and we have seen excellent results over the past few years through Primary and Secondary. Thank you to our Head of Mathematics, Mr. Batson, and the whole school team of Ms Zupanc, Ms Andronikos and Mr Bishop. We look forward to the next set of results in the PTM (Progress Test Maths), which start next week throughout the entire school.

We have finished a very successful Science block, please check our website to see the wide range of wonderful Science opportunities created by our Science Team. Thank you to Ms Tušar and her team Mr MacNeill, Mr Stanic, Ms Prohart and Mr Ogrin for working with staff throughout Primary and Secondary. A massive amount of time, effort and passion into a whole host of events. Well done to everyone!

As I enter my last block as Principal of BISL, I will have a final monthly Coffee Morning on Friday 3rd June at 8.00am in the Assembly Hall for parents. I will include updates and plans moving forward for next year. It is also a chance for parents to come in, meet, mix and mingle with others in the community.

Finally, I wanted to say a big congratulations to the Year 13 class who graduated today from BISL! They have faced unique challenges over the past few years with changes to exams, online learning and much more, but the way in which they have conducted themselves has been incredibly impressive and at times, incredible by these young adults. On behalf of all of the staff at BISL, we sincerely wish each and every single one of you all of the very best in the future!

Please read my full Update from the Principal here for details, links and photos.

Have a lovely weekend.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton, Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.