Primary News - June 3rd

Dear Parents and Students,

This week we continue with various end of term assessments, including the PTE and PTM tests taking place in weeks two and three. These form a crucial part of tracking students' progress, reporting and future planning.

The Parent-Teacher online interviews have opened for booking. Parents are encouraged to take this opportunity to speak to the Class Teachers about their child’s progress this year, their achievements and areas to develop further in the next school year. Please note that booking has been extended for an additional week and will close on Sunday 12th June at 4 pm.

A Parent Presentation and Transition Day for Year 6 parents and students were organised on Tuesday and Wednesday to support our Y6 transition, as students complete their Primary education and continue their educational journey into Secondary next year. Specialist Teachers prepared various activities for students to sample subjects from Art to Sciences as part of their academic programme next year.

Throughout this week, students have engaged in activities to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Year 6 and Year 5s, together with student visitors from OŠ Šmarje pri Jelšah, created colourful royal-themed collages, after planning their holidays during the Slovene lessons, as part of a collaborative project. Year 9 joined their younger peers in Early Years for some spectacular crown-making, which they thoroughly enjoyed.

As part of the BISL Olympics, students tried their skills in various exciting sporting events, such as the Long Jump Event, to gain House points for their teams! Organised weekly walks in Early Years have provided lots of opportunities for exploring nature in the nearby woodland areas, getting some fresh air and keeping fit. Year 5s ventured on an adventure to Postojna on Thursday to see one of the most captivating caves in the world and to find out about the history of knights at the Predjamski Castle. We look forward to more trips and events next week!

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 weekend.

Kind regards,Katarina Železinger, Head of Primary

Early Years

In the Early Years, we are continuing with the topic "Pirates". This week the children have been learning to follow directional language through a variety of treasure hunt games. To find as much treasure as possible, the students created their treasures by decorating their treasure chests with lots and lost sparkling paper. We have been working on how to read and create treasure maps with symbols on them as well as learning how “x” marks the spot.

In the Early Years, our little pirates have regularly been checking their wealth by counting coins in their treasure chests. To be as fast as we can whilst digging for treasure hidden in the sand, we have been practising using digging buttons of different shapes and separating them by colour.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

We have had a very productive week in Year 1! We created a friendship spider web by passing the web to our friends and saying why they are special to us. In English lessons, we looked at dictionaries and had an outside reading session. In Maths, we have been busy learning how to tell the time, by using the o’clock and half past vocabulary.

In Topic, we have created our own transport with legos, spoke about special transport we have travelled with and recreated the famous painting ‘Red Boats’ by Claude Monet using oil pastels.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

We have had a good and busy week in Year 2. The children have enjoyed taking part again in the BISL Olympics. This week they took part in the tennis ball throwing competition. Well done to all students that participated.

In Topic this week we virtually visited some wonderful buildings to see some fabulous stained glass windows and have had a go at creating our own. What creative students we have in year 2!

Ms Harris and Mrs Fordham

Year 3

Year 3 have been learning all about why keeping fit and healthy is important, but this week they also investigated how mobility, age and sensory-related challenges can be considered when planning sports and exercises, to ensure that everybody can still be involved!

Students learned about Paralympic sports for the blind such as goal ball, wheelchair basketball and testing machines invented to help understand age-related mobility difficulties. They then used this insight to invent new games, while volunteers represented wheelchair users, elderly with reduced mobility, and blind persons as team players.

Ms Blundell and Mr Kokalj

Year 4

Year 4 have been engaging in lots of different revision sessions for Mathematics. One of these involved small groups of students playing the equivalent fraction spoon game.

As we didn't have any spoons, it became a much more catchy-named game of Fork Fractions. Check out the rules in the link - a bit confusing to start but a race once it gets going.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

This week the children learnt about different types of caves and how they were formed in our Topic lessons.

On Thursday, the class then went on an exciting trip to Postojna Cave and Castle. The children saw first-hand stalagmites and stalactites and used their knowledge to identify what type of cave they were visiting. The favourite activity was having a go on the caves train as they could take in all of the sights. The class also very much enjoyed visiting the castle and learning the history behind it.

Mrs Thomas

Year 6

Year 6 students had the opportunity to go around the primary school and read their chapter books starting this week. The students greatly enjoyed sharing their stories, as much as the students in other year groups enjoyed listening to them.

It was a great way to showcase the talented authors we have in the school and the upcoming Year 5's are looking forward to getting the opportunity to create their own stories and share them next year.

Mr Bishop

Slovene

In the Early years Slovene lessons we talked about animals. We learned new vocabulary through a variety of activities, including singing and dancing to the song Zajček Dolgoušček (Rabbit Longears).

They did a great job memorising the lines as well as some amazing moves!

Ms Kotnik & Ms Košec

PE

We continued to complete a range of BISL Olympics events, across primary school PE lessons this week. It has been another brilliant week of sporting action, with some incredible individual and team performances.

Here are the results from the respective events:

Long Jump - completed last Friday

• Year 1: 3rd - Titus, 2nd - Atilla, 1st - Melvin

• Year 5: T3rd - Sven & Ana Nina, 2nd - Franja, 1st - Marlene

• Year 6: 3rd - Maksim, 2nd - Lev, 1st - Ivan

Long Throw - completed last Friday

• Year 5: T1st - Genta, Sven, Franja

Throwing Accuracy - completed last Friday

• Year 6: T2nd - Alina, Anna, Maxi & Mark, 1st - Maks

Year 2 completed a long throw event, with the results as follows:

• Year 2: 3rd - Paskal, T2nd - Mikolaj & Joshua, 1st - Stefan

Year 3 and Year 4 took part in handball competitions, with the scores as follows:

• Year 3: Zircon - 6, Hessonite - 8, Emerald - 15, Sapphire - 16

• Year 4: Zircon - 7, Hessonite - 12, Emerald - 13, Sapphire - 14

Year 5 and 6 handball competitions will take place later in the week.

Here are the current BISL Olympics scores - across the whole school (01/06/22):

• Zircon: 141

• Emerald: 149

• Sapphire: 158

• Hessonite: 162

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

PE Department

Donations Drive for Refugees

Following on from the many fundraising projects by our community in these last few months, from bake sales, clothing and food drives, to sporting events and donations, you can now join our efforts to support Slovenska filantropija in the final three weeks of the academic year and beyond.

They are currently accepting donations for various essential items including hygiene products, canned and dried goods, cleaning products, and essential foods, which can be dropped off directly at Cesta Dolomitskega odreda 11 between 9am-6pm on weekdays.

For details, please visit their aid page here.

Teacher Feature Series

For our final Teacher Feature of this academic year, we are delighted to bring you an insightful interview with the lovely Mrs Fordham, our Year 2 Class Teacher.

Read Mrs Fordham’s Teacher Feature here.

BISL Summer School 2022

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

Register Here

Dear Parents,

Thank you to all parents for attending the Coffee with the Principal this morning, I have included the points that we discussed in my full Update here.

With new deliveries arriving each week, we have updated the Sixth Form area in the new building and also included a gallery of pictures below that were shared out on our social media Facebook and Instagram pages yesterday (Thursday 2nd June).

We have grown as a school considerably over this year and continue to do so as we head into the summer. For the start of the 2022/23 academic year, we will be even bigger! Thank you to all parents and families for supporting the growth and success of the school. We could not do this without you.

Thank you to all staff for supporting students with the Adventure Day trips this week in Years 7 and 8, the photos look great and we know you had a wonderful time. Also, Year 5 out to Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle. In school, we have had a Year 6 transition evening for Parents, a Year 6 Transition Day and an EAL presentation for parents. Our students in lessons have been preparing for the PTE and PTM assessments, most have now completed these and the IGCSE and A Level examination are running for a final week before coming to a close. Thank you to all staff involved.

Following on from our promotion of safe driving and road safety, we are looking into possibly having some help in the mornings for children to cross the road safely. This was an excellent idea raised in the Coffee Morning to introduce a form of a crossing guard/lollipop man/lady. If you are interested in helping out, please let me know. This is also something we can start with for the next academic year.

As mentioned in the Coffee with the Principal this morning, we are looking forward to 15 further events over the coming weeks to really finish with many exciting and busy opportunities for our students, from the Sports Days to the Wizard of Oz! It is going to be quite a finish to Block 7.

I have also included some useful dates for Block 1, Term 1 for you to note with the Orientation Day (Friday 19th August) and the first Coffee with the new Principal - Mr Matthew Cox (Friday 2nd September). These are included below for you to save the date.

We've also included information in the newsletters for many more activities and celebrations for you to be involved in, a new donation drive, Pride:Diplomats for Equality, Summer Camp and much more!

Next week, we finish all assessments and exams on site, our reporting window will commence and the progress of our students will be shared soon after this. Well done to all students rehearsing for the Wizard of Oz, taking part in MEPI and the fundraising events! A great balance between fun events for students, working together and academic successes.

Finally, we held our first Year 13 Graduation in the new building last week. It was an amazing event and I have included all of the links below for the gallery of our incredible students! Well done to each and every single one involved, we wish you all the very best in the future and you are welcome to come back to BISL as you are always a part of our community!

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.