Primary News - February 18th 2022

Dear Parents and Students,

Following the block break, everyone has returned to school refreshed and full of energy to start on their new Topics and subject areas. As part of Safer Internet Day, students engaged in various activities aiming to raise awareness of emerging online issues and current concerns around the areas of social networking and digital identity. Through these activities, our students learn how to keep safe online and tackle issues such as cyberbullying. Parents can further support their children by talking about online safety at home. Further information and resources can be found on our website under E-safety at BISL.

We are very excited to be able to open placements for student teachers again at BISL, following restrictions in the past years. This week we welcomed three student teachers from the NHL Stenden University for their nine-week teaching practice as part of the International Teacher Education for Primary Schools (ITEps) programme. They will be working with students and teachers in our Y2, Y3 and Y5 classes. The benefits of having a student teacher in a class are many: they further support student learning and share new perspectives and different approaches that help our teachers to adapt their practice, which fosters more engagement and enthusiasm, with renewed vigour and excitement.

At the end of Term 2, we will be issuing the Primary Specialist Subject Reports for Performing Arts, Physical Education and Modern Foreign Languages (French and Slovene Foundation programme), and for students attending our EAL programme. Parent-Teacher online interviews will be organised for parents to discuss their child’s progress in these subjects. More information on booking your slot will be sent out with links and instructions.

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

Have a great weekend.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

Early Years

In the Early Years, we just started our ‘Animals’ topic, where we will be learning about different animals, which can be found all around the world, from the jungle to the arctic. We started our week with the wonderful story ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell, which helped us identify those animals that can be kept as pets, why we keep them, and how to properly look after them. To support our learning, the children created homes for pets and Zoo animals, using junk model materials.

The Reception created their own Zoo book, in which they choose a picture of an animal and wrote the animal name underneath. The Nursery had fun learning new vocabulary while searching for pet pictures in the sand.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

What a busy week it has been! Inspired by the book Mr Postman’s Rounds we have been writing letters to Mr Dragon.

We planned out the letters within groups, which all came up with amazing ideas! In Maths we have been learning about measuring weight and using balancing scales to compare the weight of objects. Our Topic lessons have been focused on the legend of Robin Hood.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

This week Year 2 started with celebrating Valentine's Day by making cards and flowers for our loved ones. In Topic, we started a new unit where we will be exploring where food comes from.

To see how food could be grown, students planted bean seeds in their individual pots. We cannot wait to see our plants grow in the coming weeks.

Ms Bradley and Ms Harris

Year 3

This week the Year 3 students were completing their 3D diorama of an island formation to present to the class. It needed to show which of the 5 types of island it is and it needed to include a river formation that reaches the sea.

The students explained where in the world we might find their island using compass directions. Their dioramas also displayed human and physical features on the island.

Ms Blundell and Mr Kokalj

Year 4

Let's celebrate the LOVE by creating STEAM love hearts.

Year 4 shared these with their family members and friends.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

What an exciting first week back in school. The children kick-started the block by becoming news reporters. They were very excited to bring in their own props and create their own scripts. In English, the children wrote recounts of their holidays and looked into headlines from different news resources.

In Maths, the children learnt how to calculate the mean, mode, median and range and investigated algebra.

Ms Thomas

Year 6

This week, Year 6 students completed their works of art and their musical accompaniment to create an appropriate atmosphere for the viewers in our gallery. I was very impressed with the high quality of many of their artworks, though I am a little afraid of the somewhat macabre theme of some of their masterpieces!

Students are also well into their chapter books and from what I have read thus far, I would hazard a guess that we will have some famous authors graduating from BISL in the future! The completed stories will be published and shared with primary students for their enjoyment.

Mr Bishop

Slovene

Years 5 and 6 have been extremely creative this week during Slovene. As you are already aware they are collaborating with students from OŠ Šmarje pri Jelšah. This time they have focused on creating their own bookmarks (knjižne kazalke) for them. Our students come from different countries across the globe, so each decided to draw a landmark from their home country and write something nice in a native language, Slovene or English. With this task, we finished our topic Languages around the world in a style.

We can't wait for our bookmarks to be delivered to our new friends. We are pretty sure that we will receive some as well and keep them as positive memories of our beautiful friendship.

Zelo dobro 5. in 6. razred. Kar tako naprej!

Slovene Advanced

Y3/4 students of Slovene Advanced class have shown some amazing presentations about animals. Their task was to follow criteria on how to describe an animal and they put a lot of effort into it.

They also presented their work with confidence and it was great to see how they answered the questions from their peers.

Well done!

Slovene Department

PE

During our PE lessons this week, we introduced a range of new sporting topics - working on the theme of invasion and movement games. Years 1 & 2 began their basketball block by developing a range of basic skills, whilst Years 3 & 4 were introduced to tactical and spatial awareness concepts when playing Swedish Handball. Years 5 & 6 explored the importance of teamwork and possession when playing Handball, focusing on the importance of moving the ball quickly and maintaining tactical shape on the field of play.

PE Department

EAL

Barrier games are an excellent way to get students to construct dialogue and practice their speaking skills as well as learn new vocabulary. Both students have a set of information that the other person needs and they need to talk to each other to find that information.

Our Year 5 & 6 students enjoyed such activity while constructing a dialogue about shopping for clothes. In the end, some of them even got to act it out.

Mr Siter

MEPI News

This MEPI offering comes in two parts. The first is an account of a fantastic presentation from our Silver participant, Taja, to our Bronze level participants, and the second part is from the Bronze participants’ perspective, written by Zoja. Many thanks to both of you for your time and effort!

Mr Irving

MEPI Coordinator

“On Monday the 14th of February, I gave a presentation on the topic of setting the expedition goal to the current MEPI participants in order to help them with the process of determining their own goals. (As this can be quite a tricky task.)

During the presentation, we covered topics such as why we need an expedition goal in the first place, what is the structure of setting a goal. I provided some goal examples and talked more about how to present their expedition findings after the ‘Adventurous Journey’. We concluded the presentation by asking the students to come up with their own goal ideas together in smaller groups, in order to put the theory into practice.

I wish everyone a lot of luck in their future expeditions.”

Taja, MEPI Silver Participant

“This week we looked at what our goals could be for the expedition so that we would not just cross the finish line but also have a purpose for the expedition. This goal could be to collect flowers along the way on our expedition and then make tea with them at the end, or possibly look at the architecture of the buildings, and take photos along the way.

We had an amazing presentation delivered to us by our year 11 participants, and we learned how to develop our goals. Later on, we were split into groups to brainstorm our ideas for goals that we would actually enjoy doing. The expedition would take 2 days, so our goal should be something that we all find fun in order to keep us interested!”

Zoja, Bronze MEPI Participant

Primary Spelling Bee

This block, the English Language team are very excited to announce that we will be celebrating spelling in English. All students are encouraged to join in, their teachers will be giving them the spelling lists to learn. Week 3 will see all students join in the preliminary round and Week 6 the final round. Don't forget to check out the primary weekly newsletters for fun spelling activities to try out and for our eventual winners. Good luck to all!

This week, try playing varying degrees of difficulty crossword puzzles online here. Please note that some of the words may not be quite what you expect.

For younger students, colour away!

Safer Internet Day

Safer Internet Day was celebrated at BISL this week, on the theme of 'An internet we trust: exploring reliability in the online world'. Keeping safe online is an important part of safeguarding in our school, therefore we regularly revisit this topic in our assemblies and PSHE lessons.

The internet gives young people access to a world of information. At BISL we wish to ensure that pupils are using the internet safely and know how to critically assess the source and content of what they access, for example, how to identify facts from opinions online?

Teachers have reported that students had a lot to say and that they were very much engaged in spirited discussions on safer internet practices while they touched on a range of topics. The students discussed openly and shared tips on how to deal with cyberbullying, age-appropriate social media content, protecting personal information, and what they think about how involved parents should be in their online activities.

We are looking forward to celebrating this event again next year.

Mr Kokalj

Primary ICT Coordinator

Academic Calendar 2022-23

Our academic calendar for the next academic year 2022-2023 is now available on our website here.

The academic year will commence on Monday August 22, with Orientation Day taking place on Friday August 19.

Uniform Shop - Now LIVE

In an effort to provide sustainable and high-quality school uniform, we have partnered with Trutex as our School Uniform provider, with warehouses within the EU to make your uniform shopping experience all the more convenient.

For uniform requirements, our school code and to start shopping, please click here.

Staffing Update

Ms Stephanie Andronikos has tendered her resignation from the Head of Secondary Position. She has accepted a leadership position elsewhere and we congratulate and thank her for her wonderful contribution to the development of BISL.

Pust Celebration

On Tuesday March 1 we’ll be celebrating Pust, where we do our part to help chase winter away with a colourful carnival of masks, fancy dress, and of course KROF (doughnuts)!

Coffee with the New Principal

During next month's online Coffee Morning, on Friday March 4 at 9am via Zoom, our parents will have the wonderful opportunity to hear from our incoming Principal, Mr Matthew Cox, who will be joining us on Zoom for a chat over coffee.

Join Coffee Morning

Save the above link in your calendars to join us!

Parent Appreciation Day - New Date

Please note that the date for Parent Appreciation Day has been moved to Friday April 8, to allow us to be able to host you all for a lovely breakfast together in the woodland area and celebrate our wonderful parents here at BISL - mark your calendars!

Dear Parents,

We have started a new block with a new theme - English - and are very excited to see the activities, competitions and projects ahead for our students to enjoy! This week we also celebrated Safer Internet Day across the school - look out for details in this Newsletter.

In my full Update, I have included a link to the Block 4 Languages block round up. This was a fantastic celebration of languages across our first block of the Spring term with so many wonderful opportunities for our students to have fun, learn and work with one another. Thank you to all of the staff involved, especially our Head of Languages Ms Kotnik!

A date to note please is Friday 4th March, as this will be the first chance to speak to our new incoming Principal, Mr Matthew Cox. The format is planned for an online coffee morning and the link is included in my full Update. Mr Cox will also be speaking to our Student Council on Monday 28th February.

I would also like to thank parents for driving more carefully now during the morning drop off and afternoon pick up. We still need to continue working hard to ensure that all families are safe as we arrive at school. Thank you for supporting our Road Safety campaign, we've seen a range of wonderful articles from students, more awareness of driving slowly and an improved entry and exit of the car park.

Due to the current covid guidance, we have moved our Parent Appreciation Day to the first Friday of next term, Friday 8th April. This should enable a face to face gathering and a better opportunity for us to celebrate our fantastic parents and share the personal appreciation messages from our students.

Our uniform shop is now live, we have been eagerly awaiting this and it is fantastic news. More information about this can be found in my full Update.

Lastly, thank you to all parents for completing the Parent Survey, I will collate the results during the next week and share as normal the findings with you. I will also extract all positive comments for teachers and share these with the staff. Thank you again for taking your time to complete this. As a school, we always want to improve and this survey is one of the great tools to enable us to do that.

Please read my full Update from the Principal for details here.

Have a great weekend!

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.