Primary News - February 25th 2022

Dear Parents and Students,

With the lovely sunshine throughout this week, there has been a very warm and calm but also excited and busy atmosphere in the classrooms and outdoor areas.

As part of the English Theme Block, a variety of activities have started already, including both students and staff sharing the books they love. Students across the school, starting in Pre-Nursery and all the way to the 6th Form, will be taking part in the Spelling Bee competition in the coming weeks to expand on their vocabulary and learn about word meanings, pronunciation and usage. Good luck to all! For our World Book Day celebrations on March 3rd, older Primary students will be reading to their younger peers to share and encourage the love of reading.

Following on from the success of the Mangahigh competition, students will be able to test their mathematical skills in the International Kangaroo Maths competition, which will be taking place on the 17th of March. This will be for all Primary and Secondary students up to Year 9. The questions cover a wide range of topics and demand imagination, basic computational abilities, logical reasoning, and other problem-solving strategies in addition to inspiring ideas, perseverance, and creativity.

Parent-Teacher interviews for specialist subjects- bookings will open on February 28th. Further information on how to book will be sent out via email. This is an opportunity to talk about your child’s progress in specialist subjects and is highly recommended. Should you wish to review the progress in other subjects, please contact your class teacher directly via email to arrange a meeting.

Don’t forget to get your costumes ready for Pust on Tuesday 1st March for our dress-down day. Pust celebrates the end of winter and the start of spring. All students and staff are welcome to participate with a favourite costume or wearing some spring colours!

Have a lovely weekend,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

Early Years

This week the children were learning about farm animals. They practised their freshly learned farm-related vocabulary in the small farm animal world with various sensory stimuli, such as cornflakes. The Early Years students created their own farm with salt dough farm animals and one impressive dinosaur. The children had fun rolling, pinching, and moulding the dough into farm animal shapes. When the dough dries up and hardens, the children will paint it accordingly. In Maths, the children were practising counting by helping the farmer count ducks in the pond.

The most exciting activity of the week was definitely measuring the weight of the toy animals. The nursery group students now know that chicks are lighter than cows, while the Reception students know, how to measure the weight of the cow with a scale.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

In English lessons we focused on using different punctuation in sentences, such as full stops, question marks and exclamation marks. We also completed letters addressed to Mr Dragon, making sure we practiced the use of various punctuation.

In Maths, we compared the length and height of objects and practiced using scales to measure them. In Topic lessons, we learnt about Native American legends, their connection to nature and made dreamcatchers!

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

This week in Year 2 we have been learning about where food comes from. We learnt about the processes of food and we learnt about which foods grow naturally in Slovenia. The classes presented their homework to each other and did a fantastic job! We had such a fun week learning about different foods. In Literacy, we started a new text, Oh, Gnome! It is an interesting text that will lead to some very exciting performances from Year 2. We are looking forward to another great week ahead.

Ms Harris & Mrs Fordham

Year 3

The Year 3 students' new topic is called 'Inventions that changed the world'. In one of their lessons, they discovered different materials and discussed their properties.

Their task was to design 'a paper aeroplane' style aeroplane, using one of the materials provided. After testing their creations in the school playground, they had to explain how they could adapt their aeroplane to suit different materials so that it could fly further.

Ms Blundell & Mr Kokalj

Year 4

One of this week's mathematics lessons learning objective was - Complete symmetrical patterns across a line of symmetry. As formative assessment to this lesson, students attempted to complete a pattern using their tablets, having captured a screen shot from their Canvas courses. Some students could 'see' these patterns instantly while others found turning their tablets (turning the lines of symmetry) easier for them.

The students used small mirrors to check their work, placing them on the lines of symmetry.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

The children have had a great week. In English, the children learnt all about the features of a newspaper and are preparing to write their very own report.

This week we focused on headlines and understood what facts and opinions are. In Maths, the children learnt about ratio, reflection and translation and studied aspects of statistics.

Next week, we have many fun events for the children to look forward to as it is Pust, St David’s Day and world book day.

Year 5 has also been researching different types of communication from the past and present. Luckily we do not have to rely on pigeons to deliver our messages anymore. :)

Mrs Thomas

Year 6

Year 6 have started a unit about the environment this block. We are investigating fossil fuels and learning how they link to global warming. Students are also near the finish line with their chapter books which they will be sharing with the other primary students in this English block. We also experienced their sound gallery in Art this week much to everyone’s enjoyment.

Mr Bishop

PE

During PE lessons this week, we continued to develop our understanding of invasion and movement games. Years 1 & 2 focused on being able to pass, dribble and shoot when playing basketball, with Years 3 & 4 continuing to work on their tactical understanding of team games when playing Swedish Handball. Years 5 & 6 continued to explore the importance of teamwork and possession when playing an adapted version of Handball and all year groups enjoyed being able to participate in some competitive match-play scenarios.

PE Department

Slovene

Year 1&2 and Year 3&4 students had a very responsible job this week. A student from Norway who is half Slovene wrote and illustrated the children's book called Izlet v predjamski grad.

She was looking to get children's feedback and our students were happy to help. They loved the story and gave some great proposals on how to make the book even better.

Thank you to all the students for their feedback!

Slovene Department

Spelling Bee

Keep on practising your spellings for next week's preliminary round.

Try practising some new words through the following word searches:

1. Early Years - Year 2: Farm Animals

2. Year 3 - 6: Star Wars or Groups of Animals

Find it in PDF here.

Find it in PDF here.

Staffing Update

Mrs Fordham has joined the Year 2 team this week to take over the role of the Year 2B Class Teacher. She has a range of experience working in education settings and supporting students both in the UK and abroad. In the first term at BISL, Mrs Fordham supported students in Year 1 and across the Primary. She is looking forward to expanding her role as a teacher and working with the Year 2B class.

Having supported students at BISL in all areas of Primary, including Early Years, KS1 and KS2, Ms Jakop will be joining the Year 1 class as Assistant Teacher. She has recently completed her Master Studies of Primary Education, focusing on Mathematics, but is passionate about other subjects as well. She is excited about the opportunity to support our Year 1 students with their learning, together with Ms Miklavec.

Teacher Feature

As we celebrate English during this block, we focus on Mr Wilkins in our next Teacher Feature. - read it here!

Parent Survey Results 21-22

We are delighted to share with you the results of our most recent annual Parent Survey.

Take a look at the results, highlights, analysis, comments and action plan here.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in either the Onboarding Parent Survey (for those families that have been with us for less than one year) or the Parent Survey (for those who have been with us for over one year) - your feedback is very valuable to us as a school, and is much appreciated.

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 KROFI (doughnuts)!

It is a dress down day - everyone is encouraged to come in a fancy dress costume or wear Spring colours.

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!

Year 5 Persuasive Writing

The students in Year 5 have written some persuasive texts about saving the plane and since they are amazing, we decided to share one with you.

Donʼt break what doesnʼt belong to you!

I am writing on behalf of everyone who speaks for animals. Who speaks for their freedom. Animal species are getting fewer places to live and in addition they will be extinct in a few years if we continue like this.

As you can see the Amazon Rainforest is getting smaller and offers less place for animals. Do you want to know why? Well here is your answer: one one hand we need a lot of places to grow wheat and other grains but on the other hand we are forgetting that the Rainforest belongs and is home to more than 3.000 animal species and 60.000 plants.

Now if you were one of those animals, how would you find it if suddenly your house gets destroyed and you get separated from your family? I have no doubt that you would find it as bad as the animals do. And the animals hate it.

In conclusion, there is no question that human beings are doing something wrong. Where and whenever it happened that humans might have making a bad mistake doesnʼt matter. But what matters is that we did it. We (humans) have made a huge mistake and we can only get out of it with the help of the whole world!

Dear Parents,

We started our week delighted with the relaxation of Covid guidance that students no longer needed to self-test in school. This was great news and we hope for a further reduction of measures in the near future!

It's been a very busy week with our whole-school English team creating many activities, projects and exciting opportunities for our students. We are extremely excited to listen to the 'BISL Tannoy Tales' which will be the first time we will use the sound system across both buildings to play stories for our students to enjoy! This is a momentous occasion for us and one that we are very much looking forward to as a school. Thank you to our English team for a brilliant start to the English block!

As mentioned last week, we invite you all to join us online to welcome the New Principal, Mr Matthew Cox, who will join us live to introduce himself during the next Coffee with the Principal next Friday, March 4, on Zoom. You will find details in my full Update.

Thank you to parents who have already used the new uniform shop, we are delighted that our new provider offers the following:

• Free delivery to school every 15 days

• Free standard delivery to your home address on orders above €125

• €12.50 standard delivery to your home address on orders below €125

There is also a FREE Returns service through school, so you don’t have to worry about any costs associated with that anymore either!

During this term we are planning ahead for trips, as all classes can now be taken out on some exciting visits and experiences during Term 2 and 3. We look forward to seeing our students get out and about in Ljubljana.

And lastly, please take a look at the fantastic Parent Survey results that were shared earlier today. I would like to say thank you once again for all of you for taking the time to complete our surveys, your feedback continues to be very much appreciated.

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

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.