Primary News - March 4th 2022

Dear Parents and Students,

This has been a week of many celebrations! Students and staff dressed up for Pust on Tuesday 1st March and many fabulous costumes roamed around the school throughout the day. During their morning break, students enjoyed delicious doughnuts organised by the PTA - Thank You!

On Thursday, students celebrated World Book Day through various activities during their lessons and with older primary students reading to their younger peers. As part of the English Block, Secondary students and staff across the school recorded some of their favourite stories, which echoed in the corridors in the mornings through the school sound system as part of our BISL Tannoy Tales. Students also had fun accessing recordings through QR codes on posters around the school for further engagement.

A meeting with a group of Primary students and the new incoming Principal, Mr Matthew Cox, was held on Monday morning, during which students were able to introduce themselves and ask interesting questions they had prepared in order to find out more about Mr Cox. Students were very excited to have this special opportunity.

From Monday 7th March, masks are no longer obligatory for students or staff in schools and educational settings. This is very positive news and we thank everyone for their continued support. With other measures lifting, curriculum trips for all year groups are in the planning as well, to provide further opportunities for extended learning outside of the classroom.

Please see further information about changes and updates in the latest Update from the Principal.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger

Head of Primary

Early Years

In the Early Years this week, the children dressed up in their favourite costumes to celebrate Pust. As part of our celebration, Nursery and Reception students visited a local kindergarten for a playdate, where they danced and sang songs with the other children. Through the celebration of Pust, the children were learning about weather changes and different traditions of celebrating the arrival of spring. The children learned that in Slovenia they celebrate Pust to say goodbye to winter and welcome spring, which brings warmer weather. Our lovely parents surprised us with a gift of red and white string to celebrate the Romanian holiday of the coming of spring, indicating that spring will bring us a prosperous and healthy year.

As we continue with our topic “Animals”, the children have enjoyed learning about rainforests and jungle animals. For an immersive jungle experience, the Early Years students have used their cutting skills to cut out swirling snakes and create paper roll binoculars, which they used to observe pictures of jungle animals hiding all around the classroom.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

What a busy week we have had! Not only did we celebrate Pust, but we also spent a lovely afternoon celebrating World Book Day. Year 4 students performed their own playscripts for us and read poems they wrote themselves. Along with all the celebrations, we started a new topic in English lessons looking for rhyming words and using the word ‘because’ in a sentence.

In Maths lessons we learned how to use a ruler and spoke about capacity. We took our Topic lessons outside, drawing clouds and connecting to nature, to finish our discussion about Native American stories.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

This week has been a very exciting week across the school and Year 2 have been loving the celebrations. Pust was a great success with some fantastic costumes, lots of Krofi were consumed and the excitement of students, which all made it a very enjoyable day. On World Book Day we celebrated by sharing our favourite stories, creating bookmarks and with Year 6 coming to join us for storytime. We were even able to make some pancakes to celebrate Pancake Day! We had such a great week! It was very exciting and next week we are looking forward to celebrating International Women's Day.

Ms Harris and Mrs Fordham

Year 3A

Year 3A have been learning about engineering components: gears and levers. Students examined household objects with these features, before constructing models.

Through the use of examination, construction and research skills, students considered what features could be included in the inventions of the future!

Ms Blundell

Year 3B

This week the Year 3B students have been busy exploring the wonderful world of Robots. In one of our Topic lessons, the students were tasked to make and use labeled sketches as designs. In the picture, you can see a creation from Ana Lina. She envisioned a robot that would help keep children happy and safe in school. Whilst cleaning the school halls, it would also make sure no one gets lost and comfort and keep children company if they needed a friend.

Mr Kokalj

Year 4

Year 4 took to the sunshine and performed the playscripts they had recently written outside. Each student wrote a play in which the King was accused of making Bethany suffer under his hand in a courtroom in front of a Judge.

No two plays were alike; with differing verdicts, surprise character witnesses popping up, crystal balls that cause imprisonment, and different levels of punishment and rewards for the King, Rumpelstiltskin and even the Angry Wizard. The students' written playscripts will be on display in the Middle school area, for others to enjoy.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

This had been a very exciting week for the children. It started with both Pust and St David's day. The children had some amazing costumes and enjoyed their doughnuts a lot.

The day got even better by making welsh cakes in the kitchen. They learnt how to make them following a recipe and even cracked their own egg - this was eventful to say the least. The children also look forward to creating their own newspaper reports.

And take a look at some of our brilliant persuasive writing pieces - featured on the school website!

Mrs Thomas

Slovene

Years 1 and 2 have been learning about food and drinks this week. Students enjoyed starters and plenary activities such as memory games, guessing the food, secret bag, dancing and so on.

They have put lots of effort into creating food plates with diverse delicious foods they like the most. Of course, they have focused on naming the food as well. Now it is time to present it to a wider audience.

Have a look at our photos. Hopefully, you won't get really hungry!

Slovene Department

PE

Throughout our PE lessons this week, we continued to develop our understanding of invasion and movement games, across all year groups. Understanding the concept of finding space when playing basketball was a key focus for Years 1 & 2 - who progressed to playing some conditioned basketball games.

Years 3 & 4 continued to work on their Swedish Handball unit, looking at the importance of teamwork and communication on the court. Years 5 & 6 focused on the differing roles of defenders and attackers when playing Handball and the different court positions in competitive match-play scenarios.

PE Department

Spelling Bee

We have had many exciting rounds this week for the preliminary stage of our Primary Spelling Bee. It was wonderful to see so many students trying their absolute bests, and working at home extra hard to learn their spellings - THANK YOU PRIMARY STUDENTS.

This week, create some of your spelling words out of newspaper (magazine or junk mail) letters and email me a photo please at

tanya.charlesworth@britishschool.si

Mrs Charlesworth

MEPI News

On Saturday all the MEPI and some extra participants joined our first aid training with the Red Cross at BISL. We learned about how and when to give CPR, as well as what to do in the event of a stroke, heart attack and other injuries such as burns and broken bones.

At the end of the course, we all had a practice of CPR on the training dummy. It was a really important day, the early start on Saturday was worth it!

Read a longer recount of the course with some practical CPR instructions at the end of the Newsletter written by Zoja, a course and MEPI Participant.

Mr Irving, MEPI Coordinator

Student Voice: Persuasive Writing

Our Year 5s were challenged to write some persuasive texts about saving the planet recently, and they have come up with some brilliant pieces that we are delighted to share with you. Many of them are even using Year 6 success criteria, such as rhetorical questions, to convince their audience.

Take a look here.

New After School German Club for Year 1 & 2

From the start of Term 3, we have a new after school club on offer for Year 1 and 2 students - German club, with the wonderful Ms Viktorija Osolnik Kunc! The club will take place on Wednesdays after school from 3:00 - 3:45 pm in the Library, and the first session will begin on Wednesday, April 6. Take a look at the brochure here for more information and details, and if you would like to register, please contact us here.

Pust Gallery

For a colourful collection of photos from this week’s fantastic Pust celebrations - take a look at our Pust Gallery on the school website!

A huge thank you once again to the PTA and parent volunteers for providing the Pust staple, KROFI for all of our students and staff to enjoy!

World Book Day Gallery

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of World Book Day, our older students in Primary visited their younger peers for a special storytime session - take a look at this collection of wonderful photos here!

PTA Second Hand Uniform Sale

Our wonderful PTA volunteers are organising a second-hand uniform sale on Friday, March 11 - look out for their tables set up outside the front entrance during pick-up between 14:30 - 15:30.

Donations also welcome

You are welcome to donate any outgrown uniform garments to the PTA sale, simply drop them off at school before Thursday 10th.

If you have any specific questions, please email our PTA directly.

International Days - Mark Your Calendars

One of our biggest family events, organised in partnership with the PTA, this year’s International Days will take place between Thursday May 12 - Friday May 13.

There will be a variety of cultural and educational activities, stalls, traditional dress, flags, international cuisine, games and performances for our community to enjoy.

For details, please click here.

Dear Parents,

We finish the week with great news ahead for next week with the removal of the obligatory wearing of face masks by students and staff in schools and other educational institutions from Monday 7th March.

This is wonderful news for everyone in the BISL and the wider community in Slovenia. We look forward to this on Monday but also thank you for your continued patience, support and positivity during this time with the masks, far from ideal, and I have been overwhelmed by the constant support of our community towards us keeping a safe environment for our students and staff to work in.

This week we have enjoyed PUST and celebrated on Tuesday with our students and staff wearing a range of wonderfully creative costumes. Thank you to parents and our PTA volunteers for organising doughnuts for all students, this was a real treat to add to the festivities and we are very grateful. I have included a link below to the gallery of images, so many amazing pictures and thank you to parents for supporting this day by helping out with dressing up students and preparing fantastic costumes. A perfect day at school with everyone involved, having fun and being together!

As our English block continues, we have been thrilled with the events so far, especially with the stories, BISL Tannoy Tales, using the sound system across the school each day, and now with further articles linked below from some of our Primary students. Yesterday, we celebrated World Book Day and students also enjoyed a fantastic Spelling Bee, and there's much more to come!

Also, a huge thank you to all parents for filling in the Parent Survey 2021-22. The results were absolutely incredible and I would like to thank every parent who took the time to fill in the survey. Your feedback is very welcome and I am extremely happy to share positives to staff, the wider team and also areas in which we can develop and improve further. All information is included in the article linked below, analysis, headlines and an action plan we share out after the survey. We embrace the challenge of improving our 'Outstanding' school each year and this is a very important aspect of enabling us to do just that!

On a final note, we are aiming towards our big event of the year with our International Days and have confirmed that these will go ahead on Thursday 12th and Friday 13th of May. More information will be sent out regarding the opening ceremony, dress down day, educational activities and the food fair. It promises to be a real highlight of our final term of the year!

Please read my full Update from the Principal for details.

Have a great weekend!

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal