Secondary News - March 25th

Block 5 Week 6

The final week of a slightly longer block brought sunshine and many smiles as the week progressed. It began with subject certificates handed out during this week’s assembly, students being awarded for their hard work and progress this term. Additionally, there were secondary students assisting with the Year 2 and 3 Spring Concert. This was a wonderful way to begin hosting events in the building again.

The Year 11 to 13 students were certainly happier as the week progressed with their second round of mock examinations coming to an end. Teachers are busily marking these in order to get feedback to students as soon as possible, and in preparation for the block break booster sessions organised by Mr Batson. These students have just one month to go until the crucial examinations begin, so they are continuing to work very hard to refine their knowledge in all subjects until then.

On Friday, students received their Term 2 reports. On these, their progress is clearly documented from Term 1 to Term 2. We have encouraged students to ensure these are shared and discussed with parents so that they can identify any goals they would like to set for themselves moving into Term 3.

As the weather heats up, we are reminded that the summer term fast approaches. Just a final notice, that the summer uniform will come into effect from next block. Please visit the BISL website here to order the necessary items required so that they have time to arrive next week.

At this point, I would like to wish all families a safe, restful and happy block break and I will see everyone back for Term 3 on Tuesday April 5^th.

Kind regards,

Stephanie Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Sixth Form News

This week, we were very proud to present Chloe with her grade A certificate in Further Mathematics. This was such an outstanding achievement for Chloe who started the 1 year course in June 2021 and took the examination in November 2021. Ms Zupanc and I, as Chloe's teachers for the subject, were very proud that she was awarded the highest grade possible in this examination. Well done to Chloe and good luck in your A2 Further Mathematics examination in May.

We would also like to use this opportunity to congratulate Taja and Rosemarijn from Year 12 for receiving a bronze award in the British Biology Olympiad under the guidance of Ms. Prohart Strmčnik - well done ladies!

In order to celebrate and commemorate the first school performance and the wonderful piano contribution of Ewa in year 12, Irmak presented Ewa with a framed picture of her performing. It was wonderful to see so many students participating, parents attending and staff supporting. Looking forward to many more performances in the near future.

Mock examinations have come round again and we are very lucky to be using the bright spacious rooms on the top floor of the new building for some subjects throughout the two weeks of examinations. After the rooms have been set up, it's all up to the students to give their all and do their best. This week year 12 and 13 combined for their Statistics examination. The cumulative number of students was evenly distributed to minimise the probability of non-mutually exclusive answers. Whoever said Statistics won't come in handy?

Mr Batson, Head of Sixth Form

Our school has been rated ‘Exemplary’ in our Bell Foundation Accreditation for EAL (English as an Additional Language) provision. As an international school with students from over 40 different nationalities, the quality of our EAL provision is of utmost importance, and we take great pride in the success of our programme here at BISL.

Find out more about this accreditation here.

English Block

English News:

As part of the English Block and World Book Day, students at BISL competed in a 100 word short story competition where students produced stories that had to contain one of the BISL values. The entries were absolutely superb, and moved the English department to tears in some cases, and laughter in others. It was amazing to see the talent our students have. The winner of the Secondary Competition was Tennyson with her story "Virginia '' which was exquisitely written, utterly compelling and beautiful to read. In second place was Naomi with her story "The Girl I Knew" which shocked us with not only its ability to talk about so much in so few words, but the maturity with which it was written. Congratulations to them both and to all students who entered wonderful pieces of writing. The primary school stories were also absolutely fantastic. Congratulations to Ela for her clever and incredibly humorous story - The English department loved it! Also, congratulations to Second Place Eva for a really well thought out and structured story that contained so much in so few words.

We are so proud of all the wonderful things our students produce, and reading their stories has been a fabulous way to end the block.

Year 7: Year 7B have reached the second half of their reading of “Holes.”

Year 8: Year 8 enjoyed watching the magnificent movie version of the novel “A Monster calls”

Year 9: Year 9 continued their analysis of a number of World War I poems.

Year 10: Year 10 continued practising descriptive and narrative writing.

Year 11: Year 11 worked on revising their work on the Unseen poetry section of the Mock exam

Mr Fordham, Mr. Wilkins, Mr. Staines, Mr Siter and Mr. Eve - English Department

MFL News

Slovene:

Our Year 7 Advanced group were very creative during their last lesson of this block. They created cards for their mums to celebrate Slovene Mothers Day.

I am sure they brought some beautiful smiles to their mother’s faces back home.

Our last lessons in Years 7, 8 and 9 have been a bit different and challenging at the same time. Students got a special task to create their own Kahoots linked to the topics they have covered in Term 2. They used their knowledge and skills to form tricky questions for their peers. It was a pretty good revision session! Of course, we have got a winner in each cohort.

Take a look at our photos!

French:

Bonjour et joyeuse fin de Block! For this week, students got to create their own travel plans in French, and had the opportunity to present it to the class. We could discover many countries and cultures, while practicing French. Well done to everyone for this Block!

MFL team - Ms Kotnik, Ms Košec, Ms Tatil

Maths News:

Year 7 students learnt how to plot a straight line graph using a table and applied their skills to solve a mini murder mystery involving graphs.

Connor and Valentin from 8B created an amazing version of the popular game show Who wants to be a millionaire - Sequences edition. They displayed outstanding teamwork and subject knowledge and the class enjoyed the lesson very much. Well done!

Year 10 students applied their knowledge of shapes and solids to problem solving questions and showed excellent knowledge retention through a game of Jeopardy.

Year 11 students shared their study strategies and listed many helpful websites, tips and tricks. They set study plans for the next block as well as started working on their chapter revision project.

Year 12 students set chapter analysis project dates and made plans to address their studies.

Maths mistake of the week:

Well done to Naomi, Valentin and Tian from Year 8, Milena and Dalen from 7B who correctly identified the mistakes. Well done! Check out new mistakes next block, in front of room 316.

Kangaroo Maths Competition

Primary and Key Stage 3 students sat in the Kangaroo competition, which challenged the students' logical thinking skills. Thank you to Mr Bishop for organising and translating the competition and congratulations to all students for participating. A special mention goes to Dalen, Milena, Haruki from Year 7, Valentin, Michail, Connor from Year 8 and Abdulla, Alexei, Višnja from Year 9, who scored top 3 in their year level! We are happy to celebrate their achievements and the students will receive their certificates in the next term.

Ms Zupanc, Mathematics Teacher

PE News:

In our final week of the block, we completed our respective PE units, focusing on competitive game play. Year 7 progressed to a Danish Longball tournament, understanding the dynamics of the game and how innings work. Year 8 developed their kickball skills and took part in a round robin tournament, with Year 9 doing the same with Danish Longball. Year 10 completed their rounders block, with a tournament, which was organised and officiated by the students.

Mr Hayes, PE Teacher

Computer Science News:

In Secondary Computer Science this block, Years 8 and 9 have been exploring 3D modelling software and designing their own game pieces. Year 7 have started the COBIS Coding Competition to design an app around the theme of a difficult journey. The competition will run until April 27th when the three best apps from our school will be submitted for the international competition. Year 10 have been learning about loops in programming and how to represent negative numbers in binary whilst Year 11 have been revising and undertaking mock exams to prepare them for their final assessments in June. It's been a busy but interesting term for Computer Science and I am looking forward to term 3.

Science News:

The final week of the block began with 2 of our Year 12 students trying to determine what ions are present in different unknown solutions by doing cation and anion tests.

Year 10s compared weak acids with strong acids. They used acetic and sulfuric acid to dissolve marble chips and calcium carbonate powder. They figured out that the reaction is more vigorous when the strong acid is used.

Earlier in the week they also performed a titration practical. They learned about how the pH is changed during the reaction between acids and alkalis, how to properly handle the burette and which indicator to use.

Similar to Year 10s, Year 9 students investigated the effect of concentration on the rate of reaction between sulfuric acid and magnesium. They used several sulfuric acid solutions of different concentrations and a gas syringe to prove that the more concentrated the acid solution is, the faster the rate of reaction is.

Science Department

MEPI News:

On a sunny, warm Monday, MEPI participants had a go at tent pitching. This is a crucial skill that students need for their Adventurous Journey. On the practice expedition in April and the qualifying one in June, we will have to sleep in tents overnight. Therefore, this was a great opportunity for us to check whether the tents are big enough for all of us to fit in, to consider whether there will be enough space for our rucksacks and whether having food in our tents is a good idea when surrounded by wildlife. We also learned that pegs are important to make the tent stable in case of wind and that bringing a hammer might be a good idea. Everyone did a fantastic job - as you can see from the photos we all successfully built a tent.

Zoja, MEPI participant

Spring Concert

This week we hosted our inaugural show in the Performance Theatre, featuring our first Spring Concert with colourful performances from Years 2 & 3, accompanied by Ewa from Year 12 on the piano, and hosted by Maria and Ema from Year 10A.

Take a look at our gallery of photos here.

In order to celebrate and commemorate this first school performance and the wonderful piano contribution of Ewa, Irmak from Year 12 presented Ewa with a framed picture of her performing. It was wonderful to see so many students participating, parents attending and staff supporting. We are looking forward to many more performances in the near future!

Teacher Feature - Mr Hayes

For this week's Teacher Feature, we take a look inside the PE department, bringing you a delightful interview with Mr Samuel Hayes!

Read Mr Hayes’ Teacher Feature here.

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.

As many of you potentially head home for the block break, please keep this event in mind, and bring back any traditional items you’d like to display on your country stall.

If you would like to get involved in the event by having a stall at Friday’s fair to represent your country, please contact pta@britishschool.si.

For more details, please click here.

BISL Summer School 2022

With summer just around the corner, registration is now open for BISL Summer School 2022!

Click here for details.

Dear Parents,

Wow, what a term!

At the start of the term, we had mask guidance, no trips, events and an increase in covid cases. Now we have finished the term with an amazing Spring Concert, trips, no masks and students playing together outside and having fun!

It has been a perfect end to the term and a pleasure to see how much our students have enjoyed the past few weeks.

We have some hard work taking place over the break with some maintenance, building developments and deliveries, and we are all very excited about our 'sunny' summer term ahead!

The new building (currently being named by students) will see further development of the Performance Theatre, additional seating, a stage curtain and range of deliveries to improve this space. We are all so excited to now start showing you the potential for opportunities for our students to perform in front of others, I am sure it will inspire our students to try new skills, get involved and to work together. Performing and collaborating with others is a great way to grow confidence, have fun and explore creativity. We are all looking forward to seeing what is coming up.

During term 3 and in this next block, we have a variety of parent events and opportunities for you to come into the school. Please see the events page of the website to find out more as these include:

• Spring Concert - Year 1 and 6, 4pm, 6th April

• Parent Appreciation Day, 7.15am, Friday 8th April

• Spring Concert - Year 4 and 5, 4pm, 13th April

• Coffee with the Principal, 8am, Friday 6th May

• International Days, Thursday 12th and Friday 13th May

We are very proud of our recent achievement for the English provision at the British International School of Ljubljana to receive the standard of 'Exemplary' from the Bell Foundation. Please click here to see the full article.

Also, we move into Block 6 which will be focused on 'Science' across the school, so get ready for some wonderful projects, competitions and activities in all things Science!

I hope to see everyone during term 3 and am very excited to finish the term and the academic year with some fantastic events!

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

Have a lovely break and see you on Tuesday 5th April.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.