Secondary News - April 15th

Block 6 Week 2

Many revision strategies came into play this week, with the Year 11-13 students working with teachers to refine their knowledge of their subjects. Revision raps, student-led presentations, collaborative tasks are just some of the many innovative ideas teachers and students are using to study, retain and refine their understanding. Students are so close to exams beginning, with only four days left on a full timetable of lessons.

Art students have their examinations coming up next week with Year 11 students taking 8 hours across Tuesday and Wednesday and Year 12 students taking 11 hours from Wednesday to Friday to complete their coursework. Ms Hawkins has been working tirelessly with these students to ensure that all their work has been compiled accurately and completely, ready to be sent off to Cambridge for marking and moderation. We wish the Art students the best of luck with their examinations next week.

The MEPI students battled the elements last week, seeing rain, hail, and snow on their trip. Originally planned to be there overnight, the students trekked, cooked, and set themselves up, bracing themselves to face the elements. Alas, in the end the weather was simply too much, however, they were extremely dedicated and positive throughout the day. Well done to the students and teachers who accompanied them on this trip. We look forward to hearing about future trips with perhaps a little nicer weather.

The final Spring Concert was held this week with Year 4 and 5. Well done to these students and the teachers for organising such wonderful performances over the last month. Looking ahead, the calendar has been filled with some great upcoming events so please do keep an eye out for these.

With the weather warming up and the long weekend, I do wish everyone an enjoyable few days ahead.

Stephanie Andronikos, Head of Secondary

Bake Sale - Thank you!

We would like to thank the entire school community for such an incredible response to the bake sale we organised this week. Thanks to your contributions, we have collected 250 euros which will be used to fund humanitarian aid at short notice. We are very grateful to all the students and members of staff for participating in this cause.

We also look forward to taking the initiative of organising more opportunities for BISL to continue to contribute to the provision of humanitarian assistance. We will surely inform you of any other ideas we put into practice with the support of the SLT.

Kindly thank you once again.

Ewa & Ekaterina, Year 12

Science Block

Science Block Challenges:

Block 6 celebrates all things Science - and throughout the block, the Science team will release a bank of practical challenges to ignite everyone's curiosity for science and engineering!

You’ll find new sets of practicals on our website here each week to try at home.

Science News:

This week's science practicals started with year 3 coming to the big lab and learning about plant cells and microscopy. They managed to see plant cells of various plants, their nuclei, stomata, cell walls and even chloroplasts!

Year 9 students investigated how the temperature affects the rate of reaction. They were using the precipitation reaction to see how long it takes for the cross under the conical flask to disappear.

Year 10s got to see how alkali metals react with water. They learned that the products of the reaction are an alkaline solution and a hydrogen gas.

Biology practicals of Secondary students looked a bit different this time. Year 11 students got to dissect cow liver and heart!

Year 12s were again preparing for their chemistry practical examination. They continued to develop their practical skills by performing titration, ion identification tests and enthalpy change experiments. As the saying goes - practice makes perfect!

Science Department

English News:

Year 7: Year 7 continued their reading and analysis of “Holes” as both Year 7 groups reached the latter stages of the story.

Year 8: Y8: Year 8 started work on 'Blood Brothers'. They explored contextual information around Liverpool in the 1960s and started to make connections between this information and the characters in the play. They read through and performed parts of the first few scenes in the classroom. There was even a little bit of singing!

Year 9: Year 9 wrapped up their poetry of conflict module with an assessment at the beginning of the week. Following that, they made a start on their final novel of the year 'Of Mice and Men'. This classic explores ideas around friendship and social responsibility. They learnt a little about the historical context of the Great Depression in order to enhance their understanding of what they will read over the coming weeks.

Year 10: Year 10 have completed their Language paper studies for the time being and are now exploring their poetry anthology. This week saw them introduced to the requirements for poetry analysis at IGCSE and provided them with the opportunity of having a go with the first of fifteen poems - W. H. Auden's 'Funeral Blues'.

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

MFL News

Slovene:

During Slovene Advanced lessons Y8s were working really well. They are learning about research texts and started writing an interview with a chosen person. Before that we watched and read some examples including Irena Avbelj, one of the best Slovenian Skydivers and Klemen Slakonja, actor, host and imitator. Looking forward to their final pieces!

Year 9 have been learning about cities across Slovenia and their attractions. They have named several cities across Slovenia and exposed their favourites such as Ljubljana. Of course we shouldn't forget about the coastal cities which are our favourites as well! Students have seen many Slovene cities already, but they are still eager to visit some in the not so popular areas of Slovenia.

Can you guess the city they have in mind from the picture below?

Well done Year 9. Kar tako naprej!

MFL team - Ms Kotnik, Ms Košec, Ms Tatil

Maths News:

Year 7 students investigated bank cashier tasks in relation to fractions and percentages through interactive powerpoint activities. They also learnt how to design questionnaires in Google forms through a travel agency activity.

Year 8 students designed a fraction, decimal and percentage conversion diagram and built an army of percentage soldiers.

Year 10 students learnt about column vectors and demonstrated their knowledge through quizzes and past exam style questions.

Year 11 and 12 students presented their revision projects and demonstrated good consolidation of learning and confidence when presenting. All powerpoints of revision projects can be found in Google Drive shared folder and the assignment is set on Canvas.

Maths mistake of the week

Well done to Milena, Dalen, Haruki from 7B who identified the indices mistake, and Valentin from 8B who correctly identified 3 mistakes!

Do not miss new mistakes next week, in front of 316.

Ms Zupanc, Mathematics Teacher

PE News:

Throughout PE this week, we continued to work on our new sporting units and develop our understanding of how each game is played. Year 7 focused on the importance of finding space when playing kickball, whilst Years 8 and 9 developed their striking techniques when playing rounders/baseball. Year 10 were introduced to the various rules of cricket in a conditioned, game setting, whilst Year 11’s took part in some team, tactical games.

Mr Hayes, PE Teacher

After School Club News

D&D Club - Campaign 1 - Session 8

In this week’s D&D Club, our as-of-yet unnamed band of adventurers, most of which have questionable morality, continued their journey through the caverns of Gnomengarde in search of a magical item to help destroy the White Dragon. After battling a Mimic (disguised as a tempting treasure chest) our adventurers meet two suspicious gnomes, assuming any strangers were shapeshifters. A battle ensued, a gnome was put to sleep, and another knocked unconscious before he could even speak! Actions certainly speak louder than words with everyone apart from Ander. Why can’t we just talk this out?! Find out next week how the rest of the gnomes react to their decision-making!

Mr Bradley, Head of Humanities

MEPI News

On our trip to Polhov Gradec hills we saw all kinds of weather in just 7 hours! Clouds, wind, sun, storm, hail, rain, and snow, 1 type of weather for each hour. But our trip was harder than just facing some weather, we had to walk uphill and downhill exhausted and with aching legs, but we still arrived at our destinations on time. After our hard walk where we went through a forest, a town, a church, cliffs, hills, and rivers we had a wonderful time having fun, cooking food, pitching tents, and warming up. Unfortunately due to snow, we were unable to stay the night there.

Abdulla, MEPI Participant

On Saturday our MEPI participants completed their practice Adventurous Journey, which is an important part of the MEPI award. Students experienced what it feels like when you have to carry everything you need to survive in nature, on your back. Their bags were full and heavy, the weather was anything but ideal but they didn't give up. They showed a great level of resilience and even when it was hard they stayed positive and focused on their goal. They didn't even complain when they had to pitch the tent in the snow! We are very proud of them! CONGRATULATIONS to Nika, Eva, Izzie, and Abdulla.

Ms Tušar and the MEPI Team

Spring Concert - Year 4 & 5

Two brilliant performances to conclude our Spring Concert series this afternoon by our amazing Year 4 and Year 5 students! Take a look at our Gallery of photos here.

Teacher Feature Series

Following on from the success of our recent Spring Concert series, for this week's Teacher Feature, we take a sneak peek into our Performing Arts team for an interview with the brilliant Ms Predan, Performing Arts Teacher.

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.

Library Book Donations

In partnership with the PTA, we are accepting donations of books to our library throughout block 6 and encourage everyone to bring in their used books - in any language - and drop it off at Reception.

In the final block of the academic year we are also looking to organise a book fair - watch this space!

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,

Thank you to all parents who attended the Parents Appreciation Day, it was a wonderful event and it was very impressive to see so many thoughtful and beautiful cards created by our students. Well done to all students for being so imaginative with the cards, and thank you to our staff for supporting students with this. It was a great event and a very important morning that we look forward to every year!

This week, we have had further news across the country about the removal of masks indoors and the guidance has continued to be eased. This is perfect timing as we are in our summer term and enjoying school life, now this helps create a brilliant balance for the day to day outside of school.

A huge congratulations to all students involved in the Spring Concerts over the past 4 weeks, they have been incredible! We had over 100 attendees for each of the first 2 performances and again over 80 for the third and final show. What an amazing turnout from all families to see, enjoy and support our fantastic students. Such a variety, such confidence and a very impressive succession of productions for all of us to see! Thank you to everyone involved in the shows and a special mention to Ms Predan for planning and organising this series of Spring Concerts. We look forward to our summer musical with eager anticipation!

Our Performance Theatre is going through further improvements with additional seating arriving, beautiful frames of students performing displayed down the stairs by the entrance and also the installation of a behind the stage black velvet curtain. Exciting times ahead!

On a final note, to mention our car park, thank you to all parents for continuing to drive slowly and safely on site. It makes such a difference when everyone does this together. Being aware, careful and attentive creates a safer environment for our families. Thank you. Also, our drop off and pick up team do a fantastic job every day and I very much appreciate the efforts of all of the staff as they try to make the start and the end of the day as safe as possible. Thank you to all parents for showing your gratitude, smiles, feedback and positive comments to those who do a great job at the start and end of the day.

It will be week 3 as we arrive back after the long weekend and the summer is well and truly here.

I'll spend the weekend planting trees and gardening so I'm happy for a spot of rain! Whatever you do, I hope you have a great extended weekend.

For links and details, please see my full Update from the Principal here.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.