Secondary Newsletter - 26th November 2022

Block 3 Week 2

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

The words of Vincent Van Gogh, encouraging all of us to unleash our creative spirit onto the world. Creativity can be taught and creativity can be learnt. To be creative means to think, to take risks, to evolve an existing concept, to be playful with ideas. It is searching for inspiration in the most mundane places. It means breaking with the routine and seeing something differently from another angle. These are skills that BISL students are developing everyday; skills that will be essential if they are to navigate the world around them in the future.

Thankfully we have a wonderful Creative Arts team here at BISL who are spearheading this creative drive. Creative Arts block began with gusto on Monday, with an assembly from Ms Kenealy and Ms Hawkins, who presented a host of activities and excitement planned for the coming weeks. There is the Peter Pan ticket design competition, as well as the annual BISL Christmas cover song, which I can reveal will be Wizard ‘I wish it could be Christmas everyday’. I’m told I have a solo part to play and Mr Hulse has promised to make me sound professional!

Open to all of Secondary is the ‘recreate a famous painting/album cover competition’ with winning designs selected for the virtual exhibition. The return of the IGCSE and Y12 Art pieces from Cambridge exam board will also present an opportunity for a live Art exhibition in the new building in the new year. More to come on this. Thank you to Ms Hawkins for all her efforts!

Thank you finally to Mr Batson for hosting parents at our annual A-Level Options evening on Thursday. Although early in the year, it is a very important moment for Year 11 students to think about which subjects they would like to specialise in at A-level. BISL encourages students to take subjects that they are passionate about, first and foremost. Students should also consider carefully where their strengths and weaknesses lie. Thank you to our wonderful Heads of Department team for hosting.

Please be sure to read the latest Update from the Principal and I wish everyone an enjoyable weekend.

Mr Jonathan Travis, Head of Secondary

Psychology student presentations week 2

The students in the AS Psychology class continued their presentation of famous studies this past week. This time it was the turn of Alina, Ivan, Jasmina and Kim. During the week, they delivered a concise and thorough outline and analysis of the Baron-Cohen revised eye test study, which looks at different people’s abilities to read the emotions of another person by looking at their eyes. This simple study was the steppingstone to theorizing why some people are able to understand what could be in the mind of other people. It was again wonderful to see the students taking ownership of their learning and guiding their peers, using creative presentations and enjoyable and constructive games, through the content that will be assessed.

Over the block break art exam classes were given the research task of exploring art galleries and presenting their findings in class. Jasmina in Year 12 focused on galleries in Ljubljana and discussed the relevance to her project as well as personal connections and use of key art terminology.

In music lessons Year 8 worked on composing movie themes. Here we can see Year 8B following their Muses while they worked on their own compositions.

English News:

Year 7A began their exploration of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” by researching the details of the plot, setting and other interesting trivia.

Year 8 wrote book reviews on "A Monster Calls" and developed their creative writing skills by describing how a flower might feel.

Year 9 continued their study of"D.N.A" They analysed Phil's Machievellian plans to frame the postman for a crime he did not commit. They also devised small plays of their own to explore character's feelings.

Year 10 learned how to be a teacher and then produced some fantistically engaging lessons on the key thems from "Crumbs from the table of joy."

Year 11 wrote what may well have been the most impressive essays of their current iGSCE campagin much to the jubilation of Mr Wilkins.

PE news:

This week, we began our sports knowledge units across all areas of secondary, focusing on some of the theoretical elements of PE. We also completed some fitness assessments, with Year 7 through to 11 undertaking the bleep test - in order to measure their cardiovascular endurance levels.

Mr Hayes, PE Department

Maths news

Year 7 students learnt about length, mass and capacity. They discussed appropriate units for measurements, conversion diagrams and estimation. They converted units on mini whiteboards, shared their answers with the class and discussed correct answers.

Year 8 and 11 students sat in their Term 1 assessment and reflected on their results. Through peer support, they corrected their mistakes and RAG rated their confidence in Term 1 topics.

Year 9 students recalled methods of solving linear equations from years 7 and 8, then solved equations at year 9 level through a cross-number activity.

Year 10 students substituted numbers into formulae and cemented their knowledge of rearranged formulae.

Year 13 students learnt how to integrate exponential, reciprocal and trigonometric functions. They also used trigonometric identities to carry out more difficult integration.

Maths challenge wall

Well done to the students solving the weekly challenges! Make sure you do not miss new ones, published next Monday in front of room 316.

Ms Zupanc, Maths Department

Science News: After learning about how transition metals form coloured compounds with different ligands (chemicals), Hebe from year 13 performed a successful practical in producing different coloured complexes. Not only is it visually appealing as there are some lovely colour changes, but it allows Hebe to further develop her practical skills.

Year 7 in science we were dissecting a chicken wing. Last time we were learning about how muscles work and that muscles only pull in one direction and today we tried how muscles work in real life by pulling the triceps and biceps. We also tried to find tendons, ligaments, cartilage, bones, muscles and bone marrow.

Year 12 students carried out an experiment about Joule heating where they compared the theoretical calculations of calorimetric equation with the experimental results. The students heated water in the beaker with a resistor and calculated how much time the resistor needed to warm the water up to 50 degrees. Then they compared the measured data to the theoretical one and the values were only 20 seconds apart. A brilliant result!

Year 13 students carried out a RC circuit experiment where they were charging a capacitor and then discharging it through a blue LED light. When discharging the capacitor they also plotted a RC curve on computer in which they analyzed the exponential decay curve of the discharging current.

Student Science Article - By Anže, Year 13

The beetles, which clean garbage in Colombia, then retire in Japan.

All over the world waste management has become a big problem, but it is additionally amplified in developing countries, with lacklustre infrastructure and investment in the sector. Colombia is an example of a country, which currently lacks sustainable infrastructure to deal with organic waste, which makes up 61.5% of its Municipal Waste. Developing sustainable waste management practises is expensive, so 90% of waste ends up in landfills and is therefore not recycled or composted, if it is organic. German Viasus Tibamoso, an environmental engineer, has found an interesting solution.

The Colombia native has discovered that beetle larvae can transform organic waste into fertiliser. When the beetle larvae consume the food waste, microorganisms in their digestive system convert it into a fertiliser, containing nitrogen and phosphorus. To scale the process food waste is collected from communities in a concrete ditch, then covered in soil and beetle larvae. When the larvae are done feeding the product is filtered to separate the fertilisers and the now beetles.

Some of the leftover beetles are bored in order to produce more larvae to be used for the next batch of food waste. Others are exported to Japan, where they are kept as pets. The 17 cm long hercules beetles are very popular in Japan as pets and go for as much as 150 dollars. This aids to fund Viasius’s company, who says that he does not get much support from his government and hopes that in the future he can grow his company further and support other sustainable projects.

MFL News:

This block Year 7 Advanced Slovene group started studying the graphic novel “Hugo Cabret”. They were leaning about the setting this week as well as getting to know how the films in the 30's looked.

How to read a book with 284 pictures between 533 pages? Easy peasy!

Ms Kotnik, Slovene teacher

Dear Parents,

Christmas time is just around the corner and as of this week the PTA and the BISL have already started the preparation for the upcoming BISL Christmas Fayre which will be held on Thursday, 15th of December, from 14.00 until 16.00.

The PTA would like to ask each family to contribute baked goods or snacks that can be either taken to the class teacher or dropped off in the morning on the 15th of December. For those parents who would like to join to help during the event itself - you’re more than welcome. Your support will be highly appreciated indeed. Please note carefully that we are a nut free school and can not have any food that contains any nuts.

And if you’d like to participate in decorating the school you can join us on Monday, 28th of November, at 8.30 in the morning (or at 7.45 at the coffee place in front of the school).

With more news to come,

Your PTA

At Christmas time, presents and snow are just around the corner. This is the happiest and the most magical time of the year for many children. But not for all. This year we would like to work together again, to bring smiles to the faces of those children to whom magic does not come by itself.

In partnership with two charity organizations, Zveza Prijateljev Mladine Ljubljana Moste-Polje and Trije Zimski Botri and with the ongoing support from you, the parents and our students, we are aiming to make 160 wishes come true this year!

Next week, children will pick and choose the letters in class and will bring the printed letter home with them. All the information about the project will be shared on our website, social media and via e-mail. Parents will also receive a PDF version of the letter that their child will pick by e-mail.

We are thankful to have such an amazing community here at BISL and grateful for your ongoing support of this project.

As always, as term 1 nears its conclusion and Christmas approaches, in schools there are a great many events and activities squeezed into a relatively short time. BISL this year is most definitely no different.

Parent Portal & Reports

An example of this is the issuing of our school reports and the parent teacher meetings that are held after the reports have been read. All Year 11 & Year 13 students should receive their school reports this week via the ‘Parent Portal’ – please click BISL Parent Portal Access to enter. The registration, username and password guide has been emailed to parents already.

If you have any issues gaining access please do contact it@britishschool.si for assistance. All other year groups will receive their reports in the very near future.

Parent-Teacher Meetings

It is very important that all parents do take the time to login in the Parent Portal, read their son or daughter’s report and prepare some questions for the Parent-Teacher meeting to follow. For secondary parents, all Year 7 to Year 13 Parent Teacher meetings will be held online between 5 th and 15 th December.

In order to book an appointment with your child’s teachers, parents must login to the Meeting booking system by clicking this link - Register for BISL Parent Teacher Meetings When you click on the link you will see the registration page