Secondary News - 21th January

Block 4 Week 3

Winter is here at last! As the snow turns to rain, the wet and grisly weather has certainly not dampened our spirit here at BISL and learning has continued apace throughout the school. I had the pleasure of teaching a Year 10 History class on Wednesday, during which I challenged students to interrogate various interpretations of the Cold War and reached their own supported judgements. I thoroughly enjoyed a return to my own historical roots - let's hope the students enjoyed it too!

Our examination groups have been reflecting on their mock experience this week and teachers have been addressing some of the main areas in which students struggled. This is an important process, especially at a time when students do not know their results. Departments will be undertaking a thorough moderation before that happens, reflecting on the impact of their own teaching and ensuring the appropriate thresholds are applied. Results will be released to students on Wednesday. I do hope they remember not to obsess about the grade - it is what they do with it that counts!

Thank you to all the parents who braved the cold weather to attend a very important meeting about Assessment and Reporting across the Secondary School. I spoke briefly about the purpose of assessment as a teaching and learning tool and the impact it can have on a student’s learning journey. All too often we think about assessment as exam-style tests, when actually it can be used creatively in the classroom to impact learning. High frequency, low stakes formative assessment helps teachers deal with misconceptions and address them live during the lesson. I also outlined the adjustments made to the reporting cycle and detailed future plans to involve parents more in the learning experience of their children. Thank you all for being so interested and attentive!

Finally, our intrepid Year 7 and 8 students travelled to Bohinj on Friday to take part in our first Winter Adventure Day! I think the snow arrived just in time ;) Early reports indicate that students are having a fabulous time. Next week it will be the turn of Year 9 and 10. Days like this are not always the norm at international schools - they are the BISL difference. Please be sure to read the latest Update from the Principal and I wish everyone an enjoyable year ahead.

Mr Jonathan Travis, Head of Secondary

Examination News

The mock examinations have ended, now it is time to reflect and plan for the path towards the external examinations which begin 26th April. The students from year 11, 12 and 13 completed examinations in their compulsory and chosen subjects which gave them an experience of what they will go through in just a few months from now. Students have been receiving feedback all week and will receive their results next week. Additionally, parents of year 12 students are invited to a meeting where the mock examination results will be examined and advice will be given regarding how best we, as a school, and you, as parents, can support our candidates. The meeting will take place on 30th January at 15:00 in the main hall.

Psychology News

Psychology students have begun learning about whether or not human behaviour can be taught through the process of paying attention to a certain type of role model. Students in year 12 were looking at the groundbreaking aggression study by Albert Bandura, which required children to observe adult aggressive or non aggressive behaviour towards a doll in order to see if the children would imitate the behaviour. It was found that when children observed acts of aggression, they were likely to imitate the very same acts. What is more interesting is that the least amount of aggression was shown by children who observed non-aggressive models as opposed to aggressive models or no model at all. This study shows quite clearly the beneficial effect of a positive role model. Students made brief presentations this week regarding the hypotheses of this study.

UKMT

Calling all Mathematicians...from year 11 and below. The UKMT Mathematics Competition will be taking place on Wednesday 1st February. This online international competition is a great way to test your Mathematical ability, challenge yourself and also build up your portfolio of academic excellence, which will become a key component of your university application. If you wish to be entered, please see Mr Batson as soon as possible, as places are limited.

Year 12 Mock examination review meeting for Year 12 Parents

On January 30th, year 12 parents are invited into school to review the mock examination results. The meeting will focus on the following points:

● How the mock examinations went in terms of logistics. This will include any major observations made about the students and their conduct during the examination period.

● The statistics of the mock examinations in terms of the percentage of grades achieved overall. I would like to compare the current year 12 cohorts achievements with previous year groups and then look at the achievements of previous year groups in the final external examinations which take place in May and June.

● What the students should be doing from this moment on. I would like to explain the advice we will be giving to students in terms of how they should reflect on their results, what they should be doing about the feedback they are given, revision techniques and general examination preparation.

● What the school will be doing in order to support students who may be having difficulties in their studies.

● What parents could be doing in order to best support their children.

I am looking forward to seeing you all. Mr Batson

Slovene news:

In Y8 Slovene Advance lessons, we have been preparing for an exciting trip to Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica. Our students will have the opportunity to visit the Jože Plečnik exhibition and learn about the famous architect's work. Additionally, they will be preparing a short presentation on some of Ljubljana's iconic buildings such as Univerza v Ljubljani, Filharmonija, Prešeren's square and Križanke. This will give our students the chance to showcase their knowledge and act as tourist guides for the group.

We are looking forward to seeing how the students will perform and enjoy the trip. Miss Kotnik

"Learning by doing is the simple idea that we are capable of learning more about something when we perform the action." L.H.

Therefore Y8 students in Slovene Intermediate group decided to put the topic "Opis postopka, / Recept"in action and made the whole school smell like pancakes. Enjoy the pictures and see how much fun everybody had. Ms Jakop

Y7 students at Slovene Foundation have been talking about their free time. Students understand how to respond on questions "Kaj delaš v prostem času?" and "Česa ne maraš delati v prostem času?". They also expanded vocabulary with new verbs and words which is increasing their speaking abilities in Slovene every lesson.

Ms Drofenik

Creative Arts News:

Yesterday it was announced to the production club that the new school musical for summer 2023 will be…

We look forward to auditioning our perspective Troy Boltons and Gabriella Montez’s next week.

Year 7 have been perfecting their tutting moves and sequences in Performing Arts and are currently studying Hip Hop in music.

Year 8 students are working hard at composing their own songs from scratch. They have written their own lyrics and are now under the creative process of writing music for their songs.

Year 9 have been learning about devising and stimulus in Performing Arts, using lots of different stimuli to create still images and short dramas. This week they looked at fairy tales and will show their ideas next week to the class. While in music they are learning all about film music and composing their own.

English News:

Year 7 continued their study of Shakespeare in the form of “The Tempest.”

Year 8 prepared and performed short scenes from the points of view of the characters in “Blood Brothers.”

Year 9 reached the end of the play “D.N.A” and debated whether the happiness of the individual could ever be more important than the happiness of the group.””

PE news:

Throughout PE this week, we continued to develop our practical understanding of invasion games, focusing on the importance of teamwork, communication and spatial awareness. Year 7 continued their basketball block, focusing on playing some 3 vs 3 practises, whilst Year 8 developed their tactical understanding of handball. Year 9 focused on the importance of teamwork when playing floor hockey, whilst Year 10 continued with their football unit - working on attacking efficiency, with Year 11 improving their ultimate frisbee game play and tactics in competitive situations.

Mr Hayes, PE Department

Maths news

UKMT Calling all Mathematicians...from year 11 and below. The UKMT Mathematics Competition will be taking place on Wednesday 1st February. This online international competition is a great way to test your Mathematical ability, challenge yourself and also build up your portfolio of academic excellence, which will become a key component of your university application. If you wish to be entered, please see Mr Batson as soon as possible, as places are limited.

Mr Batson, Assistant Head

Key stage 3 and Year 10 students engaged in a feedback task, including peer marking and feedback, to check how confident they are in Block 4 topics. They reflected on their work and gave their peers 2x What went well and one improvement (EBI).

Then the students sat in the Block 4 quiz that covered Block 4 but also Term 1 concepts. The results showed that some students have excellent revision skills and their ever-developing study routine enabled them to retain most of Term 1 concepts. In the next few weeks, we will work on various revision strategies to support all students' needs, including summary pages.

Year 11 students reflected on the mock exams, identified the topics they performed the worst on, and recalled the correct techniques to solve those problems. The students will sit in another assessment next week that will cover their worst topics from mocks, which are differentiation, functions, proportion and linear programming. They also collected their summary pages from Year 10 into The best summary powerpoint, which the students will further develop through the next few weeks.

Year 13 students also reflected on their mock exams and will sit in another assessment next week to show their improvement in differentiation, integration, partial fractions and trigonometry. They also learnt various integration techniques such as per parts, substitution and integration by inspection.

Maths challenge wall:

Do not miss out on new challenges published next week in front of room 316.

Ms Zupanc, Maths Department

We hope that all of you had a wonderful time during Christmas holidays. Next Tuesday, the 24th of January, the PTA will have a regular meeting at 8.00 to discuss the next events and some general concerns at the school. We will have coffee at Patent hub coffee bar near the school. Looking forward to meeting you. _Your PTA _