Block 4 in Primary was packed with projects, events and trips related not only to academic learning, but to raising awareness about how all of us can contribute to keeping our school community safe and healthy, and in creating a positive and happy environment.
While learning about waste management through reducing, reusing and recycling, the primary Caring for the Community (C4C) team has been busy with cleaning up the woodland area, soon to be developed further for students to play and use as an outdoor learning space. To reflect the beautiful surroundings of our school, a mural on the wall of the hallway was painted by a staff member, which will blossom through the coming seasons with the help of students.
The Student and Parent Appreciation Days were important events involving teachers, parents and students in acknowledging each other and showing gratitude in different ways: preparing international breakfast, writing thank you notes and putting together displays. Students and staff also created cards to give out on Valentine’s Day, as a way of ‘spreading the ‘love’ among the wider community. Moreover, parent and teacher volunteers took part in the Be a Hero- Save a Life project, organised by the C4C with the Red Cross. Through donating blood, they helped the wider community and literally ‘saved lives’.
We celebrated Slovenia’s national day of culture known as Prešern’s Day, named after one of the greatest poets of Slovene people. Students and teachers from
the Slovene department prepared some wonderful performances, presentations and traditional games during primary assembly. As part of their Language and Literacy lessons, Y6 learned how to become poets, writing free verse poems using extended metaphors and similes, while the Y3 students explored different styles of silly poems, nonsense poems and tongue twisters. During their French lessons, students were able to find out more about the life of a student in France, by taking part in the ‘paypal’ system. This is a valuable opportunity for students to make connections with other international students and practice language skills with native speakers.
Primary Classes
The PSHE lessons continued to focus on particular themes to support students’ personal and social development, including some more complex issues related to safeguarding children. For example, students learned about the importance of using strong passwords to keep safe online and protect one’s privacy.
Other highlights of the last block included Early Years learning all about traditional tales, listening to others reading stories before naptime and acting out one of their favourite tales 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. As part of the topic Seeing the Light,Y1 carried out various experiments, including creating a small pinhole camera from a cardboard box, while Y2 visited the Museum of Puppetry to investigate how light is used in various shows to make puppets come alive. Students also celebrated the Chinese New Year and created lanterns.
By way of introducing the new topic Active Planet, Y3 and Y4 experienced a ‘real life’ earthquake! The students shared their experiences and discussed ways that they could stay safe in the event of an earthquake here in Slovenia. Furthermore, Y4 organised an exhibition of earthquake-proof buildings and used an earthquake simulator to test their designs.
Y5 and Y6 visited the visually stunning Body Worlds Vital exhibition as a part of their Being Me topic, to learn about the body parts and systems. They witnessed the effects of diseases and poor lifestyle choices on the human body and attended a short seminar about the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This gave students the opportunity to put what they had learnt thus far into a realistic perspective.
We are very proud of the fifteen Y6 students, who took part in the regional round of the World Scholar’s Cup 2019, competing against other schools from Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Austria and Serbia, and returned with 10 gold and 27 silver medals. Congratulations also to the students that were selected as class representatives of the Student Council. Along with the Head of the Primary Student Council, the Head Boy/Girl and the Prefects, these students join the Primary Student Committee in representing the ‘student voice’. We look forward to working with the Student Committee in Block 5, in sharing ideas and developing different areas of the school together.
We also look forward to the primary Dance Show on the 27th March and hope to see you all there, tapping along to your favourite Disney songs.
Enjoy Block 5 and best wishes,
Katarina Železinger
