Secondary News - 5. junij 2020 | British International School of Ljubljana

This week saw the remaining progress tests in Maths and English completed and students have been studying for and sitting their final big exams of the year.

This week saw the remaining progress tests in Maths and English completed and students have been studying for and sitting their final big exams of the year. As the summer approaches, students need to keep in mind that they will keep working hard all the way until the very last day. There is still a lot of work to cover and we are so fortunate to be able to be in classes for that currently. Seeing students actively participating in their lessons and appreciating one another has been uplifting and their enthusiasm generally is encouraging. I urge students to maintain their full energy and efforts with their studies as the block continues. Measures are still in place but have been updated in the most recent Principal’s Update and will continue to be reviewed and monitored as the weeks progress.

I hope that all families are able to enjoy the warmer weather and the longer days this weekend. Have a safe and healthy time.

Ms Andronikos

Head of Secondary

This week the students were practicing different sports such as Basketball, Floorball, Ultimate Frisbee, Frisbee golf and Badminton.

The aim of PE lessons in Block 7 is to give students the opportunity to improve on their game play and tactics in team sports.

A gentle reminder to please send your child with an additional T-shirt to change into for their PE lessons.

Mr Damjan

Head of PE Department

Football Frenzy Raffle Prizes:

Please be aware that the deadline to collect your prize is now Wednesday 9th June. If you hold one of the winning raffle ticket numbers, please make yourselves known to Mr Batson via email jason.batson@britishschool.si. As a reminder, the winning numbers are:

0159 - In The Attic Framed Album

0132 - Autographer Liverpool Van Dijk Home Shirt

0278 - Autographed Manchester City Kyle Walker Home Shirt

Transition weeks for the current Year 11 and Year 12:

Students from the current year 11 and 12, who have finished their IGCSE and AS courses respectively, will be invited back into school to participate in the upcoming transition week. During these two weeks, students will be introduced to their new courses and they will be given details regarding what resources they will need. New aspects of life in sixth form will be discussed with students, including University Preparation classes, additional duties and responsibilities for the cohort and, in addition, they will be able to attend preliminary classes that will not only help them in their summer preparations for their new class but also give them a taste of what is to come.

Mr Batson

Yr 13 Form Tutor

Year 7 worked on a unit which contained a play about a character deciding to become a vegetarian. We discussed the question of what would happen to the world if everyone became a vegetarian and we also learnt the difference between “active” and “passive” sentences.

Year 8A paid particular focus to the writer’s use of language in the novel “Private Peaceful” and learnt to write a newspaper article based on an event in the book.

Year 8B worked on a unit about “Nanook of the North” - a famous early documentary film about Inuit people in the North of America and Canada and also examined the differences between “dialect””accent” and “register”. We really enjoyed listening to the different English dialects that exist around the world and relating them to our own community.

This week Year 9 continued their study of Gothic literature paying particular attention to the wonderful writing of Edgar Allan Poe and began their examination of his famous “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Year 10s began work on a new poem entitled "Muliebrity" by Indian Poet Sujata Bhattas as they continued their studies of IGCSE Poetry. They also wrote a presentation on one of the poems they have recently studied in class.

Mr Eve and Mr Kirwan

English Department

Non natives

Year 7 have used the knowledge they gained from the “My day - School day” Topic to make a questionnaire asking other students about their favourite subjects. They are looking forward to analysing the results.

Year 8 showed off their verbal language proficiency by either making dialogues or describing what their favourite day would be like and recording themselves.

Year 9 are revising and researching the town of Ljubljana and country Slovenia to be able to gather interesting information and learn about the country they are living in.

Year 10 have been learning new vocabulary and practised their study skills. Not all of them enjoyed using flashcards, as some like being put in test situations more and others enjoy fun linking games.

Ms Kotnik

MFL Coordinator

Year 8 have been actively revising for their assessment next week. After working on their speaking and writing skills by preparing a presentation, they focus on their vocabulary knowledge through a Kahoot game.

Mrs Poulet

French Teacher

This week, we had the pleasure to listen to Jon's amazing presentation on the French man known as Tarrare. Did you know that Tarrare could eat a quarter of a cow in one day, worked as a spy and was suspected of eating a baby in a hospital and all this by the age of 26?

Mrs Poulet

Year 7 Form Tutor

I just wanted to mention the excellent portfolio of performances and compositions submitted by the AS and GCSE Music students.

The performances and compositions are all good in their own right but one in particular stands out for me and that is Eva from Yr 12’s deeply expressive rendition of Paul Weller's 'You Do Something To Me'. I listened to the song last week and yet it has stayed in my mind ever since, unable to shake off its haunting refrain.

The technical brilliance of Chris from Yr 12 ‘s version of 'Sultans of Swing' and Ivan's Yr12 astonishing self-penned composition 'Desert Ska' are also worth a mention.

Mr Austin

Head of Music

IGRAJ SE Z MANO

A huge thanks to students from secondary that participated in performances for this year's Igraj se z Mano (Play with Me) Festival, in their own time. . You can see Ana and Jasmina from Year 9 sing the song, 'We're all in this together,' from “High School Musical” (Watch them online HERE) and Chloe from Year 11 performing Chopin Etude on piano can be enjoyed HERE.

Tanya Charlesworth C4C

Our students and staff, as well as many parents at home, were expected to read for longer periods of time from screens on their devices in the last couple of weeks. Depending on the increase in time in time spent reading, the eyes needed adjusting to the stress. This can be experienced as tired, watery, itchy eyes. Consequently, it is difficult to keep up and do more work. Something that students and people with reading and writing difficulties experience almost every day in their lives.

Can you imagine having ' heavy' or 'itchy' eyes and still needing to put a lot more energy into reading, as you haven't finished due to slower reading or mixing letters, syllables, lines of text and similar? Maybe it would look as something like this:

Distance Learning can present even a bigger challenge for a person with reading and writing difficulties. The greatest stress may present the light of the screen and the white and black contrast in the text. Sometimes it helps to read in a darker room, sometimes it helps to adjust the screen brightness. When possible, it might help to have colour printouts of the text.

When stuck with having to read from your screen for a long time, you can try with a Virtual coloured ruler. The idea originates from specialists working with Dyslexic students and students with Irlen or Scotopic syndrome. Irlen syndrome can be present with students experiencing difficulties reading and reading comprehension, difficulties focusing, difficulties processing depth of 3d objects, light sensitivity, tiredness working with computers and under neon light. A person has difficulties due to the way the brain processes visual information. The specialists have proven that specific colour combinations help and make reading easier. To find the perfect colour or combinations, people need to have a thorough assessment. However, having tired eyes and still needing to do more, you can try if having a reading colour ruler on your screen might help you. It is a software that colour codes the desired segment the person is reading, making it stand out or changing the colour of the screen a person is looking at to make the reading easier. You can add an extension on your Chrome search engine (Reading ruler download) or download one here.

Ms Begić

SEN Department

Dear Parents,

During this week we have seen our students continue to settle back into routines and they have been wonderful. I have been particularly impressed by the attendance of our students in Early Years to Year 10, the figure last week matches our highest in the last two terms. This is great news as we all know that excellent attendance is key for good learning.

Updates to Safety Guidance

We will continue to focus on the safety of all members of the community.

During the next week, upon careful consideration, we have decided to relax the guidance further on the use of masks in school, this means as of Monday 8th June, masks will be optional for secondary students. Masks for staff continues to be recommended, but will now be optional. This is in accordance with the most recent ministry guidance.
Primary after-school provision will be upgraded to include all primary students (up to and including Year 6) who wish to stay back after school until 3.40pm. Early Years provision will continue up until 4.30pm. Further information will be sent out by Mrs Železinger, Head of Primary.

Other aspects of school life (lunches, activities, events, gatherings, etc.) will be reviewed on a daily basis and any changes are to be announced each Friday. This keeps the messages clear and consistent.

As we receive further updates, we will add them to our BISL reopening procedures page and email out any changes to the guidance.

Staff Announcements

Next week we will start to send out letters to parents informing them of the teachers for next year. A letter from a teacher in the year group will be sent to current and new parents to introduce themselves, share information about next year and inform them of key dates to note (Orientation Day, Friday 21st August and the first day of school, Monday 24th August).

Staff profiles, photos and bios of new staff joining BISL will be sent out to all parents to welcome and introduce our new colleagues into our community for August 2020.

Previous updates:

I wish all families an enjoyable weekend.

Kind regards,

Mr Walton

Principal