Secondary News - 19 oktober 2020

Block 2 Week 2

This week began with a virtual assembly celebrating all things Humanities! The Humanities staff are immensely proud to celebrate their subjects with the students throughout the school and in classes this block.

Additionally, Miss Clayton announced the COBIS Art Competition for KS3 students and the BISL Art competition. These are two very good opportunities for students who are passionate about the Arts to be able to express their creative sides.

Friday we had to begin our online provision for Secondary early and I can’t thank the staff, students and families enough for the incredible effort they put in to adapt with just a couple of hours’ notice. We look forward to continuing working with you next week online. I encourage everyone to ensure they have read thelatest update from the Principal, as it is critical to remain informed. The provision for the collection of books from school is also on this latest update.

During this time, we use email as the primary method of communication, and I encourage everyone to email the Form Tutor or Subject Teacher directly if you have any questions.

Have a wonderful and safe weekend,

Stephanie Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Here is a photo from our first online lesson on Friday! Nice to see everyone working hard at it.

Please be advised that the school has submitted the relevant paperwork so that it can be added to the list for students to be able to purchase their public transport passes. This process has unfortunately been delayed during this time. We will update the community when we have more information.

We have been delighted to have received some interest from you to make our 2019-20 Digital BISL Yearbook available for purchase in printed form. As such, we would like to give you the opportunity to express interest by completing this simple form to let us know how many copies you would like to purchase, by Tuesday 20 October at the latest. The price will be €60 per copy.

Once we've collected your requests, we will contact you directly regarding payment and expected timeframe.

As mentioned during the recent Coffee with the Principal, the first online PTA Meeting will take place on 21st October from 9:30 on Zoom. Follow this link to join the meeting or add it to your calendars.

In the meantime, if you are interested in being on the BISL PTA Committee for the 2020-21 Academic Year and beyond, please complete this interest form.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by 'spam' emails that have been received by parents from a previous employee at our school. This is already being handled by our legal team. Please continue to disregard any such emails you receive or block the senders address to avoid further contact. We appreciate your support as we work to resolve this matter.

This week, Key Stage 3 students have been focusing on their serving technique in badminton. They have learnt how to use the forehand and backhand serve correctly, and began to think about how they can use each serve effectively to outwit their opponent. We’ve seen some fantastic techniques used by students across KS3 and look forward to seeing their progressions over the next few weeks. Students in KS4 have been focusing on specific shots in badminton and considering how they can use a range of shots within a game to outwit their opponent. Some students are also beginning to think tactically to deceive their opponent and win the point.

This week saw Year 11 Physics using cross-curricular links with History and Geography (and potentially ICT) to show why the geographical North Pole of the Earth is the magnetic south pole, linking to the concept of occidentalism and how we have to picture Europe at the centre and at the top, and the historic imagery that has stuck in our brains. They then explored how every culture views themselves as the centre, giving the example of how in Chinese, one of the names for China means "central beauty" (中華/中华). Finally we ended up showing how the map we're used to seeing has got the wrong scale, and how the northern hemisphere is bigger, especially making Russia and Canada appear to look bigger than they should in comparison with South America, Africa, and Australia.

Mr Malo de molina Herrera - Science Department

Slovene

This week we have been discussing the school premises in Slovene. Year 7 had a mission to create a school map which included the whole school premises. They were really engaged well in completing this mission. Bravo Year 7!

Miss Košec, MFL Department

The Maths department will be posting maths questions every week. These questions will be from random maths topics that let you think outside of the box and keep your brains active. I would like the students who solve the question to send their answer to my email by Tuesday next week (22nd October). The students who find the correct answer will receive 5 house points!

Maths question of the week is:

On a pond 16 lily pads are arranged in a 4×4 grid as can be seen in the diagram. A frog sits on a lily pad in one of the corners of the grid (see picture). The frog jumps from one lily pad to another horizontally or vertically. In doing so he always jumps over at least one lily pad. He never lands on the same lily pad twice. What is the maximum number of lily pads, including the one he is sitting on, on which he can land?

Miss Zupanc, Maths Department

Year 7 began the week with a reading comprehension assessment task and ended it with an extract from The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchrdt.

Year 8 also completed a reading comprehension task and then read about Harvest Moons, Blue Moons and the planet Mars which is currently at its brightest phase for 2 years.

Year 9 have just finished act 1 in Blood Brothers, and are mastering the Scouse accent.

Year 10 have been engaging in Orwell’s Dystopian novel 1984.

Year 11 have been hunting witches in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Year 12 English Language pupils have created a poster offering advice to younger years on how to approach language analysis of a text.

Year 13 would rather be in the Hunger Games than in The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Dear Parents,

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for the well wishes to the member of staff who tested positive for Covid. During the drop off this morning, it was very much appreciated to have so many parents supporting what we have done in the past 24 hours. This has been a challenging time for everyone involved and at the centre of this, we aim to make the environment as safe as possible for all of our students.

In my update, I have included some useful updates and reminders to support you during this time.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal