Secondary News - 21. dec 2020

The time of the year has come when we are ready to have a well-deserved break for the holidays, and this week has been the perfect time to be able to reflect and celebrate all the hard work from this first term. We have not only been getting into the Christmas spirit, but also, we have seen the release of many projects from across the school.

The Creative Arts block finished with a bang including the release of the COBIS Art competition entries as part of our Visual Arts celebration and many performances from students and staff across Primary and Secondary for us to enjoy. Everyone is encouraged to visit the BISL website or Facebook page to see these fantastic performances. Well done to all who got involved, and to the Creative Arts staff, Ms Kenealy, Miss Clayton and Mr Hulse, who did a wonderful job compiling work and inspiring students this Creative Arts block.

Additionally, this week, students were celebrated in the assembly, some receiving subject awards for the term, their hard work and high effort recognised by their teachers. It is lovely to finish the term celebrating these achievements, but also to reflect, in order to adapt and improve for next term. Parent Teacher Interviews are an excellent way to gather feedback about the term to know how to best prepare moving forward.

Our Year 11, 12 and 13 students are planning a busy break, as they prepare for mock exams in the first weeks of next block. Acting upon the feedback from teachers now is critical to have the best possible outcome. Of course, whilst the situation currently still appears to be uncertain, we continue as best we can to prepare for anything.

In the meantime, light the fire, snuggle up in the warm, get a hot cup of cocoa and celebrate the season with family. I wish all the community a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please stay safe and healthy this holiday season, we look forward to seeing students on Tuesday January 5th.

Ms Andronikos, Head of Secondary

Click here to read the first edition!

We hope you enjoy reading the first edition of the BISL Student Magazine, and we are looking forward to our second publication at the end of Block 4. We encourage more students to be interested in getting involved in it - please contact Mr. Kirwan or see Julia in Year 10 if you wish to contribute!

This week has been full of Christmas fun and creativity across all subjects. Many subjects have blended the theme of Christmas in with their learning this week.

Even whilst zoom learning we’ve embraced Christmas cheer, and sometimes we’ve even sung loud for all to hear.

Expressions Through Poetry

In celebration of our Creative Arts Block, these last 5 weeks for Year 9 have focused on poetry, both analysis of a variety of works and creating their own. The poems are on the theme of quarantine and lockdown.

Click here to enjoy the wonderful poetry written by our talented students.

Christmas Cultures Around the World

We are a proud multicultural school with students from across the world from Japan to Brazil to everything in between. Students across the years have been exploring Christmas traditions from each other's countries. Several students wrote a short write up about traditions in their own country.

Take a read about 10 different Christmas traditions as written by our Year 7 - 10 students. Which tradition is your favourite?

This has been a hugely successful block for performing arts with many departments embracing it and working to include it in their lessons. The BISL christmas video went out on Tuesday this week. It can be viewed on facebook, youtube and the school website. Well done to all who took part.

Year 9A girls also created a compilation of silent night in different languages which can also be viewed on facebook. Click here to view the video.

Year 7 have been working on 'A day in the life during lockdown videos'. Make sure you regularly check the school’s website and facebook page for updates.

A fantastic effort from many across secondary who have submitted extra Christmas performances, ranging from piano to guitar, vocals and trumpet. Keep an eye out for these fantastic pieces of work.

Students were asked to email the most Christmassy thing in your house/garden. Challenge accepted! We hope these images make you feel as Christmassy as we do right now!

Heading to BISL was a very hard adjustment for me having spent all my life, from the age of 3 in preschool till the age of 14 in my old school. It was a school that I will cherish in my heart all my life as I considered it my second home, and my second family.

After the school closed this year, I turned to a new chapter in my life, entering the British International School. Although I still deeply miss my old school, I was able to adapt to the new school system rather quickly with the help of teachers and classmates.

I have learned plenty in all of my classes so far, and I can see how quickly I am improving in every subject. I am glad to have been able to experience both the American and British systems of education and am ready to continue my path of education at this school.

Julia K, Year 10

Hello everyone!

Congratulations on finishing another block. I know everyone has been working very hard this past term, and that it has been a difficult period for all of us, so this break is well deserved. Well done on finishing all your assignments and keeping up with all the work, and maintain this great work ethic for next year. Use this break to restore your energy, and spend some time with your family and friends. For example, every week I make some time to watch a movie with my friends in other countries.

If you have family abroad, it might be difficult to see them, so try facetiming them during the Christmas period to still talk to them. Thank you to everyone who shared some of their wonderful Christmas pictures. Have a great holiday, and hopefully we will go back to school next year.

Stay safe over Christmas and we look forward to seeing you all in the new year!

Mickey and Daniel

After a half-day of lessons, some of us still felt energised enough to engage in a baking activity. I guess the thought of holidays and the Christmas spirit was giving us energy. We used Julia's fantastic recipe to bake some cookies.

We also came across an idea of making this a weekly Zoom after school activity, in case the distance learning continues in January. What do you think?

You better watch out

You better not cry

You better not pout

I'm telling you why

Santa Claus is coming to town…

or is he?

Year 8 and Year 9 historians have deconstructed the legendary character looking at his many incarnations over the last millennia of European history. Using new-found knowledge of the wide variety of interpretations, they created their own Santa Claus.

Although some of these young historians chose to keep the Santa Claus we know and love, others embedded the myths, legends and stories of Odin, Wodan, St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas and Father Christmas (amongst others) into their work.

Can you spot such examples in their work?

Shout out to Lila, Višnja, and Martin who painted their work, to Gabriel, who wrote an extended description and to Arthur, who wrote a brief history of the Santa we know today!

Gabriel’s version of Santa Claus:

Before Coca-Cola adapted Santa as a tall fat man, Santa looked like a skinny old man, with the red clothes and iconic beard. Santa used to ride a horse. It was later adapted saying that Santa rode a sleigh with reindeers until Tim Burton's famous movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, showed that Santa's sleigh could fly instead of running on the ground.

However, one question many people don't know the answer to is "How does Santa really look like?" Europeans view him like Saint Nicholas, with a green robe, and Nordics view him like Odin, the Norse god. Many others view him as a tall fat man, thanks to Coca-Cola, but in my opinion, Santa looks like an ordinary old man with the iconic white beard, and he wears 17th century-like winter clothing, with the red robe, and he doesn't wear a hat. He is also kind of fat, not THAT fat. He does not do the "Ho ho ho" and he doesn't deliver anything to naughty children, not even coal. Santa speaks Elvish, and cannot speak any other language. His elves are international, meaning that they can speak different world languages.

How can Santa travel around the world then? Well, he doesn't. The elves do for him and he commands them. The elves ride old school airplanes going around the world, and the airplanes stop by every house. Then, the elves enter the chimney or any other entrance and find the Christmas tree, and put the presents on the bottom. When they're finished, if necessary, they help other elves and then the mission is over. They go back to Lapland.

Does Santa have reindeers? Well yes, he does. However, Rudolph doesn't have a red glowing nose. Instead, he is taller than the other reindeers and just has a pointy nose. His nose is red when he has allergies, and he has it all the time. And does Santa ride a sleigh? In my last paragraph, Santa doesn't travel, so sadly not. However, when Santa was just a man with no elves, he rode an ice sleigh with all his reindeers. Now the reindeers are used as the symbols of Santa's workshop.

Category 1: Interpretations based closely on the Santa we know

Category 2: Interpretations loosely based on the Santa we know

Category 3: Interpretations far away from traditionally known Santas:

This week, Year 7 students have been learning about The Geography of Covid, investigating why there is a pandemic, understanding how it has affected different countries through analysing maps, graphs and tables and lastly evaluating the impact of Covid on the world, how life has changed, and what it might be like when it is all over.

Lots of students thought there were several factors that helped Covid spread so quickly but felt quite strongly it was due to people not following the rules or rules being poorly implemented. There was a definite sense of injustice that their lives had to be affected by the poor decisions of others (an important lesson even beyond a pandemic!)

Next, students visited the brilliant World Health Organisation (WHO) websites, Covid-19 Dashboard, Explorer App, and the Interactive Timeline. By playing around with the different maps, graphs and tables the Year 7s could see the data visualised in a variety of ways that showed us the extent of the cases and deaths spatially at different scales and temporally since the beginning of 2020. I think we all felt a sense of shame to see Europe doing so poorly and had a great deal of sympathy to all the people and their families that Covid has affected.

Lastly we talked about life before, during and after the pandemic. Would things go back to the way they were in December 2019? Would Covid change the way we live, work and learn permanently? Year 7s definitely miss the freedom they had before and being able to travel locally and abroad to visit family, friends and different places.

Lots of students felt that life would be different, but better, after Covid. They thought masks and hand sanitisers might still be used a lot, even just to stop the spread of common colds and seasonal flu. Students were really excited about being able to see more people and places than just their families, computer screen and supermarket!

Overall, I was really impressed with their understanding of Covid and with how well they’ve conducted themselves in Term 1 during this difficult time.

Well done Year 7 and Happy Holidays!
Mr. Bradley, Head of Humanities

We would like to congratulate all the students that received a special PE Certificate for their excellent work in PE lessons. The students will receive the certificate via email. Congratulations again from the PE Department!

This week’s PE Department weekly challenge is set by Mr Damjan with the theme of football in mind. We also had not one but two keep up with the teacher challenges! See if you can keep up with Ms Kosec and Mr Mulcahy in the below videos.

Remember, you can submit your attempts on your PE Canvas page, or send your attempts to the PE Department. Mr Černi has also shown us some great exercises that we can do at home to ensure that we are maintaining our activity levels, with his Deskercise activities. Check these out on the BISL Sport Instagram page.

• Ms. Kosec’s PE challenge
• Mr. Mulcahy’s PE challenge
• Mr. Damjan’s 60 sec challenge

This week in PE has seen the final week of the BISL Sports Education League.

Year 7, 8 and 9 students have continued to compete for league points through demonstrating their freestyle football skills and their football juggling skills. Mihai in Year 9 blew all the students away with an incredible 224 consecutive juggles with his football!

Year 10 and Year 11 have focused on their football-related fitness this week and completed several fitness activities. Some students displayed their capacity to undertake a range of strenuous and challenging activities. Miss Sharpe was specifically impressed by the efforts of Aidan and Julie in Year 10, and Vojko and Lars in Year 11.

The PE Department would like to congratulate those students who received recognition for their efforts and contributions in PE this week and have received certificates to celebrate their achievements. Year 7: Ryan, Mei T, Domen C. Year 8: Julia , Izzy. Year 9: Nikola, Cara. Year 10: Julia K. Year 11: Nikolay . Most improved across all years - Stavr, Y10.

Last week, we celebrated our house competition and are thrilled to announce the results for Term 1:

1st place with 587 points - Zircon

2nd place with 568 points - Hessonite

3rd place with 513 points - Sapphire

4th place with 434 points - Emerald

We would like to wish all of our students and families a happy and healthy Christmas break, and we look forward to welcoming our students back to school in 2021!

PE Department

This week’s DESKERCISE challenge:

In the spirit of the Creative Arts block, Key Stage 3 Mathematics collaborated with Visual Arts and incorporated constructing shapes into works of art.

Year 7 were inspired by Islamic geometry and marine life, Year 8 focused on patterns in nature as well as learnt about scale drawings, and Year 9 explored Echer's impossible shapes and created their own.

Ms Zupanc, Mathematics Department

Across KS3 and KS4 our students have had a Christmassy spin on their work, from exploring different cultures versions of Christmas, to writing descriptions of Christmas morning.

Year 7 this week have been exploring different Christmas traditions through reading comprehension, and then having the creative freedom to work independently to produce a factual piece of writing about their own countries Christmas or New Years tradition.

Year 8 this week had a double lesson working with Year 10, collaborating on a cross cultural powerpoint, exploring different Christmas traditions around the world. Both year groups enjoyed this collaboration and learnt a lot about each other and each other's cultures. Team working skills is an important skill we try to develop throughout the curriculum at BISL, and we hope to do more cross-year collaborations in the future.

Take a look at some of the work they created together:

Students also continued to develop their descriptive writing with freedom to describe a marketplace of their choice, a Christmas market or otherwise. It is important to give students the time to express their creative freedom.

Here are two extracts from about a Christmas Market:

Visnja:Today, the day before Christmas Eve. Last day when stores are working this year. Last chance to buy things for gifts. I’m in a famous Christmas store. One of most famous stores in California. I need to buy only three more things.

Since my best friend likes sweets I will buy her hoodie and her favourite sweets. I can see in front of me a whole shelf of marshmallows and right next to it a thousand different chocolates. It’s shocking how they have this many no matter that hundred of people are here. I can hear people talking, kids asking their parents for new toys because there are just so many beautiful Christmassy decorated toys. Everyone is as fast as possible because they want to give every lovely person a little sigh of love.

Lila: Crunch, went the powdered snow beneath my feet as I plodded to the Christmas market. The cold wind howled and bit at my cheeks, they turned rosy and pink with the effort to plough through the thick snow. As I arrived at the jolly place where all good things come from, a loud honk came from behind me as a food truck delivering wonderful spices tried to deliver its cargo. The smell of the truck’s contents tickled my nose and I couldn't resist a small sneeze.

Walking through the market, hanging lights shone like fairies and a curtain of clouds covered the frowning sun. I made my way over to the tea stand and the delightful smell of brewing cranberries and the hot water soothed my freezing hands that had by now turned blue in the forever plummeting temperature. As I concentrated on blowing warm air onto my cold fingers, I almost forgot my errands. I found the perfect wicker basket for my winter groceries to go in, the neat knots in the basket made me feel very comforted as I swung it in my hands.

A nice old lady that smell of fresh pine and berries stopped me in the street and offered me one of her hand made harlands, they were soft and waxy to the touch, but my hand slipped, a sharp pain filled my fingers and a tiny drop of crimson blood blended with the paper white snow. To make myself feel better I bought a lovely pair of soft , fuzzy socks that immediately filled me with christmas cheer.

Year 9 were given the creative writing task this week to create a poem about lockdown. The poem had to express their raw emotions, and could be in any format they wished from free flow verse to a traditional AABB rhyming scheme.

Take a read at our talented students' poems, who wished to remain anonymous.

Year 10 this week year 10 have had a more relaxing week, with some Christmas activities and some group work with the year 8s. Students created presentations about Christmas traditions across the world, and enjoyed a Christmas musical Kahoot quiz as a send off for two of our students who are returning to their home countries.

In addition to Christmas themed lessons this week, year 10 have worked hard at improving their essay writing style, after receiving extensive feedback on their last practise exam question, they continued to tackle more 1984 exam questions, improving their writing style with each attempt. Here is a short extract from Aidan’s essay analysing the repetitiveness of “victory” in 1984.

“Propaganda is everywhere in Oceania, even in things as simple as housing and products, like “victory mansions”, “victory cigarettes”, and “victory gin”. This is to make the public feel as though the things the party supplies them with are luxuries compared to the past, celebrating the victory of the party.”

Year 11 have been revising for the 5 different English papers they will be sitting their mocks for in January. A huge well done to our Year 11s for remaining focused.

Year 11s have also been attending lunch time revision sessions led by Ms. O’Regan, and have enjoyed interactive revision such as kahoot quizzes and discussions about 1984 and The Crucible to group essay writing tasks. A special thankyou to Ewa, Jan and Irmak who have attended them all, showing a real commitment to getting that A. These revision sessions will continue twice a week in block 4 and 5. Lunchtime revision timetable will be confirmed in due course.

Year 13 we couldn’t quite think of a way to put Christmas spin on Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. We are proud to have finished the play, and certainly don’t have mixed feelings about the gentleman called Jim in the book, with a consensus he was arrogant and Laura could definitely do better.

Year 10 are exploring different leadership styles, and have discussed which leadership style the teachers use.

Year 12 have been learning about trade and exchange rates, enjoying an interactive lesson with Giovanni the bear (representing Bearland in this trade negotiation) and Parma the pig (representing Oinkland). Oinkland was demonstrating foreign exchange rates with pharmaceuticals.

Year 13 have been prepping hard for their mocks this week, a huge well done on everyone's improved marks.

Students in Year 11 have created a google website to highlight the dangers of Global Warming. This website is informative and gives solutions and recommendations that people can do in their everyday lives to help stop/delay global warming. A huge well done on this collaborative project.

Take a look at the website here!

Mr. Rogers, Humanities department

As part of the MEPI, Jasmina from Y10 is launching a new project in Science. She made a science extension board. If you are interested in extending your knowledge in Science please have a look at some questions, videos, and weekly riddles here:

If you have an answer to the question and/or riddle or you watched the video, please let me know by email polona.tusar@britishschool.si.

Science Challenge:

I also have an extra challenge for you this week - can you get a balloon filled with water inside of the bottle?

Hint no. 1: think about the air pressure.

Ms Tusar, Science Department

Slovene

Year 10 and 11 have been presenting their food orders. They were ordering food such as pica, cake, spaghetti Bolognese … and made everyone hungry in our class. Even me! Zelo dobro!

Miss Košec, MFL Department

Year 9 in Slovene Advanced are reading the book Blue Snow by P. Bednarski. They are discussing and analysing the book, and have concluded it is a wonderful piece of writing that reflects the time during World War II.

Miss Drofenik - MFL Department

This week's Teacher Feature acquaints us with Ms Sarah Fairchild, our acclaimed professional Team USA athlete, who has extensive experience in developing specific sporting skills within students who train in a variety of sports.

Read Ms Fairchild’s full Teacher Feature here.

As well as dealing with the maintenance of the Online Record Book, and striving to organise appropriate activities for their individual Award sections, our participants have been focussed on mapwork, and the art of completing a route card. Two different maps have been provided (one for the Šmarna Gora area, and one for the more central Tivoli/Rožnik area.) Each map comes with two grid references (a starting point and a finishing point) between which they need to plot a route, and accurately input the details into a route card.

The challenge for this week culminates in the completion of the planned route on foot. We look forward to seeing some photographs from this event. A great way to develop some essential navigational skills, and enjoy a little fresh air and exercise in the greener bits around Ljubljana!

Mr Irving, MEPI Coordinator

Miss Hannah Sharpe has tended her resignation. We thank her for her energy and enthusiasm for PE and wish her well.

We are delighted to announce that Ms Sarah Fairchild will be taking over the PE position from Term 2. Ms Fairchild is a very experienced SEN and PE specialist who has already been working with BISL students. With experience competing at a professional level, Ms Fairchild was on the US olympic team for speed skating. After this, she went into teaching, developing specific sporting skills within students who were training for a range of different sports. Ms Fairchild is extremely excited to be able to work within the PE department and will be an excellent addition to that team.

Ms Drofenik has been currently assisting with 7A Form Class, getting to know students throughout Block 3. She will continue as their Form Tutor for the remainder of the academic year. She is very happy to be working with these students.

We welcome Mrs Esther Yates to the Learning Support Team from January. Mrs. Yates is a qualified SEN Specialist and Assistant Teacher, with vast experience as a Learning Support Coordinator and SEN and EAL in a number of international schools. Mrs. Yates is an accomplished team worker with a proven track record of producing first class support and in-house training and innovative practices within the school community. She joins BISL with her husband Mr. Yates, who is already working with the Science Department, teaching Biology throughout the Secondary school. Both of them are thrilled about this new opportunity to work with the BISL community.

Ms Andronikos, Head of Secondary School

Dear Parents,

We have had a wonderful time during the last few weeks of term, working with the students both in school and through Zoom to create some very special projects, productions and activities.

I'd like to note that we have amazing students and it is a real pleasure to see their confidence grow through their participation in competitions, projects, music videos and events this term. Seeing how engaged and inspired they have been has made me incredibly proud of the hard work from the entire community.

Please read my full Holiday Update from the Principal here.

I wish you, your family and friends a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year!

Have a restful, relaxing and recharging break.

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal