Primary News - 13. maj 2022

Dear Parents and Students,

We have had a tremendous Block 6, with so many wonderful activities, trips, performances and other events happening throughout the six weeks. A huge number of students participated in the Rocket competition last Tuesday to show what their fantastic designs could do, with their peers cheering and encouraging them to succeed. Well done to all students that took part and congratulations to the winners!

With warm and sunny weather, students have continued to enjoy playing outside and relaxing in the woodland area, going on nature walks in the nearby forest and learning outdoors. With these opportunities and additional trips planned, Block 7 is looking exciting already.

The Goblin Next Door play production on Wednesday was an absolute delight. Our Year 1 students sparkled in their costumes and confidently performed their lines and songs, bringing smiles to their audience.

We concluded this Block with International Day celebrations, including the Opening Ceremony with students bearing the flags of over 40 different countries representing the BISL international student community, and a number of performances from students, as well as visitors. During Slovene lessons this week, students participated in workshops and fun activities to celebrate Slovene culture. Thank you to all parents for organising and supporting the International Fair and representing so many countries with an amazing selection of food and activities for our school community to sample and enjoy. Everyone dressed in their country’s national dress and colours, creating a truly multicultural experience. A fantastic way to finish the block!

Please see the sections below for more exciting news from classes and subject departments. As always, you can keep up with the latest News and Events, including the Update from the Principal, on the school website.

We wish everyone a good break and look forward to seeing you back on Monday 23rd May.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger, Head of Primary

Early Years

Where are you from?

This has been the key question in the Early Years this week as the children were learning to identify which county we originate from and explored different flags from around the world. In the Early Years, students have been celebrating all nationalities by hunting for flags representing their own countries that were hidden around the classroom. Throughout the week, the children practised how to draw flags of different countries. Therefore, finding all the hidden flags and naming them, has been a piece of cake for our students!

In the Early Years, we concluded our journey of the topic “Plants and flowers” by decorating plant pots. The children created wavy, spotty, and stripy patterns and pictures on plant pots with acrylic paint.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

Every week is busy, but this week has been spectacular! I am sure you will all agree that the Year 1 students did an incredible job at our performance this week! We also had two students participating in the rocket competition and students taking part in the International Days opening ceremony.

In English lessons, we practiced our comprehension skills, while in Maths we completed various multiplication and division problems. Our entire week has been a celebration of different countries, as we have been drawing country flags the whole week.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

Another great week in Year 2 and what a nice way to finish Block 6. The rocket competition was fantastic on Tuesday and well done to our fantastic Year 2s who took part. We also enjoyed watching the dress rehearsal of the play by Year 1.

In English we have been learning about using conjunctions in different types of sentences. We have finished off our unit of measurement in Maths. Then in Topic we finished off our current topic of H2O and learnt all about Scott of the Antarctic.

Ms Harris and Mrs Fordham

Year 3A

This week Year 3 prepared a surprise visit to the rainforests of the world for Year 2 students! Students went on a safari, learning about the canopy layers and animals before stumbling on a lumberjack arguing with some local native tribe women!

It's a good job a local rainforest charity stepped in to help out!

Ms Blundell

Year 3B

The Year 3 students have created a walkthrough presentation showing what they have learned during their topic on 'Saving the planet'. Students have presented various parts of their learning in groups, taking the Year 2 students on an imaginary safari.

The audience was then given a chance to support one of the groups' efforts by rewarding them with their vote. This activity was marked via a rubric and discussed in class.

Mr Kokalj

Year 4

YEAR 4 MATERIALS

It's all about MILK. To celebrate the exit point to our exciting Science Topic of Materials, the children became magic scientists and tried to turn the simple household product of milk into cheese, butter and (low and behold) plastic. Their enthusiasm was tremendous and sparked interest from the classes near the nutrition room.

The milk that separated from the cheese and plastic was not wasted, but tasted. It only tickled a few students' taste buds who went back for more, the hint of vinegar a little too strong for others. The cheese was again not to everyone's taste and the plastic awaits drying and painting on the windowsill, ready to be made into tokens of love for their families.

BOOK DIORAMAS IN YEAR 4

Year 4 loved how cool the Year 2 habitat dioramas were, so much so that they wanted to do the same. So, Year 4 created their own dioramas about their favourite book that they read this block. There were a number of targets to reach when sharing their presentations with the class, which included: creativity and thoughtfulness, effort / organisation / neatness, understanding of the story and grammar / spelling / punctuation. After their presentations to the class, their peers assessed them using the rubric on Canvas.

Having enjoyed the creativity and enthusiasm about their books, the Year 4 students rated everyone highly. Some of the books we enjoyed hearing about were Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets, Geronimo Stilton, My Warrior (How the brain works) and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. The students were very deliberately careful not to give away any spoilers. Take a look at our display to see the student's favourite scenes from their books.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

What an exciting week to end the block. The children have enjoyed taking part in the International Days and dressing up for the occasion.

Year 5 enjoyed creating presentations about their home country and sharing them with each other.

A big congratulations to Genta who took part in the rocket competition this week. I hope everyone has a restful and happy break.

Mrs Thomas

Year 6

This week, Year 6 students continued their space exploration by learning about the phases of the moon, seasons and eclipses.

Next week, students are lucky to have a holiday as they will be able to view a partial stage of what will become a Blood Moon total eclipse in the early morning sky on May 16th from 04:30-05:30. Early risers should be rewarded with a quick glimpse of the total eclipse just prior to moonset at 05:30.

Mr Bishop

PE

We completed our sporting units during our PE lessons this week. Years 1 and 2 progressed to scorekeeping and understanding the importance of healthy competition when playing lobster ball. Years 3 and 4 participated in a football tournament, exploring the importance of demonstrating sporting behaviour when competing and working as a team to achieve a collective goal. Years 5 and 6 progressed their floor hockey skills, organising and officiating their own tournament.

PE Department

Slovene

As a part of the International days, we celebrated the Slovene language this week with different workshops throughout the school. In Primary, students were able to choose between making carnations, revising the Slovene alphabet in different activities, making Slovene flags, memory games with different topics, writing with Č, Ž and Š or reading books to each other.

In Secondary, students watched the film Gremo mi po svoje 2, wrote haiku(s) or made carnations. Slovene workshops are a great opportunity to bring together both Slovene groups as well as support and learn from each other.

MFL Team

EAL

This was an exciting week for the EAL department and all the students in our provision. We welcomed into our midst some new students and got to know each other through some speaking activities and board games.

On Friday, one of the groups learned about the senses and how to use them to enhance our setting description in story writing. After learning or revising which part of the body is associated with each sense, we went outside to find how the senses surround our everyday environment.

Mr Siter

Teacher Feature Series

As our Science Block celebration draws to a close, we bring you a delightful interview with Mr Stanič, our enthusiastic Physics teacher. Enjoy!

International Days - Galleries

We have some fantastic galleries for you to enjoy on our website!

The Flag Parade on Thursday morning was fantastic!

A group of international DanceSport champions put on a fantastic performance for our students on Thursday afternoon.

The International Fair was absolutely amazing, with a variety of cultural activities, traditional cuisines, music, fun and games for our community.

A huge thank you to our parents for your support in these events!

As part of Science Block, our students were challenged to make their own rockets as part of a competition to see whose project could fly the highest.

Take a look at our students’ fantastic efforts here.

Year 1 Production

Our Year 1s put on a spectacular show this week, performing The Goblin Next Door! Take a look at our photo gallery here.

BISL Summer School 2022

With summer just around the corner, registration is now open for BISL Summer School 2022!

Library Book Donations

In partnership with the PTA, we are accepting donations of books to our library throughout block 6 and encourage everyone to bring in their used books - in any language - and drop it off at Reception.

Dear Parents,

It has been a fantastic week and what a wonderful way to finish off the week by celebrating our International Days here at BISL!

The International Days are an annual event to really raise awareness, understanding and celebration of cultures from around the world. With over 40 nationalities in our community, this enriches us and brings many opportunities for parents, students and teachers to come together as one.

Thank you to everyone for your support for this event. We had a fantastic opening ceremony on Thursday, our students were fabulous and the flags looked great. We've also enjoyed a wonderful array of professional dancing of the highest quality and an opportunity for our students to be truly inspired. With activities, parents supporting, teachers running projects in classes, everyone dressed in colours of their country or traditional dress, the International Fair this afternoon has been a big, bright and vibrant end to the week. Of course, the International food fair is always popular and it didn't disappoint! - thank you to all parents involved in this.

We really appreciate your time, effort and care spent preparing and organising the stalls and everything else this week. A very enjoyable and successful community event.

This week we also had Year 1 performing 'The Goblin Next Door', thank you to Ms Miklavec, the Year 1 team and teachers who helped and supported this event. It was incredible! Please have a look at the pictures from our gallery below.

Exams are running well, our students from Year 11 - 13 have been so focused and committed that I want to thank everyone again for how smoothly this is going.

This week, we've had Early Years out on a nature walk, playing outside and we continue to encourage this across the year groups. With the sunshine weather, it is ideal to explore outside and learn in the fresh air. We've also planted flowers in the school grounds this week, with trees, bushes and it has added a range of colour for the students to enjoy.

We've seen some building improvements with the new flags installed outside of the new building, the rail for the stage curtain (coming very soon) and also a delivery of 30 extra chairs for the Performance Theatre!

A reminder that information regarding all new staff, Primary Class Teachers for 2022/23 and new Secondary Teachers will be sent out to all parents in the community as normal this term. We aim for Monday 16th May, to send out this information to you, to give you a chance to find out more about the teachers before we welcome them into the community for August 2022. Class allocations for Primary will be included in this.

And last but certainly not least, thank you to the Science team for a fantastic Science block! We've seen a rocket competition, amazing animals visiting BISL, practicals for Primary and Secondary students, Art competition displays, daily science riddles and puns, assembly, Year 5 vehicles, boats, rocks and minerals, trip to the Botanical gardens, STEAM project and more! (Also, extra Science exam revision classes for our Year 11 - 13s).

Next block, we move from celebrating Science to PE and very excited to finish the year with a healthy and active focus!

Please read my full Update from the Principal here for details, links and photos.

Have a great block break!

Kind regards,

Paul Walton, Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.