Primary News - 17. junij 2022

Dear Parents and Students,

This week has been packed full of events across the school. The BISL Olympics continued with some more exciting challenges. Primary Sports Day will be taking place on Monday, 20th June to conclude the final week of the PE Block, with students from Early Years to Year 6 participating in gaining those House Points for their teams!

In addition, the Year 3 classes went on an off-site adventure in the nearby forest area and surrounding fields this Tuesday to engage in various team and individual sporting activities.

On Wednesday, our Year 5 students put on a fantastic performance for their parents. Students wrote their own scripts and songs, designed their costumes and prepared the scenes. Well done for a star performance!

During pick-up on Thursday, the Student Council Representatives and winners of the Road Safety poster competition displayed their posters outside the school, as part of the continued BISL campaign to raise awareness about road safety and remind all drivers to keep the speed limits to ensure that our students can leave the school safely.

The Year 6 students went on a brilliant three-day residential trip to the beautiful lake Bohinj this week. With such glorious surroundings and fun experiences, they will be able to take a lot of great memories with them to Secondary school next year, following the Year 6 Graduation on Friday. All teachers would like to congratulate the Year 6 graduates and wish them all the best in the next chapter of their lives, be it continuing at BISL or moving to another school.

It is hard to imagine that we have only one more week of school before the summer holidays. Please remember to return any school library books and readers next week. Friday 24th June is the last day of school and finishes at 12:00. It is a dress down day, please encourage students to wear their House colours! Students should take all of their personal belongings home, including any school work, water bottles, clothing and footwear. The ‘lost and found’ items will be displayed outside in the pick-up area - please take time to look through these for any missing items, as any left will be discarded.

Read below for further events happening next week, including the Early Years Transition Presentation for Parents, the Year 4 Gallery event, the Staff vs Parents Volleyball match at Ludus and the spectacular Wizard of Oz student production. All of the latest events and news can also be found on the school website.

Have a lovely weekend.

Kind regards,

Katarina Železinger, Head of Primary

Early Years

If you want to be the best pirate, you need to know the ocean like the back of your hand. And who knows more about the creatures that rule the ocean than pirates.

This week, the Early Years students have been learning to describe and name sea creatures and use that knowledge to create exciting stories about life in the ocean.

Besides making up stories about the ocean and the seaside-small world, the children use their sea creatures' knowledge to create play dough sea animals. With the support of numicon shapes, the children have been using their mathematical skills to help pirates catch an exact number of fish.

Ms Kukovica

Year 1

We have been writing ‘Memory Jars’ as part of our reflection on our favourite parts of the school year in English lessons. In Math, we have

made a block graph to show the students’ birthdays. We have also been practising all our Math knowledge through various Math games and activities.

We kept ourselves very busy during Topic lessons. We spoke about road safety and how to safely cross the road and concluded the week by making our own paper aeroplanes that we tested outside.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

It has been another great week in Year 2. In Topic, we travelled to England and had so much fun! We learnt about London, the food that is eaten there and all of the celebrations.

Last Friday, we travelled to Ljubljana, on a school trip, to learn about the history of the city. It was a very interesting day and we all had a fantastic time! We even went into the Dragon's Cave. We are looking forward to the week ahead and all of the exciting end-of-year activities.

Ms Harris and Mrs Fordham

Year 3

Year 3 enjoyed an action-packed day out in the local woodland on Wednesday as part of their Topic 'Fit for Life'. Students enjoyed fitness and relay sports activities, where they recorded and compared their own best records.

A day in the woods would not be complete without a picnic, tent building, and some more unusual team bonding (or should I say binding!) to finish the day.

Ms Blundell and Mr Kokalj

Year 4

Here is Year 4 celebrating Pride Month through making our own Pride flag handprints and joining them in friendship.

Mrs Charlesworth

Year 5

In Y5/6 Slovene Advanced lessons students were working on the drama text Prizori iz življenja stvari by Boris A. Novak. The story is about Nogavica (socks) and Rokavica (gloves). The students brought socks and gloves to school and made them alive in their great performance.

Great job, everyone!

Mrs Thomas

Year 6

This week, Year 6 students went on a residential trip to Lake Bohinj. This was a spectacular experience. They did a plethora of water sports including kayaking, canoeing, rafting, stand up paddling, and the highlight of the trip, canyoning down a river bed, with zip lines, abseiling, jumps and natural slides.

Also, take a sneak peek at our Year 6 Graduation gallery on the school website here!

Mr Bishop

Slovene

Our Years 5 and 6 had an amazing trip last Friday. Students visited their new friends at OŠ Šmarje pri Jelšah and finally saw one of the Slovene public schools.

They were very excited and thrilled when we arrived and started with a bunch of diverse activities such as sports competition, performance and Kahoot. Especially they enjoyed a guided tour around the school where they saw different classrooms (music, cooking, art, chemistry, technical ...) and a drama performance about Slipper Keeper Kitty played by our new friends. Students also had a yummy lunch together and some spare time to chat about different things.

It was obvious that students collaborated together and made new friendships that will last for a long time. They can't wait to see them again in the future and work on a wide range of interesting projects.

Have a look at our photos of one of the "amazingest" days we have spent together.

Ms Košec

Slovene Advanced

In Y5/6 Slovene Advanced lessons students were working on the drama text Prizori iz življenja stvari by Boris A. Novak. The story is about Nogavica (socks) and Rokavica (gloves).

The students brought socks and gloves to school and brought them to life in their great performance.

Great job, everyone!

Ms Kotnik

PE

We continued to complete a range of BISL Olympics events, across primary school PE lessons this week.

It has been another brilliant week of sporting action, with some incredible individual and team performances.

Here are the results from the respective events:

Speed Running Course - completed last Friday

• Year 1: 3rd - Isabella, 2nd - Rocky, 1st - Konstantin

Obstacle Course

• Year 2: 3rd - Elton, 2nd - Joshua, 1st - Paskal

Year 3 staged their own mini Olympics, whilst Year 4 took part in a lobster ball competition, with the scores as follows:

• Year 4: Sapphire - 6, Emerald - 8, Zircon - 10, Hessonite - 12

Year 5 & 6 took part in a kickball competition, with the scores as follows (completed last Friday):

• Years 5 & 6: Emerald - 8, Sapphire - 9, Zircon - 11, Hessonite - 19

Here are the current BISL Olympics scores - across the whole school (15/06/22):

• Zircon: 338

• Emerald: 387

• Sapphire: 393

• Hessonite: 403

We are looking forward to the Primary Sports Day on Monday and the BISL Olympics will continue throughout the whole school, across Block 7.

In the meantime, take a look at some brilliant photos from this week’s Secondary Sports Day here!

PE Department

Student Council

One of the projects the Primary Student Council organised this year was a Road Safety poster competition within the school road safety campaign. From the submitted entries, the Student Council selected a winner for each year group. To mark this special achievement, both Student Council representatives and our young artists displayed the winning posters to parents during pick-up time on Thursday, June 16th.

The aim of this campaign was to raise awareness about road safety and remind all drivers to keep the speed limits to ensure that our students can leave the school safely.

Ms Miklavec

Exemplary EAL Provision & Outstanding Results

In our latest article from the EAL Team, as we celebrate student success across the school heading into the final week of the academic year, we examine the link between English proficiency and academic results. Read it here.

Secondary Summer Adventure Days

In line with BISL tradition, our Secondary students embarked on two fantastic expeditions around beautiful Lake Bohinj to celebrate a successful academic year together. Take a look here!

MEPI News

As part of their MEPI award, our MEPI participants successfully completed their qualifying Adventurous Journey last weekend.

The expedition consisted of an almost 23 kilometre long route and over 1000 metres of ascend across 2 days. Take a look at their recount here!

Orientation Day - Friday August 19

We look forward to seeing all of our returning and incoming families at Orientation Day on Friday August 19 ahead of the start of the academic year!

Coffee with the Principal - Friday September 2

We look forward to seeing all of our returning and incoming families at Orientation Day on Friday August 19 ahead of the start of the academic year!

Donations Drive for Refugees

Following on from the many fundraising projects by our community in these last few months, from bake sales, clothing and food drives, to sporting events and donations, you can now join our efforts to support Slovenska filantropija in the final week of the academic year and beyond.

They are currently accepting donations for various essential items including hygiene products, canned and dried goods, cleaning products, and essential foods, which can be dropped off directly at Cesta Dolomitskega odreda 11 between 9am-6pm on weekdays.

For details, please visit their aid page here.

Dear Parents,

Wow, the pace has really picked up at school during this final term and we have felt a constant 'buzz' of excitement as there seems to be 4 or 5 events every day! - this is amazing.

We've had the BISL Olympics, Transition Days for Year 12 and 13, Adventure Days for 7-10 (See article below), a MEPI expedition, Year 6 Residential camp and graduation, Year 5 production, Year 4 are getting ready for their gallery of significant people, Year 3 mini Olympics, Year 2 at the city museum, Year 1 projects in space and transport, Early Years Walks, Languages trip and much more!

There are several links in my full Update that include pictures and quotes from our students for these trips and events. Enjoy.

The Performance Theatre continues to grow and develop, it is being used daily by lessons, lubs, rehearsals and classes giving our students a whole range of new opportunities. Since the stage, curtain and seats have arrived, we now have some new stage lights that bring the quality of the facilities up another level. It's an exciting time and something that will be used at BISL in future for many years. I am very proud of what we have achieved and the momentum we have built over recent times. This could not have been possible without the students, staff and also the continued support and encouragement from our families. Thank you.

Our Summer School is going to be the biggest ever! increasing from 76 students in 2021 to over 100 students this summer! Running from Monday 4th to Friday 15th July.

On the academic side, we've completed the PTE/PTM progress tests and after analysis, we will share the breakdown next week. We will present certificates, celebrate successes and congratulate the students over the coming days. It really has been a fantastic effort! Thank you to our staff for working so hard with the students, and well done to each and every single student involved!

We've also had a delivery of Raspberry Pi computers at BISL to further invest in programming and computing. These are a great tool to promote computational thinking, creativity and problem-solving! With Micro:bits, LEGO robots and now Raspberry Pis, the students have lots of opportunities to learn to code.

A letter has been shared out from our incoming Principal, Matthew Cox. I hope you have received this and I am very excited about the future of the school moving forward with him. As mentioned in my last update, we have included all events on the events page, so you can keep updated and plan ahead for the summer and the key dates coming back for next year!

Finally, a quick reminder that our last day of term is a 12 noon finish as normal, this is a dress down day and we will wear our House colours! - it's always a great way to end with everyone celebrating the house system together across the year groups in a sea of red, yellow, green and blue.

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

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kind regards,

Paul Walton, Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website