Dear Parents and Families,

As the many of you who attended our first, and very enjoyable (personally speaking) ‘Coffee with the Principal’ event earlier today are aware, this week has again been positive and busy for everyone. I have been into classes this week across the school and have enjoyed the engagement and focus of our students and staff. I hope very much that this motivation leads to new learning and further curiosity and motivation. The week started for me at the Secondary Assembly last Monday hosted by our Head of Secondary, Mr. Jonathan Travis. Mr. Travis outlined for the students the challenges faced by Bar-Headed Gees and how they work together, whilst each bird also needs a huge amount of personal grit and determination to safely cross the high altitudes of the Himalayan Mountain range. That type of resilience and grit is indeed required to get the most out of life – ‘Be More Goose’ as Mr. Travis implored the students!

I was also delighted to attend an exhibition of photographs taken of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Slovenia in 2008. The exhibition is being hosted by Ljubljana’s City Hall as part of the Queen’s 70th on the throne celebrations. Happily, there was a picture of the Queen meeting some BISL students. I found the photographs interesting from both a British and Slovenia perspective. We hope to get the exhibition to come to school for our school community to enjoy once it has finished its tour of Slovenia. Once we have confirmed that the photographs can be displayed here in school I will, of course invite the whole community to come and see it.

As discussed with parents this morning, safety for all has also been on top of our priorities this week, and I and the School Leadership team have been thinking hard about how to make the collection of your children safer at the end of each day.

Here are some important traffic instructions we ask all our families to follow carefully:

  • Observe the 10kmh maximum speed allowed in school.
  • If you are waiting for children inside the school grounds the driver must stay in your car, with the engine switched off. This is very important for our traffic flow
  • All families collecting Secondary children please park in the public car park next to school. In this way we will keep the traffic flowing inside the school grounds.
  • EY parents only are permitted to park in the parking bays near the EY entrance.
  • All students must walk inside the cones, next to the school building (not walk between the cars). Secondary students must follow this route to the public car park as necessary.
  • Older families are encouraged to travel to, and from, school by bus or bicycle.

Many thanks for everyone’s consideration and thoughtfulness towards making the school collection as safe we possibly can. We will also renovate the bicycle ‘house’ and make this more appealing to our bicycle users.

Finally, I have an appeal to our parents and their friends. As mentioned at the Coffee morning, we are currently seeking to recruit a temporary school nurse (part time). If you have skills and experience in this medical area and are allowed to work or volunteer in Slovenia, do please contact Katja Dincic in our HR Department.

Similarly, if you are aware of EU citizens in our community who are suitably qualified, highly able English-speaking teachers and are keen to explore possibilities for working at BISL, please ask them to contact our HR too.

Have a great weekend,

Best wishes,

Principal