Secondary News - 10. junij 2022

Block 7 Week 2

The students had a great start to their progress tests in Mathematics and English this week. Students have worked to the best of their ability in demonstrating their progress in these subjects over the year. They finish next week during lessons.

The Year 9 and 10 students had a wonderful Adventure Trip this week at Bohinj Lake. They were involved in hiking, bike riding, stand up paddle boarding and much more. A big thank you to the staff who attended the trip; Mr Fordham, Mr MacNeill, Mr Malden and Ms Fairchild, with a special thank you to Ms Fairchild for organising the trip. It was brilliant to see these trips back in their entirety for the first time in over two years!

This week also marked the end of IGCSE and A Level examinations. Over 100 exams were sat, all set on the top floor of the new building. Thank you to Mr Batson and the team for arranging, invigilating, and securing the examinations to ensure it all has run smoothly and the students have had the best possible opportunities. Next week, Mr Batson and the teachers have prepared for the transition week for all future Year 12 and 13 students. It will be a great chance for students to already get ahead in these courses.

As we enter the penultimate week of the year, the staff and students are looking forward to the final events of the year, with some working on the Wizard of Oz show with the Creative Arts team, and others looking forward to the upcoming Sports Days organised by the PE team. With the weather heating up, it will certainly be an enjoyable and eventful final two weeks of the academic year.

Also this weekend, our MEPI participants head out on their final overnight expedition. We wish these students and staff well and a successful and safe trip. Thank you Ms Tušar, Ms Zupanc, Mr Astbury and Mr Malden for attending this trip.

Have a lovely weekend.

Stephanie Andronikos, Head of Secondary

This week saw the completion of a total of 104 IGCSE, AS and A2 Level external examinations. The examination began in April with speaking examinations in French, German, Spanish and English as well as AS Level English Language and Psychology written papers. The final examinations, which took place on Friday 10th June, were A2 Economics and IGCSE Biology. The examination ran very smoothly this year, in no small part due to the use of the top floor of the new building where students had two examination rooms and two study rooms to make use of. I am also happy to say that 100% of our examination ran according to schedule with no absences, so it is clear that students were well informed about starting times of all examinations. We are now looking forward to the results which will be released on the 11th of August for AS and A2 level and 18th of August for IGCSE. Congratulations to all the students for successfully going through this examination process, we wish you all the best for your future results.

"Having completed the IGCSE and AS examinations, we are looking forward to receiving our current year 11 and 12 students for the transition week from Monday 13th of June. On each day next week, students will be introduced to the next level of their studies, given introductory lessons, study lists and texts and work to proceed with during the holidays. This week will also give students an excellent opportunity to gain more insight into their chosen subjects so that they can feel confident in the choices they have made - this is particularly important for students entering the AS Level of study. Another key point is that students will discuss, with their future teachers, the areas of study within a subject. This is crucial in terms of student preparation and teacher planning and relevant to subjects such as History, English and also for example Psychology, in which the final assessment is based on two out of four main areas of Psychology. Students will discuss which topics they would like to study as well as how many.

Transition lessons will take place mostly on the fourth floor of the new building as the rooms have now been set up to accommodate our sixth form. In addition to the four rooms on the fourth floor, students can now make use of the top floor room for private study. The room boasts fantastic panoramic views of the surrounding areas from Stožice to Smarna Gora. Year 10 students have already made use of the room for one lesson in the past week and very much enjoyed the views."

For a fun gallery of photos from last week’s Year 7 & 8 Adventure Days, please click here.

PE Block

Block 7, Week 3

Throughout Week 3, students continued with their competitive BISL Olympics events.

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

Here are the results from the respective BISL Olympics events:

Year 7 - Badminton Tournament

3rd - Milena, 2nd - John David, 1st - Dalen.

Year 8 - Badminton Tournament

3rd - Domen, T=2nd - Tian & Maša, 1st - Katerina.

Year 9 and Year 10 took part in handball competitions, with the scores as follows:

Year 9: Hessonite - 4, Zircon - 10, Sapphire - 10, Emerald - 16

Year 10: Zircon - 1, Emerald - 8, Hessonite - 9, Sapphire - 13

Years 7 & 8 will conclude the week with handball tournament(s), whilst Years 9 & 10 are away on adventure days.

Here are the current BISL Olympics scores - across the whole school (01/06/22):

• Zircon: 260

• Emerald: 284

• Hessonite: 287

• Sapphire: 297

The BISL Olympics will continue throughout the whole school, across Block 7.

PE Team

English News:

Year 7: In addition to sitting their PTE exams Year 7A worked on some Limericks and Haikus, while Year 7B explored the form of the Sonnet.

Year 8: Year 8 continued their exploration of “Blood brothers” , looking into detail of the character of Mr Lyons.

Year 9: Year 9 sat for their PTE exams before heading off for their Adventure Days

Year 10: Year 10 did some more essay writing practice based on the poetry they have been studying.

Mr Fordham, Mr. Wilkins, Mr. Staines, Mr Siter and Mr. Eve - English Department

Maths News:

The students have sat in the final maths assessment of this year. Their impressive results reflected on the students' hard work throughout the year and their excellent memory retention.

To wrap up this year, the students have engaged in the end of year maths project, where they become teachers for one day. They will need to learn a new topic, organise information in a coherent manner, and teach their classmates. They have full artistic freedom regarding the lesson activities and we are looking forward to sit in their lessons.

Maths mistake of the week

Well done to numerous students, including Naomi from 8B, who correctly identified the mistakes. Do not miss the final mistakes next week, in front of room 316.

MFL News:

Year 7 has been preparing weather forecast reports these days. Students have tried to predict the weather of this week. They have focused on sentence structure and implement all the necessary weather vocabulary in their weather reports. Moreover, they have put lots of effort in their acting skills as well and present the weather reports to the class. What do you think? Have they predicted the weather correctly for this week?

Zelo dobro 7. razred.

In Y7 Slovene Advanced lessons the students are working on a radio drama text “Zakaj avto zjutraj noče vžgati?” by Alenka Goljevšček. The aim is to use their voices and sound effects (made by the students) to replace the visual side of drama. We are looking forward to their final pieces!

Ms Kotnik, MFL Coordinator

MEPI News:

On Friday we stayed after school in the woodland area to camp and to make up for the night that we didn't camp on our last trip.

Like always bizarre weather was following us like storms and cold weather.

We continued to plan for our qualifying trip and had fun cooking, setting up tents and dealing with friends trying to scare us.

We stayed up late and slept for a long time and went home first thing in the morning.

Then on the following Monday we had another 3 hour meeting to plan for our qualifying journey, updating our maps and planning for the second day.

Abdulla, MEPI Participant

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 two weeks 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.

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!

Dear Parents,

We've had a host of events in the past few weeks and these have continued with the Adventure Days for Years 7 and 8 last week, Years 9 and 10 this week. Over the weekend, we have our MEPI students out on a 2-day expedition and then next week have our Year 6 students out on their residential trips. Meanwhile, the examinations for IGCSE and A Levels finish today (Congratulations to everyone involved for such an amazing effort!), and our PTE and PTM assessments from Primary through to Year 9 conclude next Thursday 16th June. With all of this we have Wizard of Oz rehearsals, Story Time, BISL Olympics and lots of learning in the classroom!

Our staff and students have been fantastic and deserve a huge amount of praise.

I look forward to the Primary and Secondary Sports Days in the coming weeks, our Year 6 graduation and further events. It is a fun-packed and exciting time in our community.

Thank you to all parents for your support, a quick fact behind the scenes has shown that the attendance over the past 4 months has been wonderful at school. Students across the school (Year 11-13 on study leave) have had over 98% average attendance and this positively impacts learning, enjoyment and happiness at school. It is an incredible statistic. Thank you to parents and all families for encouraging students to come to school, getting them ready for school each day and keeping them enthused to learn and do their best. I hope this continues through to the last week of the term!

I also look forward to our BISL Yearbook being released soon as we head into the summer holidays - it will be a wonderful collection of memories for our students to look back on in years to come.

Finally, we have updated all events on our events page, so you can keep updated and plan ahead for the summer and the key dates coming back for the next academic year!

Please read my full Update from the Principal here for details.

Have a nice weekend,

Kind regards,

Paul Walton

Principal

All upcoming events and details are available on our website.