Key Dates | Pastoral Update | Secondary Learning Showcase
Dear Parents,
The focus for the Secondary assembly this week was exploring our identity as a multilingual learning community. At BIS, we provide opportunities for students to explore language development in both their mother tongue and additional languages, and we explicitly value diverse languages and cultures.
Almost all our students are at least bilingual, which creates a unique opportunity for our learning environment. The research tells us that students who can access and interpret knowledge and skills in multiple languages will experience deeper, longer-lasting learning, and therefore we encourage students to use all their linguistic resources. A challenge for our school is how to specifically facilitate this in the classrooms. We expect to share more with you about this journey in the future. A huge thank you to the students who designed and ran the assembly on Friday. It was both thought-provoking and entertaining.
As we finish up the half-term, it’s the right time to acknowledge the incredible hard work that has gone into the start of the school year from students and teachers. It has been a remarkably successful and positive beginning, especially considering how long we have spent the last two years in lockdown conditions. Thank you to all members of our community for the support and care shown. I wish you all a fun and fulfilling mid-term break and look forward to seeing you soon.
Chris Newman
Head of Secondary
Monday 17 to Friday 21 October: Half-term Break
Week beginning 7 November: Anti bullying week
Friday 11 Novermber: Remembrance Service
This year, the student council will have two sub-committees which will focus on school uniforms and food. These committees will start after half-term, and we will look forward to students' sharing their thoughts and ideas in these two areas and moving BIS forward.
Are your contact details up to date? Who is your emergency contact?
Sometimes the unexpected can happen. This can mean that we haven’t had time to prepare for emergency supervision for our children. Can I please ask if your contact details have changed? Please inform the Secondary Office. Please arrange a point of contact and notify the secondary office in the event of an emergency and if the guardian/parent/carer is knowingly unavailable during the school day.
These trips are an additional cost, and it is expected that all students will attend. More details will follow the half-term break. We are really looking forward to once again providing school trips, which are so enriching for our students.
Art | Music | English | Computer Science | History | PE
What house are you in? Are you in Hanoi, Saigon, Hue, or Dalat? House competitions were held this week during PE lessons for every child in years one to eleven. We saw lots of teamwork, communication, resilience, adaptability, and, of course, spirit. Students were fantastic in their efforts and pulled together as teams to get the best result for their house. Seeing as it was international week, we offered a range of activities from across the globe, such as benchball, handball, Gaelic football, and a variety of fundamental challenges for the younger years.
What house was triumphant over the week’s activities? Was there a dominant house? Did you try your best? Did your team gain extra house points for collaboration, fair play, or respect? House points and the winners for each year group will be shared with students on the school intranet.
Well done on a great week of competition. Enjoy your midterm break.
The P.E department
Year 11 IGCSE World Music and Year 10 Percussion Week
This half term our Year 11 IGCSE Music Class have been taking a whistle-stop tour through the seven musical cultures they need to explore as part of Section B of their listening exam. They will be visiting Arabic, African, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Indonesian and Latin American music, learning about the musical features and instruments that define these musical traditions. This week we have explore the music of Latin American, with a focus on Argentinian Tango and Cuban Son, culminating in a recorded performance of Buena Vista Social Club’s hit Chan Chan in which students performed on variety of percussion instruments, and those on more traditional instruments had to adapt to the musical conventions of this style, not to mention lyrics in Spanish! This was the perfect link to our International Week and the students enjoyed learning to play and sing in a different language as well as learning about the historical events that led to this cultural and musical fusion.
Year 10 meanwhile have come to the end of their tour of the instruments of the orchestra, finishing literally with a bang with the percussion section. This was a great opportunity for some hands-on experience of seeing, hearing and playing the instruments, which will help them regonise them in their listening work and write for them in their two coursework compositions.
Also included in this week's addition are the photos from last week’s brass experience.
Year 9 have been studying Data Representation this term, which includes a lot of Maths! They’ve learnt about three key number systems - Decimal, Binary and Hexadecimal - and to finish the half term off, I wanted to see how well they could perform these conversions under pressure, using an online tool provided by world-leading networking company, Cisco. This tool is used by IT professionals as they prepare for the notorious CCNA exam, so it is a genuine real-world test.
To add an element of friendly competition and fun, 9B were split into two groups – boys versus girls! Using the interactive whiteboard, each team was asked to rotate through their group sending one member to the board to perform a conversion, whilst their team mates cheered them on. I’m delighted to say that all the students showed great expertise as well as enthusiasm in this episode and, perhaps even more pleasing, it was a draw!!
[[\media\9B binary vid.mp4]]If you want to try it for yourself, the tool can be found at https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/s/binary-game
Rob Shepley
Head of Computer Science
Year 7s have been creating a multilingual word wall based on their cross-curricular work around the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan and the short story, ‘Half Life’. It’s a great way to learn new vocabulary with an emphasis on students’ mother tongue languages.
Joanna Shepley Clarke
Head of English
English is not only about reading and writing, student’s also develop the speaking skills needed for a range of situations. In English B we have been practicing academic speaking through an approach known as ‘Harkness’, where interactions between students are tracked in order to analyse the patterns of discussion. Resources are provided in advance to allow students to prepare for their academic discussion. In addition to this, we have also experimented with character-based speaking with our HL students. Students adopted the roles of characters in our text of Mice and Men. Character based speaking allows students to experiment with the methods used to develop an authentic voice, managing their tone and register to achieve the desired effect.
Simon Hoare
English Teacher
Year 10 have been exploring cubism in order to create a mixed media still life. They began by observing a collection of objects from many different angles, and then using line, form and texture to represent the objects on the paper. They are currently combining all the techniques they’ve been learning this half term including collage, acrylic painting, water colour painting, tonal drawing and pen and ink work to create a finished piece.
Students have had a successful few lessons considering one of the key battles of World War One, The Battle of the Somme. Students this week considered the actions of General Douglas Haig, Commander of the British Army and whether he deserves the nickname the ‘Butcher of the Somme’. They then spent time preparing for a debate on the motion ‘This House Believes that General Haig deserves the nickname of Butcher of the Somme’ - this was a debate that would take place in the British Parliamentary style. Students were split into Proposition (for the motion) and Opposition (against the motion). They then had 15 minutes to prepare 4–5-minute speeches and present them to the class. Students had to listen carefully to the other sides arguments because 2nd speakers were required to counter the 1st speakers' points. This debate was a great success and Ms Embling was very proud of the confident communicating that was taking place. A team was appointed the winners, but all groups gave compelling evidence and were very convincing!
It has been great to see the JV and Varsity Volleyball teams improve with each match and training session, and continue to grow their volleyball skills and gain confidence on the court. All their hard work has paid off as both teams won their first fixture on Friday (30 September) against RGSV.
Great job to both teams and keep up the hard work! Your efforts don’t go unnoticed!
Christine Boswell & Adrienne Taylor
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