the british international school

EYFS & Primary Newsletter

November 2022

director's note

Dear Parents,

Thank you to the wonderful response we had to our TIDER campaign to raise awareness for families in need. This is reflected in our Guiding Statements to take care of our local and international community. This focus will also continue through our Winter Bazaar on the 16th December. Ms Lynne, our Head of Pastoral has been instrumental in the delivery of our PSHE curriculum focusing on Gratitude and Giving for the month of December. Our students understand that 'giving' can mean giving our time and our attention to others.

We have a variety of events taking place towards the end of term such as our school production, KS2 Winter Showcase and our Choir performance. We very much look forward to these.

With best wishes,

Natalia Ambridge

Remembrance Day Ceremony

On Friday 11th November 2022, BIS was invited to attend and take part in the annual Remembrance Day ceremony at the Second World War Memorial in Haydarpaşa cemetery. At 11 o'clock on the 11th November 1918 the First World War ended. Every year on this date several nations mark this event with a Remembrance Service to acknowledge all soldiers who have given their lives in service of their respective Nations. We were very proud of our students who represented BIS so well, especially Alexander and Rafe who did a reading together during the ceremony. The BIS wreath laid down next to others was a lovely arrangement and conveyed the respect of the BIS community exactly.

Alison Güzel

Deputy Director Pre/Primary

Alexander and Rafe

Joshua Year 12, Ziva Year 12, Fergus Year 4, Alexander Year 9, Rafe Year 7 and Hadley Year 4

Relaxing after the ceremony

Alexander and Rafe reading A Reply to 'In Flanders Fields'

Outdoor Woodland Learning with Ms. Lloyd

It has been an exciting two weeks for BISI Primary teachers as they undertook Professional Development in “Outdoor Woodland Learning” last week. Once equipped with lots of practical hands-on ideas, staff were all eager to get outside into the school woodland with their classes and be creative in the fresh air. This week’s assemblies taught EYFS to Y6 students what “Outdoor Woodland Learning” was and how they would be celebrating it with an Outdoor Classroom Day. The Photos show our youngest to eldest Primary students taking part in this Globally celebrated event. We all had lots of fun in our woodland and in our new outdoor woodland shelter.

Karen Lloyd

KS1 & KS2 Choir with Ms. Newman and Miss Lizzie

On Thursday 27th October, the KS1 and KS2 choirs enjoyed performing for their peers in years 1-6 and teachers in the theatre. This was the first time that the two choirs had collaborated together, as well as the first time that many of the children had been on the stage.

They enjoyed sharing the following songs:

-Cover Me in Sunshine - originally sung by the American singer ‘Pink’ in 2021 with her 10 year old daughter Willow Sage Hart. Our KS1 children have enjoyed learning this song along with actions.

-Boom Chicka Boom - a warm-up rap repeated in different voices

-Fruit Canon (Mango/kiwi/banana) - One of the children’s favourite songs to sing, this features 3 melodies which are first sung separately and then sung in two rounds overlapping. We learnt his song to celebrate World Food Day and children enjoy clicking along to the beat and the fun actions.

-Count On Me - A popular song by Bruno Mars about friendship, enjoyed by both the KS1 and KS2 choirs

The children performed enthusiastically after only 6 rehearsals during our after school club on Mondays, and received a rousing applause from the audience.

There are numerous reported benefits from singing including: psychological, physical, social, musical and educational. Singing helps children’s memory retention, improves reading skills as well as their enjoyment of the curriculum. Research has shown that singing lights up more areas of the brain than any other activity. Whilst singing, children’s self-esteem is boosted and they feel socially included. They understand the importance of teamwork, it improves their communication skills, language acquisition and enables them to develop new friendships. Events like stage performances are able to bring the school community together like no other activity.

We are excited to continue our weekly rehearsals after school and during lunchtimes, in preparation for a very special winter performance in December, for students, teachers and parents. Our choir is expanding rapidly in popularity - the KS2 choir has now grown to 38 members and the KS1 choir to 20 members!

Congratulations to all of our choir members in Autumn term 1:

Year 1: Maria, Afina, Bade, Baran, Erin, Jeanne, Louen, Jowie

Year 2: Ada, Polina

Year 3: Anzhelika, Subeen, Robine, Bahar, Tarla, Zeyno, Manuella, Matilda, Songhyun

Year 4: Mohamed, Myra, Alara, Esma, Farahnaz, Luciana, Mariam, Defne, Fergus

Year 5: Sarah, Zachary, Dalya, Alya, Hayat, Asya

Emily Newman and Lizzie Smith, KS2 and KS1 Choir Leaders

Textiles Club with Ms. Verralls

In the Textiles club the children made some excellent cushions and reused materials. We really enjoyed making these and the children were very creative and hardworking. This term we have started to make fabric bowls followed by festive decorations.

STEAM Club with Miss Meltem

Here are our bipedal dinosaurs! The students worked with the center of gravity and balance for this project.

EYFS

Miss Lynne: EYFS1

Fish class love the equipment in the EYFS playground. The big slide, climbing frame and tunnel are so much fun! A great place to hide, for teamwork, to go fast, go really high, help each other, and most importantly laugh a lot :)

Miss Lauren: Reception

We have been taking part in International Nursery Rhyme week and we have been lucky enough to watch our families join in telling nursery rhymes too!

The children in EYFS have been very busy this month!

We have been using the new outdoor learning classroom and we love it!

We have been exploring different types of movement in P.E.

Year One

Miss Katrine: 1D

In the Flamingo Class, we have been learning all about materials in our science lessons. The children explored which materials the things around us are made up of and learnt a range of new words to describe different materials. They particularly enjoyed taking a closer look at objects with the magnifying glasses and sharing their observations with each other.

Miss Lizzie: 1S

This month in our math lessons, Toucan class have been looking at time. We have been learning about the position of the clock hands for o'clock and half past times. We have been able to recognise and use the repeating patterns of the days of the week and the months of the year to help us answer specific questions. The children enjoyed using the clock to tell their friends about their daily routine and enjoyed comparing times.

Year Two

Ms. Verralls: 2V

Year 2 has enjoyed following and writing instructions in English lessons. We made Halloween cookies with KS1 . We also made bubble paint and our favourite part was making the biggest bubbles. Miss Lynne in assemblies, has been teaching us some different yoga poses. Every day we practiced the tree pose. In PSHE KS1 has been learning about being kind to others and ourselves. We made some artwork reflecting the ways we can show kindness.

Ms. Aycan: 2A

In Science we conducted investigations about rocks to see if they are permeable. We started our new unit on Forces and tested the force of air and how much force it takes to make objects move. In English, we followed instructions on how to blow paint bubbles and then wrote our own instructions. In Art, we painted maps using Australian Aboriginal design. In Mathematics, we have been learning about measuring in metres and centimetres.

Year Three

Mrs. Robbins: 3R

The students in 3R are learning how to give clear directions to prepare them for informational writing in our English unit. The students took turns being blindfolded and directed verbally by their teammates. They practiced using sequencing words like first, next, after...and command verbs such as "turn, walk, go, take, etc"). This was a fun way to practice our vocabulary and make sure that our directions make sense to the people we are trying to communicate with.

Ms. Adesanya: 3A

Year 3A has been using the <, = and > signs to compare two different numbers in Mathematics. The children also used sentences to compare two numbers; greater than and lesser than. In addition, we learnt one of the best ways to memorize the greater than and less than signs is to imagine them as little alligators (or crocodiles), with the numbers on either side representing a number of fish. The alligator always wants to eat the larger number of fish, so whatever number the mouth is open toward is the larger number.

Year Four

Ms. Lincoln: 4L

Year 4L have been so busy and extremely clever in collage work. They have used thought and care to create fish, using recycled materials. Most impressively thinking about colour choices and patterns to make their own fish unique. Well done 4L!

Ms. Newman: 4N

Children in year 4 have been studying their times tables over the last few weeks using a variety of activities. These include the following online games and visuals:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/paint-the-squares

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10

https://www.multiplication.com/games/all-games

They enjoy their weekly mental maths lesson during which they complete a blank multiplication grid from memory, to a timer: https://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-stopwatch/

Nrich has a multiplication square jigsaw activity which children enjoyed completing: https://nrich.maths.org/5573

We also used times table cards to play a variety of games to test each other's knowledge of times tables. Children have been practising their times tables and other maths skills using the online platforms MangaHigh and MyiMaths both in school and at home. By the end of Year 4, children need to be able to recall all multiplication and division facts for times tables up to 12 × 12. These will be essential for understanding fractions and decimals, as well as written methods for solving multiplication and division problems.

Year Five

Ms. Lloyd: 5L

In Year 5L students have been exploring outdoor woodland materials-leaves and flowers and have created some visual interpretations for their artbooks. As it was "Outdoor Classroom" Day this week, we took our artwork outside and worked in the fresh air.

Mr. Fawcett: 5F

In their Literacy lessons this month, 5F have studied many different traditional fable stories such as the Ant and the Grasshopper and the Tortoise and the Hare. After studying the important features of a fable, they were all then able to write their very own fable story which included an important life lesson!

Confidence was then shown to share and read their story to both international year 1 classes. Well done 5F!

Year Six

Ms. Cosnett: 6C & Mr. McCann: 6M

The year six children have been learning all about earthquakes: what causes them, the effects of earthquakes, and how to stay safe.

When thinking about safety, the children put together their own earthquake 'grab bags' - a bag you should have ready in your home with emergency supplies that you can grab quickly in the event of an earthquake. The children then presented the contents of their grab bags to the class.

Mr. Dennison: Music

If you have any questions about Music class, please email Mr. Dennison at s.dennison@bisistanbul.org!

Here is part of 5F putting together a song they will be performing with 5L at their assembly next week. Good luck, you'll be great!

6C is hard at work collaborating to put many different Latin instruments together for their exciting part to the Winter Showcase.

3R gave a special performance for some friends that came to school with them during their Pyjama Day.

Languages

Mrs. Gwillim: ESL

Before the holiday Year 6 practised following instructions to make a pop up Halloween card. The elementary group worked on math words with some sums. They were proud of their word squares. They also learned words for, and how to ask and talk about illness. They loved playing the illness memory game. Meanwhile Year 5 have been learning new words ready to write stories for a book. They enjoyed reading and getting ideas from the ones written by a previous group.