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February 2015 Sixty Fifth Edition

GUIDING STATEMENT OF

THE BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ISTANBUL

The British International School Istanbul provides a caring

international environment, fostering cultural diversity. Individual

students achieve their full academic potential, inspired to become

lifelong learners and responsible citizens of the global community.

BISI COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER

YOUR COMMUNITY! YOUR NEWS!

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For a Better BISI…

We would like to inform you of further updates to our Campuses in the past month:

The new Grey Gym

You were updated in the last newsletter on the ‘no longer Orange Gym’ and the repair work

on the new flooring. We are pleased to announce that the gym, now called the ‘Grey Gym’ is

open and in full use.

Security

The City Campus have had new security cameras fitted and additional ones have been added

to the entrance corridors.

Again, we would like to remind you that we have an ‘open door’ policy. We do our very best

to answer your queries in a timely manner and are happy to meet with you to discuss issues

which, together, we can try to find a solution for.

Helen Kiran - Head of PR/Communications

**** P.E. Department upcoming events

On Thursday 5 March, BISI will host the yearly ISL Chess Tournament for international stu-

dents in Istanbul. There will be a Primary and a Secondary tournament. Last year a total of 75

players attended. Good luck to our students!

On Sunday 8 March, 105 Primary and Secondary students will be leaving at 8:00am for this

year’s Ski Trip to Bulgaria. We wish all our students a safe and enjoyable trip.

Christian Huegel - Head of P.E.

Please note that all the school photographs can be found on our Flickr account from the following

link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishschoolistanbul/sets/

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Message from the Pre/Primary School

Even though it was such a short month, we filled it with as many activities as possible for our community. Firstly, Miss Gwillim, our Area Leader for ESL and Languages, led an informed discussion regarding the importance of mother

tongue teaching. As our Guiding Statements’ objectives indicate, we ‘appreciate and celebrate cultural diversity’ and emphasize the importance of home languages. We have mother tongue lessons of French, German, Russian and Dutch

taught at school to support the children’s home languages.

The Year 5 and Year 6 Basketball and Football teams visited Cyprus to compete in their second tournament. They re-

turned victorious and displayed their two cups at our assembly. Well done team, and thank you to Miss Taylor and Mr Huegel for coaching and accompanying the students to the tournament.

Our school’s caring characteristic flourished this month as we celebrated Valentine’s Day. The Zekeriyakoy Campus Pri-

mary Student Council organized heart shaped biscuits to sell. The children decorated their biscuits with as many sprin-

kles that they would hold. Many thanks to Jenny Norden, Chair of the Zekeriyakoy PTA, for delivering huge quantities of sprinkles! The children wrapped them up as gifts for their loved ones: we hope that the biscuits arrived home safely

and were not eaten on the way. As well as Valentine’s Day, the Early Years children celebrated the important date that they had attended 100 days in school this year- what an achievement! After the snow had dispersed, the City Campus

Primary Student Council organised some exciting after school activities with a Valentine’s Day theme for Key Stage Two

aged children. The event started with pizza in the garden. After the pizza, the Student Council treated everyone to a Valentine’s Day quiz which included munching on mountains of popcorn. The event ended with lively disco dancing,

which was demonstrated by teachers and the children! A very big thank you goes the City Campus Student Council and Miss Heather.

The Zekeriyakoy Student Council continued with two other events for their friends to enjoy. They gave out hot choco-

late as a kind gesture to combat the winter weather we have experienced this month and additionally as the boiler

failed us for several days. Thank you to Mr Dave for his initiative to organise the hot chocolate event!

With the help of the CAS students, the Zekeriyakoy Student Council organized a Winter Celebration to say “Goodbye to

Winter!” They arranged games such as Capture the Flag, Pin the tail on the Donkey, Musical Chairs, Musical Statues, Limbo dancing and the Giant’s Treasure game. The children relished their snacks kindly donated by the Pepsico Compa-

ny. Then the children enjoyed dancing the afternoon away with their latest disco moves. A huge thank you goes to

Mademoiselle Lapointe for supporting the Zekeriyakoy Student Council children so efficiently. All profits from our Valen-tine’s Day events and the Winter Ball will go to our chosen charities.

Infused into our Guiding Statements’ philosophy, we ‘inspire creativity in each student in its broadest aspect and help to

enlarge the human spirit both aesthetically and morally’. Under the direction of Miss Dereboy, Area Leader for Creative

Arts, the teachers chose a period of art to investigate with their class as part of Creative Arts Week. The results were stunning; please come to see the wonderful art work on display at the moment- it is so colourful!

We hope you enjoy this month’s Newsletter.

Amanda Ilhan Richard I’Anson

Pre and Primary Deputy Director Pre and Primary Director

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Alkent — Reception

This month we have been celebrating the Lunar New Year and Creative Arts Week with lots of different

fun activities! The Children in Reception at Alkent got to make traditional Chinese dumplings and we had

our own ‘Great Race’ pretending to be the different animals from the Chinese Zodiac. Luckily the weather

was nice so we could race across the ‘river’ to see which animal was the fastest. The children used timers

and recorded the times of all the animals to see who was the winning animal!

We also had a busy Creative Arts Week in Reception. We looked at different artistic styles including;

pointillism, cubism, Chinese brush painting, mosaics and printing. The children explored these styles and

chose to interpret them in their own unique way! We shared our creations with the rest of the Alkent chil-

dren in our Friday assembly.

Miss Gaby and Miss Helen

Alkent Reception Team

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Zekeriyakoy-Reception

Creative Arts Week- EYFS Zekeriakoy

EYFS had a a fun-filled week before the half term. We learned about Chinese New

Year and incorporated it into our arts and crafts throughout the week.

Inspired by the genres of Pointillism and Cubism we learned about different artists

and used many mediums to create arts and crafts from mosaics and Chinese dragons

to musical instruments.

The children finished off the week by decorating Valentines biscuits for their loved

ones. A delicious ending to the week!

Charlotte Emerson

Reception Teacher

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This Year during Creative Arts Week the children looked at the relationship between visual art and music.

Each year group spent time researching the music and art from a particular period of art; some class even

learnt dances from their chosen period of art. A wide variety of art periods and styles were covered in the

week including Renaissance music and Art, Graffiti Art and Hip Hop Music, Toyism, Pop art and Surreal-

ism.

These two areas were then brought together as we designed and produced a record cover for the music from

the period in the style of the time

The assembly at the end of the provided a show case where each class showed some of the work they had

learnt throughout the week.

Both the children and teachers had great fun during the week producing some spectacular work at the end of

it.

Nikki Dereboy creative Arts Coordinator

Whole School—Creative Arts Week

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Whole School Primary

Creative Arts Week

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Etiler—Year 3

Year 3 Etiler visited Ancient Egypt!

For homework we designed and made costumes and made Ancient Egyptians deli-

cacies. The we PARTIED like the pharaohs.

Mrs Guven

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Etiler—Year 4

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Primary School Basket Ball Tournament in Cyprus

This year BISI is participating in the all new Turkish International School Sports League (TISSL). After a successful first round hosted in Ankara, where our foot-ballers claimed victory, it was time for the Basket Ball stars to show off their skills, in a tournament hosted in Northern Cyprus at the English School Kyrenia (ESK).

Despite the difficult situation in regards to the renovations in our new gym we managed to complete many training sessions during all of our lunch times for sev-eral weeks. Progress in this time was amazing and we had two full boys’ teams and two girls ready to travel. After flying to Nicosia where we got picked up and had a quick lunch provided in school it was competition time! Our two boys’ team had many difficult and some extremely close matches to battle through. By the end of the first day, things where looking promising in regards to the overall standing but more importantly many new friendships where made. At the end of the day our students were hosted by their "opponents" and enjoyed this part of the trip as much as the competitions itself. We recommenced on Saturday at 9am with the second round in this six team dou-ble round robin tournament and in the end the boys managed to secure 1st and 2nd place! Our two girls played with a selection of three host students in order to fill the team and this team also won their 4 team tournament. In order to use the waiting time and give the students more competition we played in the same teams a full football tournament where BISI was once more 1st with the boys. A special Thank you goes to our junior Basket Ball coach Miss Taylor for all her time and effort and to everyone involved in ESK who have put together a fantastic weekend for our students. The Third and final round of our TISSL tournament season will be hosted by us BISI on June 12th - June 13th. We are expecting a total of 35 to 45 students from Ankara and Cyprus to compete against our athletes in swimming, cross country, basketball for girls and boys and football for boys.

Christian Huegel

Samantha Taylor

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Zekeriyakoy Primary—Table Tennis Tournament

A total of fifteen boys and one girl decided to compete in the Table Tennis Tournament held at our Zekeri-

yakoy Campus. Our students played a double knock out table which allowed each player to loose one match

before being eliminated.

The proud winner is Manas Gupta who had an equal opponent with Tomas Norden.

The secondary tournament is still in progress and the winners will be announced in the March newsletter.

Christian Huegel

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Secondary—Sports

Senior Girls Basketball Team @ IICS

Istanbul Schools League

Thursday 12th / Friday 13th February 2015

BISI Team 1

Pinar 2, Sophie 18, Anne 8, Lieke 24, Mare 7,

Chiara 17, Elena 5, Serra 89, Caroline 10, Claire 10

BISI Team 2

Lauren 49, Gabi 17, Esra 13, Mariam 15, Stefani 9

Akanksha 14, Carys 19, Selin D 20, Melis 16

This year there were five teams participating in the senior girls event; Robert

College, Istanbul International Community School, International Gateway

Academy and 2 teams from BISI.

The games were intense and competitive for our squads but all players did an exceptional job, with each game throughout the 2

days gaining confidence, experience and POINTS on the scoreboard.

Scorers for the teams: Pinar, Sophie, Peker, Caroline, Lieke, Elena, Claire, Mariam, Lauren, Carys, Melis, Esra

A special mention for a superb ‘3 pointer’ shot from Pinar and the best fall of the

tournament to be bowled over like a skittle goes to Gabi.

A fab 2 days of Basketball

Congratulations to all players!

Sandra Scotland

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Secondary—Sports

IICS Basketball Tournament

The Basketball season in Secondary school was probably the most difficult one BISI has ever been confront-

ed with. The gym was not available due to the long renovations, bad weather prevented us from training out-

side, MOCK exams and snow days added on to our lack of training. To add to it, Primary Varsity Tourna-

ment was cancelled due to more snow and bad weather forecasts. This was very frustrating for all players and

coaches involved, but we have managed to organise some friendly tournaments that will take place through-

out March.

The varsity teams traveled to IICS which this year was filled with very strong teams from Istanbul and even a

team from Casablanca. Our boys and girls teams put up a good fight over two days and finally gained the ex-

perience and "training" they missed over the season. They were getting better and better after each game.

Our three teams only secured the last available places but due to the circumstances everyone involved was

realistic and pleased with the effort and the results achieved.

Christian Huegel

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DIRECTORS OF SCHOOLS Amanda Ilhan Pre School & Primary School Deputy Director +90 212 202 7027 amandailhan@bis.k12.tr Richard I’Anson Pre School & Primary School Director +90 212 257 5136 richardianson@bis.k12.tr William Bradley Director of Secondary and Principal of +090 212 202 7027 Zekeriyakoy Campus williambradley@bis.k12.tr Tuba Guven Director of Admissions +90 212 286 7375 registrar@bis.k12.tr Helen Kiran Head of PR/Communications +90 212 202 7027 communications@bis.k12.tr

Find us on

www.bis.k12.tr