Kylie H., Year 13
The accomplishment that Kylie is the most proud of is creating a club called “CHOA”. In Korean, it means “A person who is willing to light up the world at the expense of oneself like a candlestick". Its aim is to tackle the education crisis among refugees.
The first step was to contact a refugee organization via email, and luckily the Stars Organization in Egypt was interested in the project. Kylie and her team translated Korean folktales into English and sent them in PDF formats. The textbooks included self-drawn illustrations, vocabulary sheets, and quizzes in order to fulfill its purpose of sharing culture and language. To increase the boundary of reach, Kylie has completed a business plan for developing this into a mobile application and hence her journey continues.
The reason Kylie feels so much pride in this accomplishment is that everything was built from scratch. She recruited people, allocated roles, contacted organizations, set up meetings, and led the whole process of producing the books. “It was a stepping stone to becoming more engaged in the global society." Well done Kylie!
Michaela G., Year 11
Michaela, with her club mates from the Muza Bratislava Dance Club, represented Slovakia and participated in the annual World Championship of Performing Arts (WCOPA). Usually, the competition is set in Hollywood, California, but due to the unfortunate worldwide disruption caused by the Corona virus pandemic, it was conducted virtually with over 2,500 global entries from 71 countries submitting their videos of their performances to be judged.
We are happy and proud to announce that Michaela was successful in two categories of the competition. She and her dance partners achieved Silver in her duo dance performance and Bronze in her quartet dance performance.
Furthermore, a week before the finals, Michaela and her troupe made live exhibition dance performances on Markiza TV morning show. She also continues to keep up her figure skating training. Michaela is currently preparing to represent Slovakia in the 2020 WADF World Championships in Czech Republic. Congratulations Michaela! We are very proud of you.
Michal K., Year 5
Misko has a drive for learning in all subject areas. He is able to make creative connections between subjects. He is the first student ready to learn at the start of class and he actively engages in all lessons, especially the ones he finds challenging. He will keep working and trying until he fully understands a lesson. He is a resilient student – who knows how to keep trying even when learning is hard and that is what makes him such a great success story.
Oleksandra Z., Year 12
Sasha is a rhythmic gymnast. This summer, she competed at the “Bratislava Cup”, in the Seniors B category, and won a gold medal with her club's routine, and a silver medal with her hoop routine. Despite Covid-19, Sasha also recently participated in the “KSIS World Online Rhythmic Gymnastics Tournament” and won three gold medals out of three possible, again in the Seniors B category. She was placed 1st with clubs, 1st with her ‘without apparatus’ routine, and 1st for her all-around performance.
Rhythmic Gymnastics is a very beautiful sport which expresses grace, passion, and elegance. However, it requires not only beauty but also strength, resilience and strict discipline. “Even though I started doing rhythmic gymnastics quite late, I have still managed to achieve a lot in this sport. It made me very strong, physically and mentally. It made me confident, hardworking, and determined. It taught me to be competitive, and to be committed. But most importantly - it taught me to believe in myself.”
“Be ambitious and believe, and you’ll be able to achieve any dream.”
Stephanie B., Year 4
Stephanie is an outstanding allrounder. Not only does she have an excellent academic record in reading, writing and maths but she also speaks three languages fluently and is learning a fourth. Outside of school she is a rock climber, sailor and tennis player. In addition to all of this, Stephanie is caring. She looks out for people who need a friend and is always looking for opportunities to help others. Stephanie is capable, kind and hardworking and this is what makes her so successful.
Jeonghwan Ch., Year 10
Jeongwan published his writing in the 2020 Winter issue of the Korean Youth Literature magazine "Blue Writing Yard". Last year in Term 1, various writings such as book reviews and reports written by Year 9 and Year 10 students were submitted to the magazine publisher and Jeonghwan's writing was selected from among them! Blue Writing Yard is the only literary magazine for teenagers in Korea, founded in 2006. It is published twice a year and draws excellent writings from teenagers across the country and abroad.
The Korean youth novel “Wizard bakery” is a story written in the first person, telling of a teenager's experiences in the bakery and the customers who purchase the therapeutic bakery goods. The book describes a 16 year-old's exploration of a bakery selling cookies, scones and muffins baked by a wizard for certain medicinal purposes. Jeonghwan liked that it caught the reader's attention with a story that teenagers can sympathise with based around the social problems that teenagers can easily find around themselves. He wrote a book review criticising society based on these aspects; "There is no equality in society."
Sienna S., Year 4
Our talented Year 4 student Sienna won the Global Campus Comic Book Competition. Her idea was made into a real comic strip by the surprise illustrator, James Foley!
The competition was inspired by Gavin Aung Than, and the challenge was to develop a comic that used an inspirational quote to highlight your thoughts on the UNCRC. So many students entered the competition across Nord Anglia Education schools, and we are very pleased to inform you that Sienna was selected as the winner of her age category (under 8s). Congratulations Sienna!
Mia F., Year 3
Mia F., our very talented Year 3 student won first place figure skating in her category at the 50th year of the Košice Grand Prix that was happening January 18th - 19th 2020. Congratulations Mia, what an incredible success! We are very proud of you and wish you the best of luck in your future competitions.
Timea R., Year 11
Timea began training and playing football at a serious level in 2016, after developing a taste for the game playing with older BISB girls in a Nord Anglia tournament. She has played with both boys (FK Raca) and ladies teams (SK Slovan Ladies Under 15s) and now plays club football for SK Slovan Ladies Under 19s despite still only being 15 years old! A talented athlete, Timea normally plays on the wings in either defensive or attacking positions.
Timea also plays for the Slovenian National WU17 team and is their youngest player! This year they have played a total of 12 international matches; beating Wales, Northern Ireland and Sweden to win the UEFA Development Tournament in April! In the Cup of Nations in Italy, they were beaten by Italy to third place, having beaten Mexico, drawn with Norway, and lost against finalists North Korea. They have also won and lost against Scotland in two friendly matches, and qualified for the UEFA WU17 Euro 2021 Elite Round by beating Azerbaijan and the Faroe Islands.
Zoya L., Year 11
We are proud to share with you the achievements of Year 11 student Zoya L. in the sport of Dressage. Zoya competes with her horse Sibi and recently returned from Aachen in Germany where she was one of only a handful of European Junior riders invited to participate.
Zoya is ranked number one in Dressage in the Junior rankings in Slovakia, and is also the current Slovak Junior Champion! Other notable achievements in this year‘s season have included placing second at CDI Budapest Fót in Freestyle and 4th at Zakrzow, Poland, in the Junior Freestyle. Dressage is a sport that requires a lot of self discipline, attention to detail, and for the rider to develop a genuine partnership with their horse. It is clear from their achievements this year that Zoya and Sibi make a great team and we wish them continued success next year in both domestic and international competitions.
Most recently she was competing in Brno in Czechia and in the National Championships in Slovakia. In the former she placed 3rd overall in the competition with her beautiful horse Sibi, finishing ahead of many riders with higher FEI world rankings.
Dorotea L., Year 10
DOROTEA achieved a perfect score in the NCSS Challenge (Intermediate) 2019. The NCSS Challenge is a competition for school students run by the Australian Computing Academy at the University of Sydney.
Each week for 5 weeks, a set of Digital Technologies teaching resources are distributed to participants together with a set of questions testing this material. Participants submit their solutions to the Challenge website where they are automatically marked.
Great job Dorotea, we are very proud of your hard work and the result of it!
Tamarka M., Year 5
Tamarka is an incredible student of the Slovak language. She is brilliant at spelling, reading comprehension and understanding of orthography. Tamarka is always the first one to finish her work in lessons.
During this school year, she has been supporting a boy who came from another country who had never studied any Slovak at all. Tamarka has helped him with his spelling, writing the words correctly for him, and she has shown a lot of empathy towards him. It has been amazing to see the way she always wants the best grades for him, giving him so much encouragement when he is studying Slovak.
Anastasiya G., Year 8
Anastasiya G. is Ukrainian. She joined a Slovak class at the end of Year 4 and she has made immense progress in all areas of Slovak grammar. Anastasiya has a large vocabulary and she is able to apply all the grammar rules without any problems. Anastasiya is also producing reading comprehension at the highest level.
Her spoken Slovak is at the level of a native speaker so she might be the narrator in our Slovak assembly about Jozef Murgas.
Sebastian K., Year 10
Sebastian has achieved a historical landmark in his chess career.
Between 10th May and 17th May 2019, the Chess Championship of Bratislava was held. This competition has a long tradition that dates back 100 years and this year its Centennial Anniversary was celebrated. The tournament is very prestigious as all the ‘big names’ from Bratislava have taken part in it at some time in their careers. There is no age limit and only the 10 strongest players from Bratislava are invited to participate in it. The final round was held in Zichy Palace and was opened by the Mayor of Bratislava Old Town, Ms. Aufrichtova.
Sebastian was invited by the organizers to this tournament based on his overall performance as a youth member of the chess community. Sebastian managed to outperform every single opponent throughout those 8 days and took 1st place at the tournament!
His victory is doubly special as never in the 100-year history of this tournament has there been a 13-year old winner. The previous record was held by a 17-year-old player from many years ago.
Runan H., Year 11
Runan joined us as a post grade 8 piano student and was going to take her ABRSM ARSM exam in Piano Performance (all those letters are correct, it's a long title!)
She excelled in everything she has done with music. She played in concerts both inside and outside of school, representing us wonderfully at the Chamber of Commerce function at Christmas. She plays piano for the school orchestra, often having to transpose out parts for other instruments and reading at sight. She has fantastic music skills.
Kyoeun L., Year 10
Year 10 Korean students are the group who attend Korean diligently, but Kyoeun stands out as she likes to read and do writing projects more than the other students. She demonstrated her skills and abilities whilst producing weekly news reports on social problems, writing a detailed book review and producing a video about a poem.
With the collaboration of another Korean student, she worked on a report about students’ discussions of these books. This activity offered her the opportunity to develop more depth in her understanding of climate change and gender equality. She loves reading books related to current affairs and through her work she has helped the Korean lessons to develop in different ways.
