Happening
- March 09: Spring Ahead (Turn Clocks ahead)
- March 18: School Council (TEAM LINK)
- March 21: La Cabane a sucre a Branton School
- March 21-22: School Conferences
Principal's Message
Dear Branton Community,
I am writing to you today to celebrate International Women's Day/ la journee Internationale des femmes, a day that holds great significance in recognizing the achievements and contributions of women around the world.
International Women's Day is a time to honor the remarkable achievements of women throughout history and to acknowledge the ongoing efforts towards gender equality and empowerment. It is a day to celebrate the progress that has been made, while also recognizing the work that still needs to be done to ensure that every woman and girl has the opportunity to thrive and succeed.
At Branton School, we are committed to promoting gender equality and empowering all members of our community, regardless of gender. We recognize the invaluable contributions of our female students, staff, parents, and community members, and we are proud to support and celebrate their achievements. As we commemorate la journee Internationale des femmes, let us reflect on the progress we have made and recommit ourselves to creating a more inclusive and equitable world for all. I encourage you to take some time today to celebrate the women in your life and to reflect on the important role that each of us plays in promoting gender equality and empowerment.
Thank you for your continued support and commitment to creating a more inclusive and equitable community.
Sincerely,
Sebastien Picard, Principal
Alberta Education Assurance Survey
Next Year Planning
In planning for enrolment numbers for next year, please let us know if your child is NOT planning to return to Branton (except Grade 9’s going to high school) for the 2024-25 school year. Please email bcrustad@cbe.ab.ca Thank you.
School Planning Survey
We would like parents input as we start to plan the 2024-25 school year.
The purpose of this survey is to gather feedback from families on school planning, which includes the school development plan, school budget, and school fees. When students, staff and families work closely together, students experience greater success.
Please access the survey at the following link between February 23d and March 8: Branton School Planning Survey 2024-25
Parent-Teacher Conferences
In-Person and virtual Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences for students at Branton School
- Thursday March 21 (4:00 - 8:00 pm) - In-Person meeting in the gymnasium
- Friday March 22 (9:00 - 2:30 pm) - Virtual meetings on TEAM Booking window:
- Friday March 15 starting at 6:00 pm to Wednesday March 20 ending at 6:00 pm.
Prior to booking, we will ask parents to review your child's progress in PowerSchool, Google Classroom & D2L.
You will need to confirm the names of your child's teachers in Powerschool.
Teachers ask all parents to please prioritize and make an appointment if your child is experiencing problems in a particular course. On March 15 at 6pm, bookings must be done through MyCBE; the student portal will not work.
Given the meetings are virtual using Microsoft Teams, parents are asked to please consider having a ten-minute break in between conferences to maximize their time with a teacher.
If you are new to School Conferences and Microsoft Teams, please review the CBE School Conferences Parent Guide.
The link to join Microsoft Teams Virtual meeting will be embedded in your email confirmation.
If a teacher becomes completely booked, please email teachers using our Branton Staff List
To support the process on March 21 and 22 we ask that parents please:
- Preload 'Microsoft Teams' onto your digital device.
- Review your child's progress in PowerSchool prior to the interview. What question(s) may you have?
- When a teacher invites you into the meeting, please keep your camera on. We would like visual confirmation that a parent is present.
- Include your child in the discussions. A conversation with the student, family and teacher tends to be the most effective.
- Conferences are 10 minutes long and are back to back. Teachers will do their best to stay on time. Parents can only log in to Microsoft Teams 5 minutes prior to the interview starting.
- If you re a CBE employee, using your CBE email, please do not log into your Student Conference until the exact time of your meeting, otherwise you will interrupt the current meeting as you do not have the waiting room access.
We appreciate your participation in our March conferences.
Spring Break
March 22, 2024 is Day 2 of our Conferences. Spring Break Starts March 23 to April 1, 2024. Returning to School Tuesday April 2, 2024.
Cafeteria and Menu 11 mars au 15 mars 2024
Please see our Cafeteria & Menu page.
Music Notes
Band Camp forms for grades 8 & 9 trips have been sent out. Forms are due back by Tuesday, March 1gth. I am still looking for (at least) one Dad ,preferably two and another Mom volunteer. Unfortunately, it is not in the budget to bring teachers, so if possible, please let me know.
Grade 7 Band camp forms will come out next week. They are due back by April 5.
Final fundraiser forms have been sent home with students that wish to participate. It will be completely online, as time does not permit collecting forms and money at this time. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
Paying band camp - if you have fundraised, please DO NOT pay the total amount. I will be sending out a final invoice once the last fundraiser has been completed. Any surplus funds will go to the general pool to help out any students in need.
Thank you, can't wait for camps!
Jacquie Baird, Branton School
Seeking Volunteers for our next Fun Snack
We are looking for parent volunteers for our next fun lunch (March 13). Please sign up through the link below if you can help out for an hour or 2. Thanks so much
Foods Room
Foods 7 - ln grade 7, students have completed our safety unit and have been making snacks to practice the safety skills we learned. Students did a great job of using the bear claw to cut the apples for their apple crisp. In March we will be making crepes and maple cookies to celebrate French culture month, before moving onto our ingredient substitution unit.
Foods 8 - In grade 8, students have completed their safety unit and enjoyed making edible cookie dough and apple crisp or fries to practice the safety skills learned.
Students have just started their unit on convenience foods, they will be learning how to make their favourite convenience foods from scratch, starting with pizza. To celebrate French culture month students in grade 8 will be making sugar pie and egg custard tarts.
Foods 9 - In grade 9, students have completed their safety unit and have been making recipes to practice how to use knives and handle meat safely. The breaded chicken fingers and zucchini turned out great. In celebration of French culture month grade 9 students will be making Tourtiere and a Quebecois recipe of their choosing.
Madame Moussa
Grade 8 ELA with Ms. Moussa has learned and worked on the following since term 2:
- I love science fiction students applied elements of a story and figurative language to a science fiction short story.
- "Charging Lions" responses: we read a short creative nonfiction story about ranching that explored much deeper themes, and students responded to the text analytically, personally, and creatively.
- Persuasive essays: upon the return of our student teacher, Mr. Lederhouse, students have been learning about essay structure and have begun to draft essays about the topic of their choice.
- Fundamentals: We have also continued with our weekly lessons on grammar and punctuation, though have wrapped up just this week
- Reading: We have continued to explore reading for pleasure, with myself and Mr. Lederhouse promoting various books we think many students would enjoy.
Meanwhile, Ms. Moussa has a healthy classroom library that she is quite proud of. That said, it's quite challenging to keep up to date with books that are either newer or well thumbed. If you have any readers in your home and any books that your household is finished with, please consider donating them to a classroom near you.
Great books in the ELA classroom go a long way to fostering an appreciation for reading.
Health and Physical Education Update
Since the second semester began, the students have been very busy in physical education class! We concluded a large gym games unit that included a selection of activities such as indoor kickball, handball, tchoukball, and dodgeball. We completed the volleyball unit for all classes. The students are currently participating in table tennis in the auxiliary gymnasium and badminton in the main gymnasium. In terms of Health so far this semester, the students have participated in the Wellness and Relationships curricula while the Human Sexuality unit has just begun for some classes.
Media Update
Grade 7 Graphics - Students have started the semester by learning the fundamentals of graphic design, like what makes a vector graphic different from a raster graphic.
They started by learning some design concepts that help make company logos and branding feel a certain way, and using that knowledge, redesigned their own take on a logo of their choosing. We then explored programs like Vectr and Adobe Illustrator to make our designs look as professional as possible.
Math 7
In Math 7 Late Immersion with Mme Crepin, we are working on Fractions. We will be adding and subtracting proper, improper, and mixed fractions, and of course, solving word problems using all the skills we learned during this unit.
In Continuing immersion with Mme Richey, math 7 students have just finished a unit on Algebra and are beginning an exploration of blended topics including fractions, cartesian planes, and regularities.
Science 7
Both our late and continuing immersion groups have finished their Tomatosphere experiment and submitted their results. Did you guess correctly which group of seeds had been to space? All the grade 7 classes are working on their final project for the Plant unit, for which they are inventing a plant and covering many of the concepts learned during the unit. Our next unit in Science 7 will be geology, and we are very much looking forward to our field trip to the Earth Sciences for Society Exhibition at the University of Calgary!
Late Immersion Humanities
In Grade 7 Late Immersion Humanities, we have been learning about the French expansion into North America. We have played games and done reader's theatres where we added interesting facts. We focused on Black History month by first watching documentaries about Pioneers of Canadian hip-hop and A chronicle of the lives of Black Canadian athletes. Then we watched a documentary about the experiences of Alberta's first Black settlers and current students. We had many thoughtful conversations. The students wrote reflections about how we can show respect, be aware and take action against racism.
We have also been learning about time, the vocabulary, expressions and verbs used specifically for how we spend time. There has been lots of written practice and some oral activities and games to help students internalize the syntax, verbs and vocabulary. We just started to celebrate Francophonie month by listening to French music, learning the vocabulary and tapping our feet or singing along to the chorus. We will listen to music all month long, vote on our favorites and celebrate the students progress in understanding by listening to some ONIVA episodes on CBC.
ELA 7 (Ms. Cohen & Mrs. Fisher)
This term, as students completed the novel study The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, they had an opportunity to write and present a free verse poem. This assignment encouraged the use of figurative language to create a vivid image for their audience. We continued to explore plot, character development and perspective with the short story Gore, by Sara Ellis. Students were then tasked with rewriting this story from a different perspective and utilizing various creative storytelling elements such as dialogue and description. Students are currently working on a 3 paragraph Character Essay based on characters from the film Queen of Katwe. They are developing their persuasive writing skills by referencing evidence from the film to support their ideas. They are working towards organizing their ideas in a structured format including a cohesive introduction, body and concluding paragraphs.