Happenings 

  • November 3, 2024 - Daylight Saving Time Ends
  • November 7: Remembrance Day at Branton School
  • November 8 (Friday): Professional Development Day (No school for students)
  • November 8-13: No School - Fall Break
  • November 28 4-8pm: Parent-Teacher Conferences at Branton School
  • November 29 (No school): Parent-Teacher Conferences 9am-1pm on TEAM (Online)

November Dates of Significance

  • Hindu Heritage Month
  • Veterans Week
  • Metis Awareness Week
  • Bullying Awareness Week 

A Message from Mr. Picard, Principal

Dear Parents and Guardians 

As we approach Remembrance Day, I would like to invite you to join us on November 7 between 10:15 am and 11:03 am in honoring the legacy of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms. Our Remembrance Day ceremony will be held on Tuesday, November 7, at Branton School. This is a significant occasion for us to reflect on and remember those who gave their lives, and we encourage you to discuss the importance of this day with your children as we commemorate together. All students will be provided with a poppy for this ceremony and homerooms will be collecting poppy donations on that day. Thank you. 

Please note that Branton School will be closed for the Fall break from Friday, November 8, to Wednesday, November 13, inclusive. Classes will resume on Thursday, November 14. 

We are also very proud of our students who participated in the Science Challenge on October 29! Congratulations to each of them for their hard work and dedication. We hope you enjoy the photos on our Instagram Account, capturing some of their exciting moments during the competition. 

Additionally, we are preparing for our November Parent-Teacher Conferences on November 28-29, 2024. This week's newsletter includes essential details about the booking process, including how and when you can book your interviews. We encourage all parents to review this information carefully to ensure a smooth and convenient experience when arranging your meetings. 

Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to welcoming you to these upcoming events and activities. 

Parent-Teacher Conferences

CBE Booking System (MyCBE)

The first Parent/Student/Teacher Conferenesfor the school year will be held on November 28, 4:00pm-8:00pm and November 29, 9:00 am-1pm. As was done last school year, Conferences will be held using an in-person and an on-line method.

The School Conference scheduler will open for IPP parents on November 19 at 1pm (only for our IPP parents).

The School Conference scheduler will open for all parents on November 22 at 6pm.

Our teachers do not have a slot for every student. Branton School has made a commitment to ensuring ongoing communication throughout the school year to students and their families so that there is an opportunity for students and parents to get feedback and make adjustments prior to the June report card. As such, grades and comments are uploaded regularly in PowerSchool with further information in D2L/Google Classroom, including the use of rubrics to give a detailed understanding of grades. This can also include graded work sent home. At this time, we encourage families to take time with their child(ren) to review grades and comments posted by teachers, review attendance, and decide if what you already know is all positive and satisfactory that you may not need to book an interview at this time. If you have questions, please reach out directly to teachers. Please use this link to access teacher emails. As a reminder, teachers also post reminders (due dates, current work and other course information) in their respective digital platforms on a weekly basis. 

The following are links to assist you in using the digital tools used by teachers:

The link to join Microsoft Teams Virtual meeting will be embedded in your email confirmation. 

To support the process on November 29 (Online Conferences) 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 are 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.

See our Parent-Teacher Conferences page for more information.

Keeping School Lunches Safe

Here is a link about some ways to keep your child's school lunches safe to eat and reduce their risk of becoming sick from eating contaminated food (food-borne illness).

Resources to Learn More

Jacket Racket is Back!

We will be starting to collect jackets in October and November until November 18. Clean, gently used coats. No other clothing, Please drop your coats off in room 22 (Ms. Corning’s office). 

Jacket Racket - Seeking Volunteers for w/ active CBE Police Check

Branton is once again trying to collect a mountain of coats in support of Jacket Racket! Together we hope to assist in keeping those in need as warm as possible. Through the month of November donations can be brought to the school and dropped off in the front office or taken to room 22. Donations are for coats only as other winter gear is not being collected at this time. Thank you in advance for any coats you can donate.

Dates for Donation Drop-off: November 1 – 18, 2024

Jour du Souvenir Writing Contest

Do you want to be part of the Remembrance Day Assembly this year? Enter a piece of writing in French (really looking for French, time to show off those skills) or English about womens impact, contributions and service in the Canadian Armed Forces. Could be a poem or short essay (under 2 minutes reading time). Entries are due by Oct. 30 to Ms. Walker. 

Class Updates

Updates in FLA by Ms. Handy 

In FLA continuing, we have been practicing reading Cause and effect texts, by first reading the text several times and discovering our background connections to the text. Then, Madame Handy looked up unknown and important vocabulary using google images and acted some words out. Then students partnered up to teach a section of the text to their classmates. We did this for 2 different texts. Then once we knew the vocabulary really well because students taught it to each other, they answered questions and submitted it. We have been practicing listening comprehension. Then, we listened to Madame read a paragraph to decipher what kinds of words are used for fact and opinion. Then, we listened to ONIVA to differentiate between fact and opinion and get examples for both. Next step is doing research of a cause and effect topic of choice and creating an oral presentation for classmates. 

In Late immersion humanities, student have been working on asking classmates survey questions about what languages they speak, and what age they would choose to be if they were immortal and why. Their classmates recorded their answers, then wrote it up as a script to present to their peers. Now, they are memorizing it to present later next week. For the last presentation, students took notes on the cities and provinces during their classmate’s class presentations. This time, we will decide together which part of the presentation they will take notes on. As well, they have been learning how to read an few texts. 

In Social Studies, students learned cities, provinces of Canada and countries in the world in complete sentences for an oral presentation, did maps on both and improved their mapping skills and abilities to read maps in French. Recently, students have been learning about traditions, values, beliefs, stereotypes and prejudices and their world vision. Students are learned how to listen for 3 different perspectives and answer inquiry questions while they listened to and took notes on 2 episodes from the Elder in the Making series about Cowboy Smith X, a Blackfoot man from Sisksika. They looked up the nouns in French to put into their notes and grow their French. They learned about Cowboys X’s traditions growing up as well as the stereotypes and prejudices that existed. They also learned about the history around the making of treaty 7 and the role of Colonel James Macleod, Chief Crowfoot and Jerry Potts. Finally, we listened to Elder Saa’Kokoto talk about the importance of connecting with the land, Na’a ( mother nature) building appreciation, introspection and positive morning rituals, as well as learning about Napi, a trickster in his oral tradition that teaches the children valuable lessons.

Students took notes while listening and wrote a reflection where they connected to one of his quotes. Next week, they will learn about the cbe medicine wheel and put in their own medicine wheel, the animals, and values that are important to them and set a goal in either the spirit, or the body domain We will come back to and make connections with the medicine wheel and year. 

Math 7

In Math 7 late immersion, we are wrapping up our first unit on Integers. Students learned how to add and subtract integers and solve word problems using these operations all en Français!

We are not sending home too much Math work yet, we would like students to focus on reviewing the French ( vocabulary and key words, understanding instructions, and word problems). That being said, you should be seeing your child practice a bit of Math during the week. After this unit, we will move on to our intro to Statistics - Data management unit.

In Math 7 early immersion, we are mid-way through our decimals unit. We are covering all four operations with decimals, as well as solving word problems and the Order of Operations. After that we will move on to our intro to Statistics - Data management unit.

Updates in FLA+7, we have actively examined and reinforced a range of concepts. These concepts include introductions, salutations, numbers, days of the week, telling time, parts of the day, classroom requests, phonetics, and the agreement of articles, nouns, and adjectives. We also practiced expressing food preferences and talking about sports using various verbs and the corresponding definite and indefinite articles. To conclude the month of October, we studied common phrases and phonetics in song lyrics, and we explored Halloween vocabulary. Next, we will continue to practice listening comprehension and speaking skills with a greater focus on phonetics. I am proud of the students for their progress and the courage they have demonstrated speaking French in class.

Updates in Grade 6 Math

Grade 6 Math students have completed their first unit on understanding numbers and are currently working on the second unit which is adding and subtracting integers. Students will continue to work on this unit for the next month or so, before moving onto the cartesian plane and geometrical transformations. 

Updates in Grade 6 Science  

Grade 6 Science students have been working really hard on their planet research projects during their astronomy unit. We will be continuing this unit talking about seasons, the length of days, the sun and different types of celestial bodies for a few more weeks before we move on to our next unit. 

Music Notes 

Wednesday, the Grade 9 band students attended the William Aberhart feeder school concert. It was a great opportunity to see the programs in music offered at Abe, as well as hear other schools perform songs. We performed The Flying Tigers March, and it went well. The final song of the night was a collaboration of all of the schools, including Abe to perform Bear Love with two guest performers! It was an amazing sound. Great job grade 9!

Band Shirts 

The band shirts for performances is now available for purchase through the online store. Please note that it is the polo shirt that is required and there (like other teams) is the optional hoodie. Order deadline is Tuesday, November 12 to have them here for our Winter performance. Please click on the link if you need a band shirt. 

https://brantonband.itemorder.com

Winter Concert 

Date will be announced soon and also the combined morning practices for grade 7 & 8 students. I am just waiting for basketball practices to start slowing down so we have gym space available to us. Dates will also be posted in google classrooms for your child, so you can check with them too!

Cafeteria Menu

See our cafeteria and menu page.

Fun Lunches 

The third Fun Lunch is coming on November 21 (OPA!). Deadline to order is Saturday November 16. We will be looking for Volunteers. Please follow the link for Volunteers. You can place your order through Healthy Hunger Link Order Food.

Upcoming dates for Fun Lunches are as follows: 

Dec. 17, 2024 - Deadline to order is on Saturday, November 16 before midnight