March Newsletter

Dates to Remember

March 3, Grade 9 Grad Picture Retakes
March 3, Regional Science Fair, East Wiltshire
March 8 and 9, Band Days, Confederation Centre
March 11, Second Term Reports Sent Home
March 14-18, French Week
March 15, Grade 9 Students Visit Colonel Gray High School
March 16, Grade 10 Parent Meeting at Colonel Gray Lecture Theatre-7:00 pm
March 21-25, March Break, No Classes
March 29, Orientation for Incoming Grade 10 Charlottetown Rural Students – 1:00 pm
March 31, School Dance, 7:00 – 9:30 pm
March 31, Grade 10 High School Registration at Colonel Gray
April 5, Charlottetown Rural High School Parent Information Session – 7:00 pm

Parent Surveys

Parents and guardians of children in PEI schools are invited to participate in the Tell Them From Me on- line parent survey between March 1-March 31, 2011. A variety of questions related to communication, and support for student learning are asked. Your responses provide valuable information for schools and will be used to assist us in meeting student needs.

The information to access the survey as well as a username and password will be sent to you electronically, if you have shared your family e-mail with the school, through your student(s), or in some cases by mail. Our survey access code will be provided per family in each school. Parents should complete one survey for each school where they have children attending. For example, if you have two children in one school and one child in a different school, you would have the opportunity to complete two surveys. Your responses in each survey would be specific to that school. In the case of parenting from two homes, additional survey codes may be obtained by contacting the school.

The survey is anonymous. The school, the Eastern School District, and the survey provider have no means of tracking responses back to individuals. Also, you may skip any questions you do not wish to answer. The survey will take about 20-30 minutes to complete. If you are interrupted while completing the survey, your partial responses will be saved and you can resume at the page following the last one you submitted at a later time. When you have completed the survey and submitted it, your results are combined with those of other parents in the school, and your results will remain anonymous.

We look forward to receiving your valuable input.

Birchwood Winter Carnival

Birchwood held their annual winter carnival on Friday, February 25. The event involved all students and staff and this year’s carnival was based on the popular TV show, "The Amazing Race". Classes competed in a series of different challenges that tested the students mentally and physically. Colonel Gray High School played a huge role in the success of the events as the leadership students helped set up and run each station. The morning activities were followed up by a Lip Sync competition in the afternoon. A number of student participated in the lip sync. Gbemi Oguntona won the lip sync contest and qualified for the Wendy’s Provincial Competition, while Ms. MacDonald and Mr. MacCallum closed the competition with a memorable version of "Spiders and Snakes". The event was a huge success!

Band News

Birchwood Concert Band will perform for “Band Days” at the Confederation Centre, March 9. Students should arrive at the Centre at 8:15 am for a 9:00 am performance. Concert dress will be white shirt, black pants or skirt. Reminder: Payments are due for the Cape Breton Band Trip. Please bring payments to the office. The dates for the band trip are April 13-15, 2011.

Sports Update

Basketball

Congratulations to the Boy’s "AA" basketball team, led by coach Mr. Ben LeClair, on a terrific season. Mr. LeClair would like to wish his graduating players all the best in the future and looks forward to coaching at Birchwood next season. The staff and students would like to thank M. LeClair for coaching the boys team this year.

The Girl’s "AA" basketball team has qualified for provincials, beginning Thursday, March 3. They will face Summerside Intermediate at 5:30pm at Stone Park School. The winner of that game goes to the provincial final on Friday at 5:30 pm. The defeated team plays for the bronze medal at 2:00pm on Friday. Good luck, Cobras!!

Badminton

Badminton tryouts will start next Tuesday, March 8, from 3:00 - 4:15pm. Mr. Brioux will be coaching the team again this year.

Library News

March Break is around the corner! Help your child build their literacy skills while having fun with the family. Here are some suggestions on how to do that: Take your teen to museums, planetariums, art displays, concerts, sporting events, and on family vacations. Discuss what you see and what you like. Keep a diary, journal or log together and share reflections with your teen. Think about creating a family journal, scrap book or photo album when on family vacations. Use funny captions or anecdotes above photographs to remember family events. Visit bookstores and the public library regularly to find materials for pleasure reading. Subscribe to magazines and newspapers and read together. Go on shopping trips and encourage your teen to estimate grocery total and the required change. This is more fun when shopping for personal items like CD's or clothes. For more tips on building literacy skills visit: http://www.peel.edu.on.ca/parents/tips/documents/tip-literacysec.pdf. Students may sign out a book for March Break. A reminder to have students search for overdue books and return them, please and thank you.

Birchwood Science Fair

A big thank you to the students and staff who participated in the Birchwood Science Fair on Feb. 24. Congratulations to the following students who will be representing Birchwood at the 2011 Regional Science Fair that will be held at East Wiltshire School on March 4: Laura Mohan: Bio-Gas, Emma Moore: Corrosive Soft Drinks, Alexandra MacDonald: How Sexist Are Adolescents?, Justin Murnaghan: Stroop Effect, Emily Wight: Boiling Point Elevation, Taylor Affleck: Color of Light Affect A Plants Growth, Savannah Larter: Color of Food Affect Taste, Bobby Jaimeson: Electrolytes in Sport Drink

BISC News

Our student council members will be working on the following events in March:
Planning for the end of year events, particularly, for the grade 9’s.

Think Day

March 17th we will host “Think Day,” a motivational presentation, which includes a show put on by the band, “Hearts In Stereo.” To find out more go to: http://motivate.absolute.org/
March 31st will be our next school dance; theme to be decided.

March Presentations at Birchwood

During the month of March, Birchwood will be hosting 2 excellent presentations. The first, on March 17, is “Think Day” (www.thinkday.org) a presentation done with media and a live band which focuses on responsibility, hope and giving with ourselves and our community.
The second presentation, on March 30, is on the impact and prevention of bullying in our school. This is project between Birchwood grade 7 students and Bluefield High School students which involves workshops for each of the homerooms followed by an assembly for all the Birchwood grade 7 students.

French Week

Our French teachers are busy preparing numerous fun, educational activities for our French Week celebration here at Birchwood Intermediate during the week of March 14-18. We are looking forward to celebrating French culture during this exciting week.