Dear Brookes Westshore Families and Friends,

With our grade 9 students returning from their trip to Tofino with a stronger sense of connection than ever before, our DP1 Art class producing works that stretch their creativity to the limit, and our MYP5 students showing their character by organizing a week of activities in support of the Red Cross in Ukraine - this week has been a great representation of our core pillars: Creativity, Connectivity and Character. You can see below how our students are expanding their horizons and finding new ways to engage with their world.

You will also notice that we have another star athlete in our school – congratulations Belle! After Max’s 10K triumph last week, we are hearing more and more about our students’ sporting achievements. To add to these successes – Coen and Alex (Grade 11) have both been invited to attend the Junior Vikes Basketball training camps this year. The Vikes are the University of Victoria’s Basketball team, and it is an amazing achievement for our two students to be selected for their junior programme. We are a small school, but we are ready and eager to support our young athletes in any way we can as they strive for success.

I am looking forward to seeing our grade 9 and 10 families at the coffee morning next Friday,

With kind regards,

Jerry Salvador

Head of School

This has been a very busy week with IB examinations running and students participating in service projects, plus everything else we do in the classroom.

MYP2 are off to a great start with their Walk-a-thon for Homeless Youth and I want to thank everyone who has made very generous pledges for this service project. 

They finished the Walk-a-thon this morning and will be calculating and collecting pledges next week. We will have pictures and more details next week in the newsletter.

Our plan is to purchase 16 backpacks and fill them with supplies they feel a homeless teenager would appreciate.  If you have any New or Good as New backpacks to donate towards this project, the MYP2 students would be greatly appreciative (and we can use the money saved to add in more essential supplies!)

I want to congratulate the MYP5 students on a very successful spirit week.  They were well organized and collected a sizeable fund to donate to the Red Cross Society to support Ukranian.

The Geography DP1 students spent this afternoon collecting data from Bee Creek to support their completion of the Geography Internal Assessment.  All DP subjects have an Internal Assessment component which contributes between 20-25% of their final IB grade in that subject.  These are very rigorous investigations which promote subject specific skills and competencies. We try to get at least 1-2 subject IA’s done in the first year of the Diploma Programme to help reduce some of the  workload in Grade 12.

We say a sad farewell to Ms. Sarah Lee who has been part of the faculty for the last 2 months teaching Mr. Jones English classes while he was away.  Thanks so much to Ms. Lee, we will all miss her.

Parents of grade 9 and 10 students are invited to a Coffee Morning on Friday May 13^th at 9 am in the dining hall. We know this is a time when your thoughts are on the final years of high school for your children, and we would like to give you the opportunity to talk with us, ask questions, and find out more about how Brookes Westshore delivers the IB Diploma Programme and supports students through to university. Please RSVP to Sheri. We'd love to see you there!

It will be soon time to buy 2022 yearbooks – so 2020-2021 Yearbooks are on sale at the Front Desk for 20$. Limited quantities available. Catch up on last year and get excited for the 2021-2022 yearbook going on pre-sale soon! 

The DP1 Biology students completing a heart / lung dissection. Thanks again to John Buchanan from Parry Bay Farms for donating the organs to support student learning.

Vigo has been pursuing his passion for fashion design in DP1 Art. Here he uses his sewing skills to create a bespoke pair of jeans. His talents are not limited to fashion - as you can see from his multi-coloured sculpture below.

Adam has been working alongside Vigo and producing some great work in clay. The hand and brush looks elegant and incredibly lifelike! 

Janet has been working on a large clay representation of a traditional Chinese coin.  Amazing work Janet!

Throwback to Tofino by Maggie (Grade 10)

3 days and two nights passed so fast and we are back to a normal school week schedule. Tofino was one of the prettiest places that I have been to, it brought me so many good views and good memories that I will never forget. Also, I have been closer to some of my friends and classmate.

Back on day 1, I remembered I was really looking forward to and excited about the Tofino trip. After a long road trip, we finally arrived in Tofino. I was amazed by their beautiful cabins that are facing the beach and ocean. Every single facility in Ocean Village Resort impressed me, they are really like a 5-star hotel but in a smaller portion. The favorite part of my memories was definitely the sunset, it was one of the prettiest sunsets that I have seen and probably the first-ever sunset that I have seen on the beach. I and my friends walked along the beach, to enjoy the breeze beside the sea and watch the waves slowly crush the sand. I love that moment, the world was so silent, only the sound of waves and wind were left in this world. The sun slowly set on Mackenzie Beach while we were enjoying BBQ dinner facing the ocean. It was such a nice way to end our day with such a good view and weather.

Back on day 2, we woke up early in order to get prepared for our 3 hours of surfing lesson with Surf Sister. I have never surfed before and this was my first time. I really enjoyed surfing because standing on the board above the waves was fabulous. Although I spent most of my time and energy carrying my board back to my surfing place because the waves were big and the surfing board was pretty heavy. Later on that day, we went to Downtown Tofino to wander around just to check out all the shops and tried to buy some souvenirs. I wanted to buy some souvenirs because this might be my only time traveling to Tofino. However, everything was so expensive and I bought nothing. At night, we were all gathering in cabin 17 to talk and play games. Then, we set up a fire on Mackenzie Beach until 10:30 pm to make s’mores. It was another nice way to end our day.

On day 3, we left the resort around 12:00 pm and we went to a lighthouse. Unfortunately, the weather was so bad that it kept raining and it was super rainy. Therefore, we directly headed back to Downtown Nanaimo to make a stop before going back to school instead of spending more time in Ucluelet. Downtown Nanaimo was super good-looking and it was sunny there. Even though I have lived between Nanaimo and Ladysmith for a total of 5 weeks for my Winter break and spring break, I have never been to Downtown Nanaimo but mostly natures in Nanaimo and Ladysmith. I would say it was prettier than Downtown Victoria. We went to an ice cream shop, named Cold Front Gelato, the ice cream there was super good and the portion was so big and most importantly, it wasn’t expensive. After spending around 1 hour in Downtown Nanaimo, we headed back to school which had marked the end of the school trip.

With all these good memories, I wish I could go back to Tofino for another trip or stay there for a longer time.

A shout out to Belle (Grade 9) who has played rugby since the age of four.  She has been lucky enough to have ‘ball girled’ at the world renowned Hong Kong Rugby 7’s tournament and now at the Starlight Stadium in Langford this past weekend. This month she was also was awarded the U16 All Star Player trophy through the Westshore RFC.  Congratulations Belle from everyone at Brookes Westshore!

Students are loving the chance to play high up in the magnificent trees of the West Coast rain forests that surround our campus. Wild Play is only a short walk away and gives students a chance to test their head for heights!

Spirit Week at Brookes Westshore gave students the opportunity to celebrate our community and express their creative sides with Twin Day, PJ Day and Pink Day. (We had some triplets as well!) Donations will be sent to the Red Cross to support Ukraine.

Activities May 6th to 8th

• Friday 7:30pm - Make your own homemade popsicles, with all different toppings and flavours!
• Saturday 6:15pm - Visit the Cinema to watch Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
• Sunday 3:30pm - Basketball Tournament 5v5 and 3v3

40% Discount for Powerful Youth Program for Brookes Westshore students!

This summer’s Powerful Youth Program is filling up fast! We would love to have students from Brookes Westshore be a part of the adventure!

We are offering a 40% discount for students at Brookes Westshore to join either the junior or senior Session One Program. Here are some more details of the schedule and some of the participants talking about the impact the program had on them.

Here is the senior schedule

Here is the junior schedule

1. Learn about the overall purpose of the program.

2. See some participant testimonials and descriptions from the junior program here 

3. Some participant testimonials and descriptions from the senior program 

Please contact Graham Brown (gbrown@brookes.org) if you are interested!

Key dates for the school year starting in September 2022 can be found here: Key Dates 2022/2023 - Brookes Westshore