Dear Brookes Westshore Families and Friends,

This week has been as busy as ever! We have had an inter-house volleyball tournament, a very successful ‘Pi challenge’, and our Senior Boys Basketball team were at the Provincials in Vancouver (read about their amazing achievement below). And that is on top of classes and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations! All in all, a great way to end the term.

On a more serious note, and following on from the talk given by Dr. Homer-Dixon, our school took time this week to reflect on the situation in Europe, to honour the people of Ukraine and wear the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag. It feels more important than ever that we welcome students and staff from around the world and support them all to live and learn together in our school.

As our term comes to a close and we look forward to a happy and healthy Spring Break, I hope you will be able to recharge your batteries and that we return on April 4^th ready to learn!

With kind regards,

Jerry Salvador

Head of School

Students have had a wonderful term of learning and I wish them all very well deserved Spring Break.

Our seniors have completed all internal components required for IB subject assessments and are now awaiting the May examinations and the very exciting Graduation Day on Friday, May 20, 2022. MYP5 students have completed their Personal Projects and the Exhibition is planned for early April.

MYP2 students have spent the last couple of weeks exploring the IB Learner Profile which they demonstrated by writing thank you notes and presenting a small gift to Ms. Dakota, Mr. Devin, Ms. Olivia and Ms. Kate and Ms. Melanie (School Nurse). They all expressed their appreciation in kind words. Well done MYP2!

Our salmon eggs have successfully hatched and we will continue to incubate for another 4 weeks and then release into Goldstream.  Ben Harrold has been taking care of our salmon project and we will release the fry in early May into Goldstream with the help of MYP2 students.

April 8, Term 2 reports issued on ManageBac

April 20, Parent conferences for International parents (virtual)

April 21, Parent conferences for local parents (virtual from 1530-1900).  Bookings will be completed on SchoolsBuddy.

The Global Leadership Academy is full steam ahead! With both travel restrictions and local restrictions easing, we are excited to be safely and confidently moving forward with our summer 2022 programs. 

It's no surprise that youth are looking for opportunities to expand their skills, experience, comfort zones, and networks after two years at home. Because GLA combines the best of an abroad experience, summer camp, pre-university program, community service project, and leadership academy all into one program, we have received a huge number of applications from all around the world. We expect the programs to be at full capacity well before the application deadline of May 31st!

If you've been considering applying, now is the time. Apply on our website before spots are full! We have both 2-week and 3-week program options to choose from.

Questions? Contact us.

Download the GLA 2022 Program Guide

Student Leadership Council

Our monthly theme has been Global awareness.

The SLC produced a video about prejudice (special thanks to Amira) to facilitate some discussions with students to help raise global awareness. Students watched the video in their homeroom and discussed the following questions:

• Being globally aware means understanding the prejudice and stereotypes others face. What does “prejudice” and “stereotypes” mean to you?  

• Prejudice and stereotypes are something that many people around the world face today. But how does it affect us? 

Wednesday’s Biology class: students investigating the action of amylase on starch digestion.

French 'Reading Block'

The Grade 9 class read their stories to the MYP1 class this week. Both classes did a unit on emotions and feelings and their stories were riffs on the "Mr./Miss" series.

And a Fashion Show to finish off the term!

Senior Boys Basketball - Amazing Performance at Provincials!

The Brookes Westshore Sr Boys Basketball team qualified for the Provincial Tournament last week, where the top 16 teams from BC battled at the Langley Events Centre. After a strong showing at the Vancouver Island Tournament, our boys placed 3rd on the Island, knocking out powerhouse after powerhouse Island teams.

Although we played exceptionally well at Islands, the hardest part of the season was yet to come, and our first game of the Provincial Tournament was up against Unity Christian School. Unity Christian had been ranked 1st in the Province for the past three years and were soon to become the 2021-2022 back-to-back Champions. Although, we had heard that this team had incredible speed and transition play, our boys didn't back down and came out fierce. We had a strong showing and played confident, only being down 11 points in the first half with a strong second quarter push. Unity Christian was surprised by our depth, skill and will to win and had to work hard to stay ahead in the score. We continued to play strong in the second half, but Unity's transition game proved to be too much, and we lost in a hard-fought battle. 

The next day, we were up against another strong team, Nanaimo Christian, who ranked 2^nd on Vancouver Island and was ranked 5^th in the Province all year.  Our boys once again came out with energy and enthusiasm and won the first quarter 16-15. Alex Buhr and Seiya came out of the gates hot and combined for 14 points in the first quarter. In the second quarter, Nanaimo's All-Stars started to score, and they won the second quarter making the score 40-29. To start the third quarter, we came out aggressive and closed the gap to 57-55 for Nanaimo. Alex, Jack, and Coen led the third quarter combining for 17 points with multiple 3-point shots and put backs made. In the fourth, Nanaimo proved to be too much and once again their All-Stars hit their shots when it counted, and they won the game 84-70. Alex Buhr again played outstandingly and scored 34 points in the match.

On Friday afternoon, we matched up against Pemberton. We started the game a bit slow in the first quarter and were down 18-26 but we bounced back right away in the second quarter scoring 26 points to put us up by one point at half (44-43). Our boys put Pemberton in major foul trouble with three of their starters having 3 and 4 fouls each. This took their top players out of the game, and we took advantage of their lack of discipline by outscoring Pemberton 22-6 in the third quarter. At the end of the third quarter, we led the game 66-49, and we never looked back. In the end we won, 77-65 and we were proud of our team play and willingness to leave everything on the court. Coen Salvador Brown won player of the game and led the team by scoring 28 points and Jack Xu again led us in rebounds and toughness adding another 24 points to our total. 

Brookes Westshore placed 14^th in BC and with the toughest draw of the tournament. Our boys proved to push through adversity and brought resilience, strength, teamwork, control, and grit.

At the end of the tournament multiple Coaches and Directors approached Ms. Aija, condemning our team and said that "Brookes Westshore is on the map and everybody knows who you are". They spoke of how young and talented we are, and with only 4 players graduating from Gr 12, and being one of the youngest teams at the tournament, we are the team to watch out for next season.

We congratulate Jack Xu, Stan Shih, Seiya Katagiri, and Mark Huang on a successful high school basketball career and wish them all the best in their future. 

Moving forward for us now, it is back to the drawing board and court to build off of an incredible 2021-2022 season! 

The final ski trip of the year was another great day out for everyone up at Mt Washington Alpine Resort.

Pi Day Challenge was on Thursday in the dining hall.  

Students tried to recite the order of digits of Pi - as many as possible. There was a pie prize as well as a great T-shirt!  

In case you are wondering - here are the first 101 digits of Pi:

3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 

There was great participation from the lower grades, but the winner was Fabienne from grade 9 (who knew the first 100 digits!), runner-up was Armando, also from grade 9 (with 69 digits), along with Ariel in third place. Congratulations to everyone who took part!

Thanks to everyone who turned out this week for the Volleyball House Cup.

A special thanks to the grade six class, who volunteered to be scorekeepers and lines people all week long.

We had some exciting matches. As it turned out, most of the teams had trouble fielding enough players from day to day, so in the end most of the games were played with teams consisting of players from several different houses. Thus, it was difficult to determine which house would have won. But everyone seems to have had an enjoyable time and there were some serious skills on display!

St. Patrick's Day on Thursday! Thanks to Sage Dining for the amazing themed cupcakes!

The Cooking Competition 2022 advanced into the 4th week with Janet (Taiwan), Eva (China) and Semvia (Hong Kong) drawing on their respective cultures to prepare an Asian Carnival-themed meal. There were Fried Pork Belly with soy paste as appetizers, Zha Jiang Mian as the main dish, and Mochi with ice cream & brown sugar for dessert.

Expectations were high since the three girls did very well in last year's Brookes Cooking Competition and Master Chef. Indeed, they did an amazing job. The food was appreciated and voted on by 38 people, among them students and staff, and was another huge success.

The cooking competition will pause until after spring break, when we will have the last two groups before the big reveal of the winners of the Competition.