Ski Day

PCS students headed to Kinosoo Ridge Snow Resort on Thursday for their annual ski day! Our school was the first large group to visit the newly constructed and very roomy chalet. Slightly cooler temperatures did not discourage anyone and the day went smoothly without any serious injuries. It was great to witness students encouraging first timers on a ski hill or just first time on a snowboard. Thank you also to all the parent volunteers who came out to help with gearing up students in the chalet, picking up students after spills on the hill, handing out lunch and anything else. See pictures at the bottom of our homepage.

Support Our 4-H Students

Check out our "Go Green" 4-H students. Vote for picture #10 on the 4-H website.

PCS Clothing Orders

New 2010 PCS Clothing is now available for order. Orders are due by Friday, October 1. Samples are available in the front foyer. Cheques are payable to: Pierceland School SRC. See Mrs. Rawlake-Cattell for more information. Download an order form here.

Back to School

A new school year is quickly approaching as teachers ready their rooms, parents hunt for supplies and students try to squeeze in a few more hours of summer fun. Although there has been a buzz of activity around the school already, staff do not officially start until August 25. This is a staff only day. Students return for morning classes only on THURSDAY, AUGUST 26. Full days begin on Friday. Supply lists for students can be found on our Documents & Forms page. We look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday!

Have a safe and enjoyable summer!

With graduation, field trips, Awards Night, and report cards finally behind us, we are pretty much done for the year. Thank you to all the staff, students, parents and volunteers who drove, coached, read, baked, cooked, led, cut, glued, sorted, counted or did whatever job was needed to make this year a very successful one.

Behind the scenes though, work is still going on.  Retreats and workshops happen throughout July and August, AFL test scoring takes place in Saskatoon early in July and even students in SRC return early (August 23) to plan for the fall. Parents will also be busy in August as they obtain supplies for their children. Lists are available at www.nwsd.ca/schools/pcs/docs.php.

Going into next year Pierceland Central School staffing remains the same. Mrs. Michelle Grundner will be teaching Grade 3 along with Ms. Reinhardt as the class will still be split into two for another year. PCS will be welcoming a brand new director to the Division, former St. Walburg principal, Duane Hauk. 

Staff officially return to work on Wednesday, August 25 although many will be in before that to prepare their classrooms and plans for the year. Thursday, August 26 is the first student day and there will be an 11:40 dismissal. You can keep posted of events throughout the year at www.nwsd.ca/schools/pcs/events.php. Have a great summer and well-deserved break! See you in the fall.

Mid-June Madness

As the end of school approaches, events are rapidly winding down. Awards Night has now passed with a great turn out and many certificates, medals and trophies awarded.  The evening began (to the relief of the organizing committee) with medals arriving in Pierceland just shortly before the ceremony and it ended with the hope of more sponsorship to increase the number of trophies to include areas such as Health, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Creative Writing and Technology to name a few. The upcoming two weeks are filled with year-end field trips, exams and our final Pep Rally on Monday, June 14.

To ease stress that students may be facing, it is important to keep good routines established such as regular bedtimes and meals. Starting the day with a healthy breakfast is always important. Although summer holidays are just around the corner, there is still much work to be finished before then. It's important that students stayed focused throughout these final weeks. A final exam schedule is available on the left sidebar. Supply lists will be posted as soon as they come available under "Parents - Documents & Forms".

PCS excels at Districts

Last Wednesday and Thursday, track students, along with parents and coaches traveled to Meadow Lake to compete at the second highest level of track competition. Out of 10 students that came to Districts, 7 qualified for Provincials. Six of those can move on as one is only in Grade 7. Qualifiers will be competing in hurdles, javelin, long jump, triple jump, 100m and discus. Congratulations to all and best of luck at Provincials this coming weekend!

Another successful Open Mic Night

Extra tables and chairs needed to be set up to accommodate the great number of students and parents who came out to support our Open Mic Night. Performances ranged from singing to piano and guitar playing to highland dancing. Thank you to the SRC for setting up and to all who helped clean up at the end of the evening.

Open Mic Night

We will be having a Coffee House and Open Mic Night in the gym on Thursday, May 13th at 7:00pm. Any students or community members willing to entertain are welcome. Perhaps you want to recite a poem, sing or play an instrument. Impromptu entertainers will be accepted, however if you know you would like to perform, please sign up at the school office or give us a call.
In the past, our Coffee House/Open Mic Night has been very well received. Admission is free. Desserts, coffee and juice will be sold with proceeds going to selected charities. Come out for a night of entertainment!

Badminton Provincials

This past weekend, Jordan S. represented Pierceland School very well as he competed in Regionals in Wilkie. Jordan brought home silver after some very competitive and close games against the first place winner from Goodsoil. Jordan will be moving on to Provincials in the same location this weekend. Best of luck, Jordan!

Read more under "Sports"

Spring Fling

Despite the winter wonderland on Friday, students showed good support of our last dance of the year. Students, parent chaperones and staff braved winter driving conditions to dance into the night. Thank you to Jason from Superior Sound for DJ services this year, Rawlake's Store for the food trays, and the SRC members dedicated to organizing, setting up and cleaning afterwards. Especially big thank yous go out to the parent and staff chaperones who give their night to help supervise. The SRC still looks forward to many spirit days, pep rallies and other special events this year before school lets out in June.

Storyteller Brings Laughter with Lessons

On Monday, April 19 storyteller Simon Moccasin both educated and entertained students with stories, music, dance and theater. He spoke with elementary students in the morning and with middle years in the afternoon sharing elements and traditions of his Cree culture. Students seemed to appreciate his sense of humour and ability to improvise quickly as students tried to trick him up. In the middle of one improvised skit Simon asks a student what his character as a father would say next and the student replied with "I have to go to the bathroom." Simon didn't miss a beat and pulled up a 'replacement' father. When the first student returned, there were

simply two fathers collectively known as "it". Staff that were sitting a little too closely were also unwillingly pulled into the story when Simon referred to the amount of laughter and potential bladder control. Each session ended with students participating in a short round dance, a Cree tradition for various celebrations and even to respect those who have passed.

Mathletics

We have begun a trial of the MATHLETICS.ca website. Students from Grade 2 to 10 will be given a username and password to login to the site to complete assigned curriculum-related activities, play math games and best of all, compete with students at their level from around the world. The site can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. Check out the site at www.mathletics.ca.

Easter Break

The staff at PCS would like to wish everyone a restful Easter break. We also wish safe travels for Mrs. Logan, Ms. Rawlake-Parker and the group of students who are travelling to Europe over the break. Classes resume on Monday, April 12th.

Parent-Teacher Interviews

All parents are encouraged to attend parent-teacher interviews next week to discuss successes of and concerns for our children. Report cards can be picked up by parents at the office. Dates and times are as follows:
Tuesday, March 16 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Wednesday, March 17 3:00pm to 5:00pm
Hope to see you there!

Time change reminder

Just a quick note to remind everyone heading to Alberta for work, business, appointments and so on - this weekend is time change. Mountain Timezone shifts ahead one hour for daylight savings time on Sunday morning making it the same time as Saskatchewan.

Go Canada Go!!

Olympics and Dance

February 5, 2010 was a very exciting day for the students at PCS. We started off the day with Winter Olympics. Students picked groups, within their house teams, and competed in several different events. Kindergarten-Grade 2 students participated in speed skating, bobsledding, soccer and the biathlon. Grade 3-5 students participated in bobsledding, speed skating, snow haul, broomball, road hockey, biathlon, soccer and slooshing. Grades 6-12 participated in broomball, road hockey, slooshing, speed skating, bobsledding, biathlon, soccer and a bike race. The weather cooperated nicely and it was relatively warm and sunny. A big thank you to all the teachers who organized and ran events and to Michelle Law and Tammy Gelowitz for opening the booth at the arena for us. That night was our annual Snow Ball Dance. Many people showed up and danced to music provided by a DJ. Everyone had a blast! DJ services were provided by Superior Sound and food from Rawlake's Store A special thank you to all the teacher and parent chaperone's who came out to supervise, the night wouldn't have been possible without your help. Another thank you to the SRC members for setting up and taking down the decorations.

Brooke

New Portable Arrives!!

On Tuesday of this week our new portable finally arrived. Crews are still busy cementing and welding it into place as well as finishing the hallway extension. The new portable is attached to the back of the school off the Grade 3/4 wing and will be connected with a hallway along with the older Grade 5 portable. During the move, the Grade 5 class has been using the library as a classroom. CORRECTION: For the remainder of this year, Ms. Fedler's Grade 4 class will move into the new portable once it is ready. Mrs. Grundner's Grade 2 class will move into the existing Grade 4 room. They have been using a classroom in the high school wing vacated by Ms. Johnstone who now bounces around to whatever space may be available. In the fall the newly attached portables will be occupied by Grades 4 and 5, while the old Grade 3 and 4 classrooms will house the two Grade 3 classes.

Photos: Brooke N.

Hockeyville

This is a great opportunity to promote the community of Pierceland. Help support all those hockey players in our village (both young and old). We need more entries on the website to show our spirit and commitment to our minor hockey program.

If you have a short story about the Pierceland Arena, follow the link below to show your support:

CBC.ca Hockeyville

ENTRY DEADLINE IS JANUARY 18, 2010

December Events

December, as usual, saw several events throughout the month. Here is a short recap:

The evening of the 2nd saw middle and high school students perform during the Band Concert. The same evening Ms. Montgomery's class served hot chocolate and sweets made in her class. Mr. Millie's bands did very well and attendance was excellent this year. Thank you to all who donated items for the silent auction.

At lunch on the 9th roughly 300 people were served Christmas Dinner at the hall! Thank you to all staff who donated items and a big hats off to the wonderful ladies who prepared the enormous amount of food. Everything was delicious!!

On the evening of December 10th, also at the hall, K to Grade 5 students performed their annual Christmas Concert. Thank you to all who could attend and to all the teachers who spent countless hours preparing for this event. Also thank you to Mr. Millie who helped set up the sound.

The final week of classes included bowling for the Grades 1s and 2s, skiing for Grade 3 to 12 and the infamous Panther Cup floor hockey tournament. We're gald to say that there were no major injuries at any of these events and many had a great time.


Lastly, renovations continue as the school anxiously awaits the arrival of the new elementary addition.