Oldcastle Weekly Newsletter

School Assembly

Mrs Burr and Miss Hodgson led assembly this morning and thanked all the children and staff for getting through such a busy week! We've had the installation of a new radio station, our annual Eisteddfod, World Book Day and house colour rewards thrown in amongst our normal teaching and learning!

Each class provided an update on their token collection throughout the week - it seems that we are going to have another busy term with token collection!

School Values

Our school values for this month are Community and Service. Miss Hodgson asked the children in assembly today to think about our school community and be proud of being part of Oldcastle. Children were asked to show their teachers next week how helpful, kind and caring they can be to each other and show how proud they are to be part of the school community.

Oldcastle Sounds - Radio Station

One of the exciting events that happened this week was the installation of our radio studio and the transmission of our very first live radio show!

Some children from years 4 and 5 were chosen to be our Radio Champions at the start of the week and they went through training on the new radio equipment with our radio practitioner on Wednesday. We were so impressed with how much they had learnt during the day and the quality of their radio show in the afternoon considering they had only been taught for a few hours!

After school, teaching staff underwent training and were given top tips on how the radio station can be used as part of our teaching and learning. Our Radio Champions will further develop their skills and share these wth other children in the school.

We have big plans for our radio station and are currently developing a schedule of shows that will be streamed throughout the school. We are able to transmit shows to single classes, multiple classes, the whole school and even outside on the yard. As part of our scheduling some shows will be uploaded to our website and we welcome feedback from parents. Children and staff have been choosing songs they would like to hear on the radio station too.

As the only radio station in any Bridgend school we are obviously very excited about this project and can't wait to share more details with you.

You can listen to our first live show via our website or click on the link below.

Eisteddfod Day - Tuesday 1st March

On Tuesday we celebrated our annual Eisteddfod with a jam packed day! Thank you to Miss Craven for putting together a very comprehensive day for all our children. Children and staff put in so much effort during our welsh week and on the day of the Eisteddfod to make it such a great success. As we move to normal school operations following the pandemic, it is really lovely to see different year groups interacting and sharing their delight with the activities and events.

The day started with an online assembly led by Mrs Littlewood and during this assembly, we learnt who this year's Bard was. This traditional ceremony has taken place in Oldcastle for a number of years and the Bard is awarded to a year 6 pupil who has won the poetry competition. This year our Bard is Lily T and we were delighted to see her fellow classmates robe her as part of the traditional ceremony. Lily then read her poem to the rest of the school - you can view the poem by clicking on this link. Bard Poem All children celebrated her achievement with a parade through the main hall waving their welsh flags. We were so pleased to be able to perform the ceremony and invite pupils to share in the ceremony. It is a tradition that we hope to continue for many years.

Our house captains were busy throughout the day announcing the winners for each competition. At the end of the day we all met on the schoolyard and celebrated all the successes of the Eisteddfod and Mrs Littlewood announced the winning house .......

• 1st Place - Ty Glas / Blue house - 939 points

• 2nd Place - Ty Coch / Red House - 836 points

• 3rd Place - Ty Gwyrdd / Green House - 821 points

• 4th Place - Ty Melyn / Yellow House - 814 points

To finish off our celebrations we all sang the Welsh national anthem. Scroll down the newsletter to view more photos from our Eisteddfod.

House Colour Rewards

Children have started enjoying their rewards this week. You will recall from our newsletter at the end of last erm that the following tokens and rewards were announced. Children in blue house enjoyed making a sweet treat with Mrs Hardy, children in green house braved the rain on Thursday to have a walk with Barney and children in yellow house loved playing parachute and obstacle games. Red house will complete their rewards next week. Thank you to Mrs Hardy, Mrs Loughran, Mrs Diehl and Mr Murdoch for working through each year group to deliver their rewards.

World Book Day - Thursday 3rd March

We were delighted to be supporting #WorldBookDay on Thursday. Our pupils and staff enjoyed showing off their outfits and sharing their love of reading with different year groups. Pupils from juniors enjoyed visiting our younger pupils and sharing a story with them. We have some lovely photos from the day so please scroll down the page to view them in our School Photos section.

Children's Rights

Oldcastle Primary School are committed to the UNCRC Children's Rights. Children and young people have 42 rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). These 42 rights give children and young people what they need to grow up happily, healthily and safely. A full list of all the Children's Rights can be viewed here.

Each week in school children will be focusing on a 'Right of the Week' to highlight the various rights children have. Our focus next week will be on the following two rights :

• Article 3 - (best interests of the child): The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children.

The Children's Commissioner for Wales website provides further information for parents.

Fundraising for the children and families of Afghanistan

Don't forget we are still raising money for those affected by the troubles in Afghanistan. All children in school are taking part and are walking the number of miles from Afghanistan to the UK as a school collectively.

Each class complete a walk around our school yard on a regular basis to accumulate the total number of miles required which is an astounding 3,692 miles!

We are pleased to report that children have walked over 1743 miles so far!!

Please can we ask that all sponsorship forms and money be returned to school by 17th March 2022. Sponsorship forms can be downloaded from our website. Afghanistan Appeal Information

Thank you for your support.

Reception Mr Trigg's Class

Mrs Parfitt, one of our PGCE trainee teachers, has been busy working with Mr Trigg’s Reception class. As part of this term's overarching concept of ‘Global environment’ we looked at habitats and growing. The Area of Learning and Experience focused on in this lesson was Science and Technology. The children completed this activity through experiencing their skills of following instructions. We discussed the habitat of plants and what they need to grow and develop. Plants need heat, light and water to grow successfully. We decided to try the bean experiment. We placed a bean seed into tissue and a clear plastic bag. We sprayed the tissue with water. We pegged it on the washing line, so the seed had everything it needed to germinate. We then monitored its development to observe the changes that occurred during growth and sprayed it with water when required. When their beans began to grow taller, the children took them home to plant them in a bigger pot. The children all thoroughly enjoyed themselves and did an amazing job! Gwaith da Reception.

The photographs below show the progression of learning from the start until now. Reggie has clearly been looking after his bean after planting it in a pot at home, da iawn Reggie and thank you for sending a picture in for us to see!

Comic Relief

You may be aware that it is Comic Relief on Friday 18th March. As a school, we have committed to lots of fundraising recently and we feel that our current focus is on the Afghanistan Sponsorship funding and do not feel that we should ask parents to commit to further fundraising. We will however be inviting children to wear their own clothes on Friday 18th March - please can we ask that these clothes are appropriate for their Enrichment session on a Friday afternoon.

If you wish to make a donation to Comic Relief please do so via the Comic Relief website.

Year 6 Leavers Arrangements

Reminder to year 6 parents - please complete the google form relating to your child's leavers hoodie and pay the deposit for the activity week. If you have not received these details please get in touch.

A selection of photos from our very busy week.

Year 1 learnt to be illustrators with Axel Scheffler during the day. We can't wait to see their drawings.

Year 6 used Guinness World Records to create a quiz during World Book Day.

Very active children in year 1 developing dancing and tae kwon do skills.

Year 6 are continuing to develop their orienteering skills using our knowledge of north, south, east, and west to navigate around London attractions.

Year 1 are enjoying learning about the work of Laurel Burch and then enjoyed making our own versions

Year 4 have been creating some fantastic models out of recycling.

Year 5 had a lovely afternoon exploring outdoors as part of their enrichment afternoon.

School Savings Club

School savings club will continue on every Wednesday. We look forward to seeing our young savers following the half term holiday.

3ND Message to Parents

Please can children in 3ND wear PE kit on a Friday for Enrichment Afternoon.

Water Bottles

Please could children only bring water in their water bottles and not squash.

Contact details

If any of your contact details have changed please let us now so that we may update our records. You can either complete a Change of Details online form here, call us or email us via ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk

Diary Dates

• 11th to 22nd April - Easter Holidays

• 25th April - Inset Day

• 26th April - Inset Day

• 27th April - Return to school

• 2nd May - Bank Holiday

• 30th May to 3rd June - Half term

• 6th June - Return to school

• 13th June to 17th June - Year 6 Activity Week

• 20th June - Inset Day

• 22nd July - End of summer term

Safeguarding

In the event that you have a concern regarding a child please follow this procedure:

• During school hours please contact Mrs Ceri Littlewood, safeguarding lead at Oldcastle Primary School.

• Out of school hours please contact the out of hours Emergency Duty Team Tel No 01443849944

At Oldcastle, we are proud of each other and ourselves. We nurture all of our community so that we grow as confident, responsible and happy people. Oldcastle school is more than just learning.

• We try hard for each other

• We act responsibly

• We treat people how we’d like to be treated

• We work as a team

• We trust and respect each other

• We listen and learn together

• We share knowledge and experience

Together we make the difference

Together we shape innovative experiences

More information on our values and visions can be found on our website. Visions and Values

COVID

Please take time to refresh yourself with the current COVID Rules in place in Wales

• If you or your child get a positive lateral flow test result, most people will not need to take a PCR test to confirm the result. You must self-isolate immediately if you get a positive rapid lateral flow test result.

• Self-isolate for 5 days if you test positive for COVID-19. You should take a Lateral Flow Test (LFT) on day 5 and day 6. If either LFT is positive, you should remain in isolation until 2 negative LFTs are received 24 hours apart..

If your child does have a PCR or a positive lateral flow test please let us know via our ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk email address or by telephoning 01656 815790.

When we are notified of a positive case in school we are required to send an 'Inform' letter to those in the same class as the case. If we have more than 2 cases in a class we are required to send a 'Warn and Inform' letter to parents - this letter provides further advice on LFT testing. If a warn and inform letter is sent we are not required to re-send the letter for a seven day period even if there are additional cases.

We are very grateful to parents for your support during the Covid pandemic.