Oldcastle Weekly Newsletter

School Assembly

Mrs Littlewood performed her online assembly in the radio station studio this morning and showed all the children around via her laptop camera. The children were fascinated to see all the equipment and Mrs Littlewood explained that children throughout the school will be able to use the equipment with their teacher. We hope to hold all our assemblies in this way and broadcast a radio show every Friday. At the end of the assembly, Mrs Littlewood played a song for all the children to dance to before getting stuck into their school work.

All classes shared their token update with the rest of the school in assembly. The children love collecting their house colour tokens. We are delighted with the way in which all children in the school have adopted our new reward scheme.

We have had a number of visitors to the school this week who have all commented on the enthusiastic pupils and staff we have in school. Lovely to have some great feedback.

School Values

Our school values for this month are Community and Service. Over the next week children have been tasked with working on attendance and arriving to school on time. Late arrivals cause a great deal of disruption to the class and we remind everyone that school starts at 8.55am.

Oldcastle Sounds - Radio Station

On Wednesday 16th March the radio station was officially opened by Bridge FM and Nation Radio DJ, Lee Jukes. Lee was able to spend some time talking with our Radio Champions to give them some top tips on creating a radio programme. During the time spent at school Lee also performed the ceremony to cut the ribbon and officially declare ‘Oldcastle Sounds’ open! We even managed to persuade Lee to broadcast live to the whole school and we sprung a surprise interview on Mrs Littlewood! Part of this show was broadcast live on Bridge FM on Thursday morning!

Oldcastle Sounds will develop resilience, creativity and confidence through the use of digital radio. Having a radio station enables our children to develop a wide range of curriculum skills and allows them all to be radio stars. We are so excited to be able to install the radio station and we can’t wait to share some of our shows with parents and the wider community through our school website.

All of our current shows can be heard by clicking on the links on our website - please do take a moment to have a listen. These shows have been compiled following a few hours of training with our radio practitioner. We are so proud of what the children have achieved in such a short space of time.

Oldcastle Sounds Shows

Year 5 are currently creating podcasts for the radio station on their topic - renewable energy. We can't wait to hear the podcasts.

Here are a few photos from our official opening of Oldcastle Sounds earlier this week.

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 3000 miles so far!!

Please can we ask that all sponsorship forms and money be returned to school next week. Sponsorship forms can be downloaded from our website. Afghanistan Appeal Information

Thank you for your support.

Comic Relief

We supported Comic Relief today with children being able to wear their own clothes. We decided not to complete any fundraising in school this year as we have already asked parents to support a number of charities. If you wish to make a donation to Comic Relief please do so via the Comic Relief website.

Year 4 Trip to Porthcawl - Tuesday 15th March

Year 4 were delighted to go on a trip to Porthcawl on Tuesday as part of their current topic. The children completed a litter pick on Coney Beach and filled a number of bags with rubbish. The children were looking for small nurdles (a small pellet of plastic) in particular and counted their collection when they returned to school. They collected 490 nurdles on the beach! Great job year 4.

Year 4 had a special helper with them on their trip - Barney! It was Barney's first time on a bus and helping on a school trip. He absolutely loved his time on the beach and was a little unsure of the bus but soon settled and liked looking out of the windows! Year 4 loved being able to walk and play with Barney.

Mrs Littlewood mentioned in assembly how proud she was to learn from Mrs Peters and the class teachers how well behaved the pupils were on the trip - especially considering the children had not been on a trip for such a long time.

Cross Country Years 3 to 6

The Bridgend Schools Cross Country events for children in years 3 to 6 will be held on the following dates:

• Porthcawl Comprehensive School Saturday 26th March

• Bryntirion Comprehensive School Saturday 21st May

The first race will begin at 10am. There will be 4 races in the following order:

• Y3/4 boys; Y3/4 girls; Y5/6 boys; Y5/6 girls

Please note the following:

• We will not be using any indoor facilities.

• There will be no finishing ‘funnel’ at the end of the race. There will be a medal for the first three across the line in each race.

• There will be no team scores or league this year, just two ‘stand-alone’ races. We will resume the league from 2022/23.

• Dogs are not allowed.

• Smoking is not allowed.

• We support all pupils from all schools.

• Arrive in plenty of time (by 9.30).

• When leaving please be aware of the remaining races taking place.

Ukraine Crisis - Impact on children

We have been provided with some useful information from BCBC regarding the Ukraine crisis that parents may find helpful when explaining the news to children.

What to do if you are upset with the news?

How to talk about Ukraine with children

Year 2 investigated dinosaur poo this week to find clues about what they ate to categorise them into carnivore, herbivore and omnivore!! Apparently dinosaur poo is very smelly!!

Year 2 also used their chromebooks to create slides about Arctic animals. They’ve learned how to add pictures and videos. Da Iawn year 2

Our cob oven in the school garden has had a make over this week. We can't wait to start using it again in a few weeks time.

Year 3 are measuring the amount of rain we have. We can't wait to hear about their results.

Another busy Friday afternoon with lots of lovely activities taking place for enrichment afternoon

Late arrivals

Please can we remind parents and carers that school starts at 8.55am . There are a number of children who arrive late to school and this causes disruption to their class and school operation. Thank you for your cooperation with this.

Scooters

Please can we ask that scooters are not used on the yard. Scooters may be brought to school however we ask that users dismount at the school gates and wheel / carry the scooters to the storage areas.

School Savings Club

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

Year 6 Cycling Proficiency

Year 6 parents who signed their child up to take part in the cycling proficiency have been emailed details of the day they should bring in their bike and helmet. Please check your emails.

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

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.