Oldcastle Weekly Newsletter

School Assembly

In assembly this morning Mrs Littlewood thanked all the children for making our jubilee celebrations so special on Thursday. The children were very well behaved and helped with the smooth running of the event.

We said goodbye to our cover teacher Miss Berry today. Miss Berry has been working at Oldcastle since September and has worked across the school as a cover teacher. We are very sad to see Miss Berry leave but we wish her every success in her new role at Brynteg School. We are sure our year 6 children will look forward to seeing Miss Berry when they move to Brynteg in September.

Mrs Littlewood reminded children that next week is half term and wished all the children a relaxing and enjoyable half term holidays. School returns on Monday 6th June.

School Values

Our school values for this month are Appreciation and Generosity. For these school values children have been asked to be kind, polite, grateful, look out for other people, and generally help out at home and in school.

Jubilee Celebrations

We had such a lovely day on Thursday celebrating the Platinum Jubilee and the school being 110 years old. We are very grateful to our PTA for developing the event and arranging the visit from Organised Kaos. The circus entertainers were fabulous and certainly wowed the children with their skills! Children were also able to take part in a circus skills workshop to develop a few skills of their own. Throughout the day the whole school were entertained by each year group who performed brilliantly a song they had learnt for the celebrations. We were able to record the songs and we are delighted to share these with you - please click here. Our children looked amazing and we thank parents for supporting our celebrations! As ever our amazing staff pulled out all the stops with their outfit choices too.

Platinum Pudding Competition

We were so delighted to receive so many cakes for the Platinum Pudding competition and they all looked absolutely amazing. We are very grateful to Mrs Parfitt, Mrs Lewis and Mr Faulkner for judging the cakes - they were so impressed with the variety and standard of cakes.

We are delighted to announce the following winners:

Large Cakes:

• 1st Prize - Amy Lewis

• 2nd Prize - The Hales Family

• 3rd Prize - Abigail Roberts

Cupcakes and Tray bakes

• 1st Prize - Katy Griffin

• 2nd Prize - Rhiannon Hudson

• 3rd Prize - Matthew Wallace

• 4th Prize - Sian Chudleigh

The cake sale after school was also a great success thank you to our parents and carers for supporting - we are sure you enjoyed any of the amazing cakes you bought. The PTA are delighted to inform you that the event raised £583 !!

Careers Week - 6th to 10th June

We can't wait to return to school on Monday 6th June to start our fantastic Careers Week. We have a such a jam packed week with a wide range of people coming in to talk to our children about their jobs. We are very grateful for all the support we have recieved when putting together this week. We look forward to sharing details with you.

Junior Leaders and Pupil Voice

Today, Key Stage 2 pupils' voice team met and were very excited about starting the next half term. The members collected and filled in the Welsh questions and word of the week, ready for after the holidays. We planned what we would like to run as lunchtime clubs for the rest of the term and we have had some volunteers for a range of activities. At the moment they will be focussing on Years 3 to 6 but will be looking to run more clubs in September. Each club lead will be creating a poster to advertise their club, watch out for the posters after half term.

Sports Day

Sports Day will held on Friday 24th June for children in years 1 to 6 in the Atlantics Track in Newbridge Fields. Children in years 1 to 3 will complete their events in the morning and children in years 4 to 6 will complete events in the afternoon. All children will require a packed lunch on this day.

The PTA will be providing refreshments to parents

Nursery and Reception sports day will be held on Thursday 30th June in the afternoon at Heronsbridge School. More details shortly.

House Colour T-shirts - PTA Fundraiser

The PTA are pleased to announce that house colour t-shirts are now available for order via the link below. Please order and pay online by Friday 27th May and t-shirts will be delivered to the school for your child to bring home in time for sports day. There is an option on the order form to personalise with your child's name if you wish. Can we also request that you add a note of your child's class to make distribution quicker.

https://www.cheekybabytees.co.uk/products/oldcastle-school-sports-day-t-shirts

There are now larger sizes available to be ordered. Please follow these links.

• https://www.cheekybabytees.co.uk/collections/womens-t-shirts/products/oldcastle-school-pta-ladies-t-shirt

• https://www.cheekybabytees.co.uk/collections/personalised-t-shirts/products/oldcastle-ladies-sports-day-t-shirts

• https://www.cheekybabytees.co.uk/collections/personalised-t-shirts/products/oldcastle-mens-sports-day-t-shirts

Memorial Ceremony

We are currently planning a memorial event for the morning of Saturday 9th July in the school grounds. During this event we aim to recognise the dedication and resilience of our pupils, staff and families during the Covid 19 pandemic. We will provide more details to parents after half term.

PTA Event - Oldcastle Rocks

We are very grateful to our active PTA for the all the exciting events they are able to plan for our children in school time. They are now keen to plan an event for both parents and children and are looking to hold an Oldcastle Rocks event in the afternoon and early evening of Saturday 9th July. We know that the PTA have lots of amazing things planned for the day and they will be sharing these via their Facebook page and our weekly newsletter.

As part of the event the PTA hope to arrange some craft stalls - if you are interested in taking a table to sell craft items please message Angela Minton (Chair of the PTA) on 07584 620033. The PTA will not be charging for the tables but ask crafters to donate a prize for the raffle.

Year 3 had an amazing time at Cardiff Castle on Monday - their first school trip for a good few years! The teachers were so impressed with the behaviour that they felt very proud to hear the pupils being so polite to grown ups.

Year 6 popped down to year 2 this week. Year 6 had developed instructional text to help teach the children to tie their own shoelaces. We hear that the visit was a great success with the year 2 pupils turning the tables on the year 6 pupils to see if their instructions really worked!

Last Friday, Mrs Evans and Mr Murdoch took representatives from years 5 and 6 to a rugby festival organised by Brynteg School. The children (and staff!) thoroughly enjoyed the well organised festival and were delighted that the rain held off for their games. Well done to everyone who attended.

The nursery Language and Play session today produced some fantastic artwork. Today was all about Elmer.

Congratulations Lily

We were delighted to hear of Lily Thomas swimming success last weekend for Bridgend Swim Club. The all day event was held in Pontypool as part of the Wyvern League gala and Lily came away with a medal. Well done Lily.

Well done to the pupils from years 3 to 6 who attended the schools cross country event at Bryntirion Comprehensive School last Saturday. Mrs Littlewood popped along to help Mrs Evans with the event and was so impressed with the standard of running from the children and the exceptionla way they represented the school.

Fantastic tie dye t-shirts year 2!

Year 1 ball skills

School Vacancy

We currently have a vacancy for a Lunchtime Supervisory Assistant. Please click here for more details.

Bridgend College - Our Future Festival

Bridgend College are arranging an event that parents may be interested in - please click here for more information. Our Future Festival

Bridgend Town Jubilee Events

There are some exciting events planned for Bridgend Town Council over the Jubilee long weekend - more information is available on the Bridgend Council website. Jubilee Events

Free School Meals

If you are in receipt of free school meals you will be sent a packed lunch request form for your child for every school trip or event. Please look out for the letter, complete the form and return to us at least 3 weeks before the event.

School Savings Club

School savings club will continue from next week on every Wednesday.

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

• 30th May to 3rd June - Half term

• 6th June - Return to school

• 6th June to 10th June - Careers Week

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

• 20th June - Inset Day

• 22nd June - Class and Team Photos

• 9th July - Memorial Ceremony

• 9th July - Oldcastle Rocks

• 22nd July - End of summer term

Inset Days 2022 / 23

Inset days for the next academic year have now been confirmed and these are as follows:

• Monday 5th September 2022

• Monday 7th November 2022

• Friday 31st March 2023

• Friday 26th May 2023

• Monday 24th July 2023

Young Carers Information

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