Oldcastle Weekly Newsletter

Wow! What a busy term. All of our staff would like to thank our parents and carers for all the support we have received over the last half term. We are very grateful for all the support we receive.

Diolch yn fawr.

Rainbows!

You may have noticed many staff wearing a rainbow clothing item, badge or coloured hair today! Mrs Williams does a fantastic job of pulling our staff together and suggested that we wear rainbows on the last day of term.

Message from Mrs Littlewood

As we approach the end of what has been a very busy half term, I wanted to take the opportunity to say how proud I am of the way the pupils have settled back into school and thrown themselves into the life of Oldcastle.

As you are aware during these last couple of weeks we have appointed our Junior Leadership Team, Pupil Voice Champions and House Captains. Since they have taken up their roles they have been very busy working together to create new opportunities for all the pupils.

Next half term we look forward to our STEM week and we are also working on organising a Christmas Carol service which we hope to hold in the schoolyard. (Further details to follow)

Can I also take this opportunity to thank you for all your support. Our Oldcastle community is growing and developing week by week and I look forward to seeing you all after half term.

Best wishes

Mrs C Littlewood.

Headteacher

Half term

Don't forget next week is the half term holiday - we hope you all relax and enjoy the break. Children return to school on Tuesday 2nd November.

If you need to contact us please get in touch via ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk.

Reward Scheme

Our house captains had a busy day on Wednesday counting all the house colour tokens from this term. We were delighted to learn that over 12000 tokens had been collated across all the houses. Well done to everyone who has received a token and helped their house colour.

Each class had a discussion about the type of reward they would like to receive as a result of collecting their tokens and these were collated and fed into our junior leadership team. The JLT discussed the oiptions and suggested to our senior leaders which rewards should be chosen this half term. We were delighted with the suggestion and announced the rewards and winning houses in an online assembly on Thursday.

The assembly was very tense as the children eagerly awaited the results announced by Mrs Littlewood. We are so pleased with the success of our reward system and look forward to developing the approach further next term.

This term the house points were :

• 1st place with 2967 points - YELLOW House - Reward - Watch a short film in the 4D room.

• 2nd place with 2965 points - BLUE House - Reward - Outside activity time

• 3rd place with 2882 points - GREEN House - Reward - Extra equipment at playtime

• 4th place with 2850 points - RED House - Reward - Time with Barney

As you can see it was very close between all the houses!! We wonder which house will win next term!

Here's a selection of photos showing the children enjoying their rewards today.

Junior Leaders

Junior leaders have had a very busy first couple of weeks - we are so pleased to see the children involving themselves in school life. We can't wait to hear more about their ideas.

School Savings Club

School Savings Club continues every Wednesday and we look forward to seeing our savers and hearing what they are saving for. More information on the School Savings Club ca be found on our website. School Savings

Enrichment Programme

Week 7 of our Enrichment programme The enrichment programme takes place on Friday afternoons and will give the children opportunities to try new and varied activities that may not strictly fit into the curriculum, but that develop character, resilience and motivation, and encourage them to pursue wider goals. It helps to teach life skills that benefit children beyond the classroom and can develop an appreciation for cultural and community issues, teamwork and social responsibility.

We have been so pleased to see children develop new skills as part of our enrichment programme. We look forward to continuing with the enrichment sessions after half term.

Children's Christmas Cards - PTA Fundraiser

The PTA are really excited to offer you the opportunity to have your children's Christmas card design professionally printed and reproduced whilst raising valuable funds for the School PTA.

Your child will need to use a template for you to help your child create a colourful Christmas Card design. Please click here Christmas Card Design Template.

Designs are unlimited and can include pictures and text, for best results use bright coloured pencils or felt tips, but you can also use paints or make flat collages. The bolder the colours the better! Here are a few tips to help you:

1. Draw and write well within the lines on the template. Anything outside of the black line will be automatically cropped.

2. Make sure that any text is clear.

3. No glitter or fluorescent! Although the template will look really impressive and shiny, when scanned the glittery area can print out quite dull.

4. Write the children’s names clearly on the templates.

Your child's design will be printed on a sample card for you to see and decide which products you would like to order. As well as cards the design can be printed on the following items at the costs below:

• Christmas Cards – £5 for a pack of 12

• Gift Tags – £2.25 per pack of 11

• Wrapping Paper – £6 per pack of 6 sheets

• Mugs – £6 each (including gift box)

• Tea Towels – £7.50

We really hope you will enjoy taking part in this great opportunity.

Please ensure all designs are handed into class teachers by the first day back after half term -Tuesday 2nd November.

For more information please see https://www.classfundraising.co.uk/school-christmas-cards/

For design ideas please see https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/169166529740808776/ or google 'children's Christmas card design ideas'

Thank you for your continued support of the PTA's fundraising.

Valleys 2 Coast development

We are delighted to be involved with the Valleys To Coast development on Ewenny Road. Lovely to hear one of our pupils name suggestions has been adopted. Well done Sam! We received this information from Valleys to Coast this week.

Schoolchildren preserve Bridgend’s history with development site name

Children from local Bridgend school, Oldcastle Primary, were recently given the opportunity to help choose a name for our latest development on Ewenny Road near Bridgend town centre - they chose ‘Tŷ Moduron’, Welsh for Motor House, as a nod to the site’s well-known motor shop past. More information here.

School Operations

Don't forget these are the current school hours for drop off and pick up:

• School starts at 8.55am for all pupils

• Nursery children can be collected between 2.45pm and 3pm

• Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children finish at 3.05pm

• Years 3 to 6 children finish at 3.10pm

After School Club / Late Club

Bookings for after school club and late club have now been confirmed for those that have requested a place. We will not be accepting further bookings at this stage.

If you have booked a place please remember that if you need to cancel please do so by telephone / email at least 24 hours before the booking date. You will be charged if we do not receive communication regarding a cancellation.

Family Engagement Officer - Mrs Lisa Diehl

I recently attended a course on Confidence and Self Esteem and was interested to find out that ‘practising gratitude’ has been proven to encourage the mind to focus on the positives and to boost feelings of mental/emotional well being. One way of doing this is by writing down on a piece of paper things that you are grateful for or make you laugh. Why not give it a try over half term? If you would like more information regarding how to improve confidence and self esteem please contact me at the school.

Nursery were performing some fantastic yoga poses this morning!

Well done nursery!

School Values and Visions

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

Diary Dates

25th to 29th October - Half Term

1st November - Inset Day

24th November - Flu vaccine Reception to Year 6 children - more details will be sent to parents shortly

Nut Free School

We have a number of children in school with a nut allergy and we ask parents to be mindful of this when sending in a packed lunch or snack. We strive to be a nut free and we hope you can support us in this.

Lost Property

We have a large amount of lost property once again. If your child has lost an item please ask them to come and check lost property or call into the office.

COVID 19

Thank you for all your support this week by helping us keep our school community safe. As a reminder if your child develops any of the Covid symptoms identified by Public Health Wales please ensure they attend for a PCR test.

• high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)

• a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)

• a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you've noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal

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

P.E. Days

Children should wear P.E. kit to school on the day their class has a P.E. session.

• Nursery - Friday

• Reception - Wednesday

• Year 1 - Monday

• Year 2 - Thursday

• Year 3 - Monday

• Year 4 - Wednesday

• Year 5 - Tuesday

• Year 6 - Thursday