Week 30 - Thursday 7th May 2020

Welcome to our newsletter for week 30 of the school year. This week is a 4 day school week due to the bank holiday on Friday to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE day. We hope that you are able to celebrate as a family in these difficult times. Stay home and stay safe.

We have had lots of interaction with pupils and parents this week and we thank you for your support during our school closure. It is lovely to hear that pupils are still completing learning tasks and we know that many children are benefiting from keeping in contact with their teacher and friends through Google Classroom. We also know that this doesn't suit every child or family and we are here to help in any way we can.

As a school we are very proud of all our school staff who have shown commitment and enthusiasm in this very different time.

At the present time we do not have any information on reopening of the school. It is our pledge to parents that we will notify you as soon as we are made aware of reopening plans and how this will work for your children. We have been planning extensively to ensure that we will be ready to reopen in whatever form is proposed by Welsh Government and the Local Authority.

We have been continuing to make improvements to the school including painting classrooms, tidying up the outdoor areas, painting the shipping container storage and making improvements to flooring. We look forward to sharing photos with you soon.

Bank holiday for VE Day

Friday 8th May is a national bank holiday to celebrate VE Day. Our website has been updated with a variety of activities that may help you celebrate. VE Day Resources

Bridgend County Borough Council is asking residents to join the nation in a toast at 3pm on Friday 8th May to celebrate VE day. Please share your photos with us via our 'ask' email or our @oldcastleschool twitter page. BCBC Information on VE Day

Weekly Assembly

During our closure period, Mr Thompson or Mrs Littlewood will hold a weekly virtual assembly as we would normally do in school. The videos are uploaded to our website and our You Tube channel, please click this link to view. Weekly Assembly We will also be recognising children through our weekly Headteacher's Awards - please scroll down to view who has been awarded a certificate in each class this week. Certificates have been emailed to all children who have received an award this week.

Google Classroom - Update for each year group

Nursery

This week in Nursery, we have continued to learn more phonic sounds and have been practising the ones we already know. We have also been practising to write the new phonic sounds we have learnt.

In our Maths time, we have learned about pairs, counting in 2's and we have practised our number formation.

In Welsh we have filmed ourselves talking about the weather.

We have also created artwork outside using natural objects and shown them to our friends on Flipgrid.

Reception

Another busy week! Da iawn children and grown ups, you’re all doing an excellent job!

This week we have been exploring symmetry by finding symmetrical objects around our home and creating symmetrical pictures. We have been on a letter hunt and explored how many different words we can build. We have seen many FANTASTIC flipgrid videos this week of the children with their homemade instruments and siblings, singing a song. We definitely have some rockstars in our midst! Thank you so much for continuing to complete the daily challenges and providing feedback. We hope you enjoy your cuppa when the children are in their ‘sea cave’ den.

Year 1

This week we have seen fantastic work uploaded around our ‘Mini Zoo’ topic! The children have explored their outside areas looking at and recording the different minibeast habitats they have found.

Through Maths, we have seen children consolidate their learning to produce amazing place value in number work! In Literacy, the children have demonstrated their increasing knowledge around double letters and vowel sounds.

We also started our next topic book ‘What the Ladybird Heard Next’, where the children have shown excellent comprehension skills when telling us what their favourite part of the story was!

We have loved seeing your enjoyment as you participate in work across all the different areas of learning. Keep it up year 1!

Year 2

Year 2 have been busy this week exploring capacity and volume. We hope the children have enjoyed filling different containers with liquid and comparing the capacity with each one. They have also been given the opportunity to start to find out about millimeters and litres as measurements of liquid.

In literacy, the children have begun our new topic, All About the Sea. They have found out about the oceans of the world and researched animal life within them. We hope they have enjoyed discovering features of the seaside and also experienced cloud gazing too!

We have enjoyed seeing their photographs of their activities at home and hope that everyone is staying safe and happy with their families.

Year 3

We can’t believe it’s the end of another week learning in lockdown. Year 3 teachers want to send a big thank you again to all the parents, grandparents and children who have been trying so hard to keep up with the learning under various pressures in differing circumstances.

It’s been lovely to read and look at photos and pictures of the rainforest work submitted for Geography. The Multiplication Magic lessons were very well received and completed. ‘Move it Monday’ got everyone devising their own Joe Wicks style workout so we presume there may be a few of you reading this with some sore, aching muscles! For English, the children have been finding out about writing a book report.

Everyone looks forward to the weekly entries posted on the ‘What have you been up to’ classroom slide because it gives us a little insight into your worlds at home as well as the opportunity to see all your smiling faces in the photographs.

Thank you for your continued support with google classroom and please keep up the fantastic effort! Keep safe and stay well.

Year 4

This week Year 4 have been continuing to revisit previous learning and all of the teachers in Year 4 are really impressed with what you have remembered and achieved. Bendigedig!

This week in Literacy we have been learning about punctuation. We have been recognising and replacing full stops, capital letters, question marks and exclamation marks within a familiar story.

In Maths we have been completing a variety of tasks such as Number trios, place value and rounding. The children have worked really hard on their flipgrid tasks to show their understanding of inverse operations and rounding! We have some fantastic teachers amongst the Year 4 children. Super effort!

We have been continuing to learn about Henry the VIII for our topic work. This week we have been finding out about religion and the role it played within Tudor history. Some children have been extending their learning by researching Catherine of Aragon and created some really interesting fact files. Da iawn!

For our Flipgrid this week we want to talk about how we are all feeling and how we can help.

Year 5

Year 5 have been working hard again this week.

With the upcoming VE celebrations on Friday 8th May, we asked pupils to plan and host their own VE celebration parties, making bunting, baking cakes, arranging games and creating music playlists. Teachers have also been busy preparing - Miss James has been busy making bunting and baking brownies and Miss Jones has been making bunting and baking a lemon drizzle cake. Children have been asked to collect videos and pictures of their preparations to showcase next week.

In Numeracy this week pupils have been building their knowledge of shapes. They have investigated 2D and 3D shapes and have begun classifying triangles, which they will develop further next week.

In Literacy we are focusing on recapping our SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) skills and testing our knowledge with daily quizzes. We will continue to recap these skills over the next couple of weeks.

Year 6

Busy 4 day week for year 6.

With the VE celebration Friday 8th May, we asked pupils to plan and host a Lockdown VE party, making bunting, baking cakes or cookies, arranging games and of course music. Teachers were getting involved as well, making bunting and baking something new - Mrs Coleman attempting her first ever traybake and Mrs Evans making Mary Berry’s Victoria Sponge. We’ll share photos of our parties in next week’s newsletter.

In numeracy we took this week to recap previously learned skills, looking at calculating missing angles. Pupils had to solve a gaming algorithm issue as well as follow a video and calculate unknown angles based on what they had seen. We have also been setting pupils video challenges whereby they are given a math problem, they have to calculate their answer and then record their answer - developing their use of mathematical language. We have had some excellent videos - minecraft, animals, sisters, brothers and many more features.

In literacy we are focusing on recapping SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar) skills over the next few weeks. This will allow us to see where children’s knowledge and application is currently in Language, Literacy and Communication.

As you can see, school may be shut but we are certainly busy in all year groups!

Year 6 secondary school transition

We are sure that parents will be anxious about their child starting secondary school in September. We would like to reassure you that we are in consultation with Brynteg, and other secondary schools, regarding transition arrangements and a full programme of transition activities will be shared with parents when they are confirmed.

Challenge accepted

This week Lucas in year 6 challenged our staff to run 5K for the charity Run for Heroes. We are delighted to share that a number of staff accepted the challenge and have popped on their trainers to complete their 5K. Great work Lucas. Mr Thompson has also had a special challenge - more information in our weekly assembly video!We would love to hear about any other pupils who are completing challenges or have learnt a new skill during the closure period. Email us here.

Story Time

Mrs Brotherton has been reading virtual stories for her local library and we thought that our children would love to join in. This week Mrs Brotherton has been reading her very own book to children. Please have a look Snoring is Boring by Victoria Brotherton.

Our website - www.oldcastleprimary.co.uk

Our school website is constantly being updated to ensure parents and pupils have all the relevant information they need whilst we are closed. Recently the Kids Zone section has been updated with a range of fun games for children. Please take a look. Kids Zone

Thrive - emotional and social well being

Thrive activities are available for parents via our website. Thrive Activities

Keep in touch

We are keen to support parents and pupils as much as we can during our closure period so please do keep in touch with us as much as you can. We would love to hear from parents and children about how you are finding home learning, what activities you have been taking part in and please share any artwork or music with us.

You can share these via ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk, our Twitter page @oldcastleschool, or our You Tube site 'Oldcastle Primary School'.

Home Learning Resources / Activities for parents

Our website has been updated to include a range of resources that parents might find useful to keep children entertained. There are a range of activities from phonics sounds for nursery children, to daily videos from Steve Backshall, to Dance sessions with Oti Mabuse! If you come across any additional resources or activity sessions on the internet please let us know via ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk and we will share them on our website for other parents to enjoy. Home Learning Activities

Headteacher's Awards

As we would normally do in school at the end of the week we held an assembly to celebrate all our children. We know all our children have been working hard with their parents at home. These are the children identified for awards this week.

• Nursery Miss Hughes - Beatrice
• Reception Miss Walters - Izzy
• Reception Miss Williams - Lottie
• Year 1 Mrs Morcom-Lewis - Noel
• Year 1 Miss Vaughan - Isabelle
• Year 2 Mrs Roberts - Toby
• Year 2 Miss Lewis / Mrs Guy - Holly
• Year 3 Brotherton / Mrs Burr - Phoebe
• Year 3 Miss Davies - Hannah
• Year 4 Miss Radford / Miss Mullins - Chloe
• Year 4 Miss Craven - Lily
• Year 5 Miss Jones - Evelyn
• Year 5 Miss James - Norah
• Year 6 Mrs Coleman - Max
• Year 6 Mrs Evans - Isabel
• Miss Ellett Music - Elizabeth Year 6

Helpful Links

Bridgend County Borough Council - Latest Coronavirus Advice

Wellbeing Support from BCBC Educational Psychology Service

Public Health Wales - Latest Guidance

Bridgend Active Young People Department have some great resources to keep families active. Please have a look at Family Active Zone.