Week 33 - Friday 5th June 2020

Welcome to our newsletter for week 33 of the school year.

You will have seen the announcement this week from Kirsty Williams, the Education Minister, that schools in Wales will reopen from 29th June. https://gov.wales/check-catch-prepare-summer-and-september-all-schools-wales-enter-next-phase

We are continuing to develop a robust plan for re-opening of Oldcastle Primary School in light of the current situation, and we now need time to digest the information and wait for the further guidance promised by Welsh Government

We aim to be able to provide further detailed information to parents during the week of Monday 8th June.

As a school, we are committed to doing what is best for our pupils, staff and community. Thank you for your patience and support.

Sports Week

Wow our sports week has been a tremendous success - thank you for supporting! We were keen to continue with the traditional sports events even if we couldn't spend time with our parents and extended family members in Newbridge fields. The weather would have been lovely today for a sports day!

Our virtual sports day did seem to spark a great deal of interest, particularly with our junior children who were desperate for their house to win! Thank you to everyone that got involved and sent us some photos or videos - we are delighted to put these into a video and share these with our parent and pupils. We hope you enjoy. Sports Day 2020

We are pleased to announce that the results from the 2020 Sport Week are as follows:

• 1st Place GREEN House with 985 points
• 2nd Place BLUE House with 855 points
• 3rd Place RED House with 815 points

Congratulations GREEEN House and well done to everyone throughout the school that participated and made the week such a success. Keep moving!!

Weekly Assembly

This weeks virtual assembly has been uploaded to our website and our You Tube channel, please click this link to view. Weekly Assembly We are also 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 worked incredibly hard and had a lot of fun. We have competed in our virtual Sports day and we have seen some fantastic young athletes on Flipgrid.

In literacy, we have continued to learn how to read and write new phonic sounds. In maths, we have begun to learn about ‘one less’ and subtraction.

In our Flipgrid challenges we began to read simple words and we created music using household items.

Thank you for another fantastic week of learning, we are so proud of you.

Reception

Well done everyone, what a fantastic Sports Day! You have uploaded some brilliant obstacle courses, they looked tricky. This week we have been learning to tell the time, focusing on half past and we made our own clocks. We have played addition and subtraction games, and we made our own rosettes to explore ordinal numbers. We have learnt two new sounds and practised reading and writing them in sentences. We made a beach safety poster and explored the meanings behind the different flags at the beach. We have researched ‘Plastic Pollution’ and the devastating effect it has on our oceans. We have thought about the changes we can make to reduce the amount of single-use plastics, such as using paper or glass straws, using bags for life, reusing packaging for junk modelling and using alternatives in our lunch boxes. Thank you so much for your support and engagement in another busy week!

Year 1

This week, Year 1 have continued to impress us with their fantastic work. In maths, our number work is getting trickier as we’ve been exploring 2-digit numbers. The children have uploaded splendid work showing their understanding of capacity too. We’ve loved watching the investigations using different resources and hearing such detailed explanations. Within English, we have been focusing on a range of challenging words and developing our independent reading skills. For our Welsh learning, we have introduced different school subjects, and are beginning to focus on forming sentences and asking and answering questions. Throughout the week, we have received some very informative news reports about deforestation and its effects on animals and the Earth. You make great presenters Year 1 - your understanding of what plants and animals both need to survive, from our science work, really shone through! On top of this busy week, so many children have taken part in our sports day event, where we have seen jumping, skipping, sliding, rolling; over, under, through, around all sorts of inventive obstacle races, outside and inside homes! What an amazing week for Year 1 once again!

Year 2

Another busy week for Year 2! We have enjoyed seeing the children's work posted on 'our classroom' and as ever, we are so impressed with their enthusiasm and huge effort. The children have been learning about division and sharing, using worded questions to extend their learning. In literacy, they have used their writing skills to find out about holidays at the seaside a long time ago, creating postcards and advertising posters. Continuing with our All About the Sea topic, the children have made sea creatures top trump cards, using their knowledge about sea animals and researching for more information. Their outdoor activity involved playing charades with their family, hopefully dodging the showers of rain! Thank you to our Year 2 families for supporting their children with their learning.

Year 3

This week year 3 have had a very productive week on Google Classroom. In literacy lessons we’ve been busy completing spelling quizzes, reading a variety of different stories and answering questions about what we read.

During maths lessons, we’ve been getting to grips with using money to solve problems. We’ve been adding up totals and finding change from a shopping trip.

Humanities lessons have been super fun! We have been learning all about the layers of a rainforest and the types of animals that live in each layer. Some of us have even created a ‘rainforest’ inside a shoebox!

Finally, we had our virtual sports day. We all thoroughly enjoyed the activities and lots of us found it very exhausting! Thank you to Mrs Coleman for arranging sports day for us all.

Once again, the year 3 teachers would just like to remind all of the children how proud we are of how much dedication you are showing towards your learning. Keep up the excellent effort.

Year 4

Welcome back Year 4! We hope you have had a relaxing half term, spending time with your families.

In Literacy this week the children have been reading a variety of texts within different genres in order to develop their literal and inference skills. The children have been reading the text independently and answering questions about what they have read. They have done very well so far, learning new vocabulary and improving their deduction skills.

In Numeracy, we have had a very fun week! On Monday, we had a 4C vs 4R times tables rockstars battle. The children had to answer a range of multiplication questions and work as a team to see who could achieve the highest score! This week's winner of the battle was 4C, da iawn pawb! We will be having another battle this Monday, so make sure you all join in. We have revisited concepts such as fractions and Venn diagrams. The children have shown that they can find the answers to halves, quarters, thirds and find the common multiples between numbers. Fantastic work everyone!

We read Chapter 1 of Spy Master: First Blood and met our main character, Jack Briars. It sounds as if he is going to get into a lot of trouble! The children used some brilliant research skills to find out about Whitehall Palace and have given their opinions on what they think of Jack so far.

We have learnt about Tudor shields and found out what different symbols, shapes and colours meant. The children then designed their own for their family. We have had some brilliant pieces of work shown to us on Flipgrid and have been very impressed by your creativity and explanation skills!

This week we have held a virtual sport’s day and we are really impressed with everyone who took part, even in this weather!

We are still receiving lots of work through Google Classroom and the Year 4 teachers are in awe of your continued effort. Thank you, everyone, we are very proud of you - keep it up!

Year 5

First week back after half term and year 5 have been busy again this week.

We have had a sports themed week in Numeracy this week. Children have been taking part in a number of activities leading up to sports day. Not only have they been doing physical activity but they have also been gathering data on their performance and analysing the data using bar charts. We have finished the week off with our virtual sports day.

Before half term, the children were tasked to memorise and learn the poem The Tyger by William Blake, they have spent this week rehearsing and perfecting their performances and finished the week recording their performances on FlipGrid. Miss James and Miss Jones have thoroughly enjoyed watching the performance and are proud of the effort that has been put into the preparation.

Our afternoons this week have focused on Health and Well-being. Children were tasked to complete activities to promote good physical health and wellbeing but also positive mental health and wellbeing.

Year 6

Welcome back after a gloriously hot half term.

Year 6 have been working on sport related maths this week, collecting their own data based on heart rate and recovery heart rate after a series of aerobic and anaerobic exercises. The pupils then used google sheets to create comparative bar graphs, showing their recovery rate immediately and post 1 minute. It has been great to see the effort the pupils have been putting into both the physical element and the analysis.

At the end of summer term 1, pupils were set the task of learning and reciting Tyger Tyger by William Blake. This was an excellent opportunity for pupils to develop their retention and recall skills as well as finding a technique to learn and memorise that suited them. We have been able to listen to the recital using flipgrid, allowing us to gauge where there are in terms of Oracy levels.

Our focus this week, for topic, has been Health and Wellbeing, pupils have been asked to focus on what they have learned about themselves during lockdown and how we can move forwards with positive mental and physical wellbeing. This is an ongoing project that the pupils will be working on this half term.

Next week pupils will be set a home learning project that will enable them to showcase all their literacy skills that have been learned and recapped over the last 12 weeks. We look forward to seeing their results.

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

Volunteers Week

This week has been Volunteers week and we wanted to take the opportunity to thank our PTA for all the work that goes on behind the scenes creating some exciting events to raise funds for the school. Unfortunately the current situation has curtailed their plans somewhat but we know they are planning to re-launch from September albeit in a slightly different way. The PTA is not just made up of the committee members, there are a great many parents and grandparents that volunteer to help events run smoothly. Thank you to you all, the school is extremely grateful for the support of the PTA.

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.

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. Home Learning Activities

Active Young People - Family Active Games

BCBC Active Young People Department have some fun family games available for children over the half term holiday. Follow this link to our website for further information. Family Active Games

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 - Lukas
• Reception Miss Walters - Harri
• Reception Miss Williams - Jacob
• Year 1 Mrs Morcom-Lewis - Chloe
• Year 1 Miss Vaughan - Elsie
• Year 2 Mrs Roberts - Kai
• Year 2 Miss Lewis / Mrs Guy - Maia
• Year 3 Brotherton / Mrs Burr - Isaac
• Year 3 Miss Davies - Leo
• Year 4 Miss Radford / Miss Mullins - Estelle
• Year 4 Miss Craven - Lois
• Year 5 Miss Jones - Max
• Year 5 Miss James - Ellis
• Year 6 Mrs Coleman - Rhys H
• Year 6 Mrs Evans - Liam
• Miss Ellett Music - Scott year 2

Helpful Links

Welsh Government - Latest Advice

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.