Week 36 - Friday 26th June 2020
Welcome to our newsletter for week 36 of the school year. We have had an extremely busy week opening as a hub school for children of key workers, and making sure that parents receive the appropriate communication about children returning to school. We are so excited to welcome children once again from next week even if we are limited to the number of children we can accommodate at any one time.
Emails have been sent to parents who are planning on sending their children back from 29th June and we have had a task ensuring that we accommodate the 300 children who are returning. We are delighted that many children will be returning to 'Check in, Catch Up and Prepare'.
School will look a little different for children and parents. To help with this transition a video has been developed showing parents and children the new route in school. Please note that all access must be made via the St Marie Street entrance - the exit for the school grounds is via the South Street entrance - this means that parents will have to walk around the school grounds to exit. Staff will also be available to direct parents around the school buildings. Return to School Virtual Tour
As a school, we have are extremely grateful for the continued support we receive from parents and carers.
An insight into our closure time
Oldcastle Primary School may have been closed to children, but our staff have continued working hard to ensure that parents and children receive home learning and appropriate communication. We thought we'd share with you a little of what has happened throughout the school during the closure period:
- We have received over 800 emails to our 'ask' email address that we set up as soon as the school closed. Over 900 emails have been sent too.
- Over 1600 people have looked at our website home page and an average of 400 views are made to our newsletter page on our website every week.
- School assemblies went virtual and have made staff very emotional when seeing their colleagues! We decided to carry on with our usual weekly Headteachers Awards celebration through our weekly assembly video.
- Google classrooms have been used by all year groups and have provided both teachers and pupils with a great way to keep in touch.
- Flipgrid has been a tremendous success - some of these figures are astounding!
- Since closure nursery have created 300 videos and had 9,320 total video views! They have totalled 4 days and 9 hours of shared learning!
- Reception have completed 54 Daily Challenges. 28 different topics on flipgrid and 288 video replies from the children, plus enjoyed 18 story times.
- The year 1 flipgrid account had over 540 videos uploaded and has had over 19,000 views!!
- Year 2 used Google Slides a lot and had over 140 entries from pupils.
- Year 3 have created 223 diary entries.
- Year 5 also had alot of flipgrid videos with 320
- Year 6 had 580 videos uploaded to flipgrid and have sent out 140 pieces of work / lessons for children to complete!
- Outdoor learning has been a popular feature over the closure period - in particular year 2 have sent in 111 entries to their teachers regarding outdoor learning!
Wow - what fantastic figures. Thank you so much to our amazing Oldcastle Team for keeping things going during the closure period but a special thank you to parents and pupils for engaging with us during this unprecedented time.
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.
Home Learning Update
Nursery
This week, Nursery has continued to work incredibly hard and have impressed us all very much.
In literacy, we have continued to learn how to read and write new phonic sounds.
In maths, we started to look at measuring height, and we used comparative words like 'taller' and 'shorter'. We also played bingo to help us with number recognition.
In our Flipgrid challenges, we made our own patterns; some children created colour patterns, object patterns and even musical patterns. We also showed our friends our amazing 'junk modelling' creations; these were super impressive!
As part of some outdoor learning, we were challenged to note things we saw, smelt and felt while we were outside. You shared some fantastic suggestions in this task, and we loved seeing the work you uploaded.
Thank you for another fantastic week of learning; we are all so proud of you!
Reception
Reception have had another busy week of home learning. As we approach near the end of term, we have revisited maths problems and re-inforced our number facts and bonds. We have completed tally charts and pictograms after sorting out materials around the house. We have learnt some new vowel blends and re-visited all known sounds to date. We have had great fun with The National Rainforest Week activities and Go Green. Children have completed exciting workouts, found out and shared some important Rainforest facts and made some fantastic animal masks, Fflic and FFlac have also made another appearance helping us play a hide and seek game and we have learnt the phrase Ble mae....? and how to answer correctly. Da iawn reception on your superb efforts. We look forward to seeing many of you next week.
Year 1
We’ve had another fantastic week in Year 1. It’s always such a pleasure to see how our children approach different activities. This week in maths, we’ve been using our number skills to help add three numbers. Along with this, we’ve worked on using a hundred-square to add and subtract multiples of 10. In English, we have been focusing on a greater range of challenging words and continuing to develop our independent reading skills while making use of different punctuation. We’ve enjoyed joining in with our little ladybird’s latest adventures by listening to Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monk’s story ‘What the Ladybird Heard at the Seaside’ and, throughout the week, have received some very creative and informative ladybird life-cycle diagrams. Our Welsh task has helped build our vocabulary, and now we can list parts of our head and face. After researching the different layers of the rainforest, our knowledge of the World has grown too. Creatures of all sorts have been described brilliantly by our children. After such a busy week, it’s a good job our PSE activity allowed everyone to lie back and take some well-earned time to enjoy looking at the clouds overhead. Well done, once again, Year 1.
Year 2
Once again Year 2 have had another excellent week of home learning. We are very impressed with the work that we have seen and are so proud of you all for the way you have completed tasks set with such enthusiasm.
In literacy the children have been revising types of sentences and have been busy writing command sentences using bossy verbs.
The children have been exploring measure through their numeracy activities this week. They have used grams and kilograms to measure weight, and centimetres and metres to measure length.
As part of our topic activities we continued our ‘Under the Sea’ theme by exploring food chains and our pupils were also busy creating their own fitness circuits using simple exercises.
To link with World Rainforest Day and the work on measure, our outdoor activity encouraged children to get outside and estimate the age and height of trees in their local area.
We love seeing the photographs of your work so please continue to upload them to our shared presentations.
Thank you to all the parents of Year 2 children for continuing to support their learning at home and we look forward to welcoming some of the children back to school next week for our ‘check in’ days.
Year 3
Another productive week of classroom activities! This week saw us celebrate World Rainforest Day and we’ve been doing lots of activities online to take part.
In literacy, we have been looking at our new story “Miss Baker” and have been learning all about “spelling trees”. We’ve also been revising our long and short vowel sounds.
Maths this week has been very busy. We’ve been looking at three different concepts, revising number bonds and doubling, problem solving and capacity. We’ve had so much fun estimating and measuring in litres and millilitres and ordering different amounts of water. It’s a good job the weather has been so sunny as we’re sure quite a few of you used the water to cool down!
We sharpened our quills and had so much fun in art learning how to draw our favourite Harry Potter characters. You have produced some fantastic drawings, needless to say, we have some budding artists.
And finally, you have enjoyed watching and listening to Jackanory George’s Marvellous Medicine, a favourite amongst the Year 3 teachers!
Thank you for your continued hard work and commitment to home learning, we look forward to seeing some of you soon.
Year 4
Next week we will be returning to school to check in and catch up with Year 4 and we are very much looking forward to seeing you all. We will still be providing work on Google Classroom so please keep checking it and completing your lessons.
In Literacy the children have been continuing lessons on our book Spy Master: First Blood. They have been consolidating their understanding of adjectives and similes by completing lessons centred around the main characters of the book. We especially liked the simile ‘as determined as a dragon guarding its treasure’ which one of the children wrote. It has been fantastic to see how engaged the children are with the book and we wish we were able to see their reactions to the many cliffhangers!
In Maths, Year 4 have been consolidating their understanding of Mathematical concepts. This week they have been revisiting units of measurement that include length, weight and capacity. The children have focussed on measurement by choosing appropriate measures, converting measures, solving Mathematical problems including measure and going on a measure scavenger hunt. We have been amazed at how independently the children have worked on all activities. Da iawn pawb!
This week in our topic sessions the children have been learning about Tudor food and drink, yum! The children have been researching the different types of food and drink that the Tudor period was famous for. We even set them a challenge to cook and taste their own version of Tudor pottage, a common Tudor dish. We hope they were delicious!
Year 5
Another busy and successful week in year 5.
Once again, Maths this week has focused on recapping previous skills. This week pupils have been recapping their number pattern skills and using these skills to identify their preferred method to solve addition and subtraction sentences.
Our Keyhole theme has continued once again this week in literacy. Pupils were tasked to take on the perspective of an endangered animal and use their descriptive language skills to describe how they see the world. This has been week three of our keyhole topic, and it is lovely to see the progress the children are making each week after taking on board the previous weeks' feedback.
Our afternoons this week have been Welsh Oracy focused. Pupils were tasked to work through and practise a number of key questions and answers and record videos on flip grid of them having welsh conversations at home.
Year 6
Whilst enjoying the weather year 6 have also been working hard with their home learning.
In maths, pupils have been calculating probability of events happening, using fractional data and converting it to decimals and percentages. The pupils have enjoyed making probability predictions about toast, weather, rolling and dice and much more as well as developing their reasoning skills by justifying their choices.
The keyhole theme has continued this week, previously the pupils have produced some wonderful descriptive pieces showcasing their literacy skills. This week they have been looking through a keyhole out onto Endangered Animals. This has given the pupils opportunities to research current animal welfare issues as well as develop their oracy skills when recording their piece. Each pupil is given constructive feedback to support their next task.
In the afternoons year 6 have been developing their planning and preparation skills for a home cooked meal, and have started to look at writing Charles Darwin's biography using previous research.
As you can see, school may be shut but we are certainly busy in all year groups!
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
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 - Cai
- Reception Miss Walters - Effie
- Reception Miss Williams - Harriet
- Year 1 Mrs Morcom-Lewis - Sofia
- Year 1 Miss Vaughan - Chloe
- Year 2 Mrs Roberts - Daniel
- Year 2 Miss Lewis / Mrs Guy - Olly
- Year 3 Brotherton / Mrs Burr - Phoebe
- Year 3 Miss Davies - Dylan
- Year 4 Miss Radford / Miss Mullins - Daniel
- Year 4 Miss Craven - Elisha
- Year 5 Miss Jones - Shannon
- Year 5 Miss James - Rafferty
- Year 6 Mrs Coleman - Lucas
- Year 6 Mrs Evans - Sam
- Miss Ellett Music - Charlotte Year 3
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.