Week 19 - Friday 1st February 2019

Welcome to our newsletter for week 19. We are grateful to our caretaker, Mr Jones, for ensuring that the external areas of the school were safe for us to open today. The predicted heavy snowfall seemed to miss Oldcastle so we were pleased to be open the school. Children were excited to see the small amount of snow we experienced! The photos below show some of our nursery children exploring the snow in their playground and the snowman that our year 2 children managed to make!

School Council Fundraising - Wear Red for Wales and Velindre

Our School Council chose to support the 'Wear Red for Wales and Velindre' charity campaign on today. The aim of the campaign is to show support for Wales ahead of their Six Nations campaign and to raise vital funds for Velindre - Wales’s Premier Cancer Centre. Thank you for supporting the campaign - we are pleased to let you know that Oldcastle raised £183.

Parent Governor Vacancy

We currently have a vacancy for a Parent Governor. If you are interested in becoming a Governor at Oldcastle Primary please apply by providing a statement of 100 words or less on why you would like to become a School Governor. Please send this information in by email to admin.oldcastleprimary@bridgend.gov.uk or drop it into the school office. Governors play a key role in leading, supporting and improving schools. They act as a link between parents, the local community and the school. They are impartial and make decisions that seek to improve the school. If you would like further information on becoming a School Governor please click here. Application statements need to be submitted by Friday 15th February 2019.

School Canteen Building

Oldcastle Primary will be having a new electrical distribution board installed in our canteen building next Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th February. During this period we will not have access to the canteen whilst the essential work is undertaken. The following changes will operate on these 2 days.

• Breakfast Club will take place in the main hall. Please drop off children using the door to the right of the main entrance doors.
• School dinners will be provided in the main hall by the catering staff. Due to the change of location the menu will be changed to suit the temporary arrangements. Tuesday will spaghetti and meatballs and Wednesdays menu will be pork and mash.

School Vacancies

We currently have 2 vacancies for Learning Support Officers. For further information please view the details on our website. https://bit.ly/2Wz3k7B

School Categorisation

We are pleased to let you know that Oldcastle Primary have been categorised as GREEN in the National School Categorisation System which assesses how much support a school requires. A green rated school means that Oldcastle only needs up to 4 days support a year. The assessment now includes pupils' wellbeing, and the quality of teaching and learning as well as performance.

Royal Mint STEM competition

We were delighted to announce the winners of the Royal Mint Stem competition in our assembly today. Children throughout the school were given the opportunity to design a coin for the Royal Mint and there were some amazing entries. The winning designs were chosen by the Royal Mint and we were delighted to present Harriet from nursery and Olivia from year 3 with an uncirculated Frankenstein £2 coin presentation pack today. The coin was designed by Thomas Docherty to celebrate 200 years of the publication of the novel.

DVLA Code Challenge Competition

We are delighted to inform parents that Oldcastle Primary School have won the DVLA Code Challenge competition prize draw and we have received over £400 worth of IT equipment. The equipment received is pictured below and our Code Club are looking forward to learning how to use these items and sharing with other children in the school.

Eisteddfod - Monday 4th March

We will be holding our annual Eisteddfod celebrations on Monday 4th March. Children are busy in school working towards the Eisteddfod competitions focusing on welsh art, handwriting and poetry. Children will also be creating a piece of digital art. We are excited to see the results and we look forward to sharing some of these with you. In the morning of the 4th March we will hold a celebration assembly when we will celebrate the Chairing of the Bard (a year 6 pupil who wins the poetry competition). During the afternoon children will have the opportunity to discover more about welsh crafts and culture.

Anti Bullying Questionnaire

Thank you to those parents who completed our Anti Bullying Questionnaire recently - the results are being analysed and we will feed back results shortly.

Designed to Smile

Our nursery and reception children are taking part in a Welsh Government initiative 'Designed to Smile' which is designed to improve the oral health of children in Wales. Children are provided with their own toothbrush and are encouraged to clean their teeth after lunch. Children seem to enjoy the experience and look forward to the Tooth Bus coming out!

School Savings Club

We had 63 savers at our School Saving Club this week saving over £450 amongst them. Don't forget School Savings Club takes place every Wednesday morning and new members are always welcome. The school provides £2 into the account of every child that joins the school savings scheme. School Savings Club is open from 8.45am if you would prefer to bring your child with their savings, or children have the opportunity to visit the Savings Club with their class throughout the morning. We look forward to seeing our school savers every Wednesday and look forward to hearing what they are savings towards.

Table Tennis

Good luck to Seren and Evelyn from year 4 who are taking part in the Welsh National Primary School Table Tennis Championships in the Sports Wales Centre on Wednesday 6th February.

Eco Committee

Our Eco Committee have been working hard preparing a presentation for a school assembly where they will inform children and teachers what the Eco Committee do in school. We look forward to seeing the presentation in an assembly soon.

Year 6

Year 6 have been learning about atoms, molecules and elements in Science and have been researching elements from the Periodic Table (they were really keen to learn every element in the Periodic Table so are trying to learn a song!!). Their task was to create a Google Site based on a given element and then they had to present them in a 'Marketplace' to their peers. They had 3 minutes to present and answer questions.

Reception

Reception have been using Numicon to solve addition number sentences. They have also created a picture of a story map they drew in their books to help us retell the story of the little red hen.

Headteacher Award

The following children were presented with a Headteachers Award during assembly today. This weeks theme is progress and effort with handwriting.

• Year 1 Mrs Morcom-Lewis - Viktorija
• Year 1 Miss Mullins - Andy
• Year 2 Mrs Roberts - Seren
• Year 2 Mrs Evans - Phoebe
• Year 3 Miss Minkowski - Daniel
• Year 3 Miss Davies - Mateusz
• Year 4 Miss Jones - Rudy
• Year 4 Miss Craven - Max
• Year 5 Mr Clements - Mali
• Year 6 Mrs Coleman - Catrin
• Year 6 Mrs Taylor-Jones - Heidi

Attendance of the Week

Class of the Week for the best attendance was awarded to 1M (94.8%) in Foundation Phase and 3ND (94.1%) in Key Stage 2. Our whole school attendance target is 95.9% for the year. This week’s attendance was 90.2%.

Diary Dates

• Week beginning 4th February - 5C swimming
• Wednesday 6th February - Year 2 trip to Cardiff Museum
• Thursday 7th February - Year 6 trip to Cardiff Museum
• Week beginning 11th February - 5J swimming
• Week beginning 18th February - 6T swimming
• Half term - 25th February to 1st March
• Back to School - Monday 4th March
• Monday 4th March - Eisteddfod
• Week beginning 4th March - 6C swimming
• Friday 15th March - School Council Fundraiser 'Red Nose Day'
• Friday 22nd March - Year 5 trip to Big Pit
• Tuesday 26th March - Reception trip to Cefn Mably
• Inset Day - Monday 22nd July 2019

Inset Days 2019/20

• Monday 4th November 2019
• Tuesday 5th November 2019
• Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd June 2020
• Monday 20th July 2020