Week 33 - Friday 11th June 2021

We hope that you all had a restful half term holiday. We were delighted to welcome our children back to school on Tuesday and hear what they had got upto in the half term holiday.

Outdoor Classroom - help required!

Our the half term holiday we were delighted to have our new outdoor classroom installed behind the canteen. The room is designed to fit a whole class and will be used for a variety of sessions. All children in the school will be using the facility and we thought it would be lovely to ask children and parents to come up with a name for our outdoor classroom. We hope you can help and we look forward to seeing your suggestions. A name will be chosen from the suggestions we receive. Thank you for getting involved! Click the link to the form here - Name Suggestions

Healthy Eating Week

Next week we will be celebrating Healthy Eating Week from 14th to 18th June and children will be learning about healthy food choices. On Monday children will join an online assembly with other primary schools to kick start the healthy eating week. The interactive assembly will consider key health messages and show how pupils can put them into action.

To celebrate Healthy Eating Week, the Waitrose Cookery School and Health Team have joined up with the British Nutrition Foundation to deliver a free healthy eating cook along. Parents and children can join in next Thursday between 5pm and 6pm - have your ingredients and equipment ready!! To register for the cook along click here

Tennis Coaching - Reception to Year 3

We have been fortunate to receive grant funding from the Lawn Tennis Association to enable us to offer tennis coaching sessions to our reception to year 3 pupils. From Monday, pupils reception, year 1, year 2 and year 3 will need to wear PE kit every Monday as they will receive tennis sessions from a LTA tennis coach. We look forward to seeing the children progress with their tennis skills.

Nursery and Reception parents

If you have any spare nursery / reception clothes please pass them to your child's nursery / reception teacher.

Headlice

Please can we ask that parents check their children's hair over the weekend as we have been made aware that headlice have been appearing. Thank you for your support.

Solar Energy

We are so pleased to see the sun over the half term period and so were out solar panels!! Since the solar panels were installed on the canteen and main school building we have saved energy that is equivalent to the planting of 383 trees, and over 8300 of CO2 omissions saved! Both our systems have produced over 32 MwH since they were installed. We look forward to providing more information to our parents and governors in September when we will have a full year of data from our large installation on the main school building.

School wifi

In the last few weeks our wifi cabling and wifi routers have been installed in school. We do hope that this has made a big improvement to our children and enable access to the internet in all parts of the school.

Fundraiser for Bridgend Bereavement Services

We are pleased to support a fundraising initiative for Bridgend Bereavement Support on Friday 25th June. Children may wear something yellow to show support for the charity and we will be accepting donations.

School Savings Club

School savings club took place again this week and we had lots of children saving money. Saving Club runs every Wednesday. If you would like to join please take a look at our website for more details. School Savings Club Information.

Year 4 enjoying our new outdoor classroom

Year 2 enjoying the outdoor classroom

Inset Days

Inset days for the school year have been approved and these are:

• Monday 19th July 2021

• Tuesday 20th July 2021

We ask that you refresh yourself with the following information regarding Covid and inform us if your child is having a covid test - please call or email ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk

If your child is off school due to a member of your household having a Covid test please ensure that you let us know when you report their absence.

The main symptoms of coronavirus are:

• a high temperature

• a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot, for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours

• a loss or change to sense of smell or taste – this means they cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal

What to do if your child has symptoms. If your child has any of the main symptoms of coronavirus:

1.Get a test to check if they have coronavirus as soon as possible.

2.Stay at home and do not have visitors until you get the test result – only leave your home to have a test.

Anyone you live with, and anyone in your support bubble, must also stay at home until you get the result.

P.E. Lessons

P.E. lessons this term will take place on the following days. Children attending school should wear their P.E. kit to school on the day of their lesson.

• Nursery - Friday

• Reception - Thursday

• Year 1 - Monday

• Year 2 - Tuesday

• Year 3 - Wednesday

• Year 4 - Tuesday

• Year 5 - Friday

• Year 6 - Thursday

School Photographs

Our school photographer will be visiting on Tuesday 22nd June to take class photos. All school photos will be available to purchase online after 22nd June.

Inset days from September 2021

Inset days from September 2021 have been confirmed and are as follows:

• 2nd and 3rd September

• 1st November

• 18th February

• 25th April

• 20th June