Wow, another busy week in Oldcastle Primary School. We have had 8 Christmas concerts this week and welcomed many parents and carers into school to see their children.  We are so grateful for your support and we know the children love showing their performances to their family members.  As ever, we are grateful to our fantastic PTA and helpers who volunteer to provide the refreshments and raffle sales at the concerts.

Next week we have the Nursery and Reception concerts to look forward to.

In the final week of the school year, our nursery and reception children will enjoy a special Christmas show in school. Our children in years 1 to 6 will enjoy a trip to Maesteg Town Hall to see the pantomime 'Rapunzel'.  Parents of children in years 1 to 6, please look out for an email regarding the earlier start to school time so we can arrive at the panto in time for the start of the performance.

Year 4 Christmas Concert

Year 3 Christmas Concert

Year 2 Christmas Concert

Year 1 Christmas Concert

Christmas Dinner

Huge thank you to our fantastic catering team who served over 300 Christmas dinners today for our pupils.  The pupils thoroughly enjoyed and we are grateful to our PTA for funding crackers for every child. Thank you all. 

Christmas Concerts

Children are getting ready to prepare for their Christmas concerts and we are looking forward to seeing the children on the stage in the main hall.  Tickets need to be ordered as numbers are limited in the main hall.  Tickets are £2 each and payment can be made in cash on the door.   The PTA will have raffle tickets for sale on the door too and refreshments are available in the hall for a donation.

Nursery

• Monday 15th December 9.30am and Monday 15th December 2pm

Reception

• Tuesday 16th December 9.30am and Tuesday 16th December 2pm

Tuesday 16th December - Year 6 Netball Fundraiser

Our Year 6 netball team are hoping to go and watch the Cardiff Dragons netball team play a match in the spring term and have been fundraising to raise money to attend.  On Tuesday, 16th December, after school, the team will be holding a cake sale and sale of items they have made.  We hope you can support them raise money for their trip. Thank you for your support.

Community Food Pantry

The food pantry has been restocked this week and will be restocked every week on a Monday. We invite parents and carers to pop in and fill a bag with 15 items for £5.  The food pantry is available to everyone and we hope that you can make use of the items.  Why not pop in and take a look at the type of items available in the pantry.

Community Room

We invite parents and carers to make use of our Community Room and enjoy a cuppa and a chat.  Why not call in after the morning school run or before the pick up and get together with other parents and enjoy a cuppa. We hope you can enjoy this warm space to get together with friends or meet new people.

School Savings Club 

School savings club has now finished for the year.  We will start back in January.

Contact details - Have any details changed?

Please ensure we have up to date contact details for you to make sure you keep up to date with school news and we are able to contact you during the school day if required.  You can either email us with change of details (ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk) or complete the change of details form.   We will use email and our School App to send messages to parents about activities or events.

Attendance

We are committed to promoting good attendance at school and have a target of whole school attendance of 95%.  This week's attendance was 91.8%.  For more information on the importance of good attendance and how we manage attendance as a school, please look at our website.  Attendance | Oldcastle Primary School 

Nut Free School

Please can we remind parents that we strive to be a nut free school as we have a number of pupils who have a severe allergy to nuts.  

This includes nut products such as peanut butter and nutella. 

• September - Respect and Responsibility 

• October - Compassion and Hope 

• November - Friendship and Forgiveness 

• December - Understanding and Patience

• January - Determination and Perseverance

• February - Honesty and Trust 

• March -Learning and Effort 

• April - Community and Service 

• May - Co-operation and being a good citizen within society

• June- Showing Gratitude and Care and Generosity

• July - Taking and managing risks 

At Oldcastle, we are proud of each other and ourselves. We nurture all of our community so that we grow as confident, responsible and happy people. Oldcastle school is more than just learning.

• We try hard for each other

• We act responsibly

• We treat people how we’d like to be treated

• We work as a team

• We trust and respect each other

• We listen and learn together

• We share knowledge and experience

Together we make the difference

Together we shape innovative experiences 

More information on our values and visions can be found on our website.  Visions and Values

We love to hear about all of the exciting achievements of our pupils during out of school activities. Please share any successes with us at ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk and include a photograph and details of the achievement to be included in future newsletters. 

Well done Bobbie from year 5 on your Stagecoach Student of the Year award!

Martial Arts Success

Congratulations to Evie from year 5 who won the Confidence and Growth Award at the End-of-Year Awards for the progress made in her martial arts group in 2025. 

Toddler Group

What a fantastic Christmas party we had on Wednesday morning. We even had a visit from Father Christmas.! Thank you to all the parents and grandparents who support our baby and toddler sessions. The group will start back after Christmas on Wednesday 7th January. 

Toddler Group runs every Wednesday morning 9am to 11am. Babies and Toddlers all welcome. £2 per session and includes a cuppa. Next week the Toddler Group will be enjoying their Christmas party!

Huge thank you to the Year 5 and 6 Wellbeing Team pupils who helped to decorate our tree in the Nolton Church Christmas Tree Festival on Wednesday.  Thank you to all our pupils and the toddler group for creating such lovely decorations.  We love our tree and hope you can vote for our tree if you visit the festival. 

Nursery enjoyed a visit to Nolton Church to view the Christmas Tree Festival.

Year 3 loved their visit to the church to see the Christmas tree display.

Toddler Group

Community Toy Sale

• 4th to 16th December - various Christmas concerts

• 17th December - Nursery and Reception Christmas Show

• 17th December - Years 1 to 6 to the Pantomime

• 20th December to 6th January - Christmas Holiday

• 5th January - INSET Day

• 6th January - Back to School

• 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th January and 5th February - Year 6 Swimming

• 12th, 19th February, 5th, 12th and 19th March - Year 5 Swimming

• 16th to 20th February - Half Term

Inset Days for 2025 / 2026

The inset days for 2025 / 26 have been approved by school governors and these are as follows:

• Monday 1st September 2025 

• Friday 21st November 2025

• Monday 5th January 2026

• Friday 13th March 2026

• Friday 22nd May 2026

• Monday 20th July 2026

Health and Wellbeing / PE Days for 2025/26

PE will take place on the following day for each year group.  Children should attend school in their PE kit on their allocated day.

• Nursery - Thursday

• Reception - Monday

• Year 1 - Tuesday

• Year 2 - Thursday

• Year 3 - Wednesday

• Year 4 - Monday

• Year 5 - Tuesday

• Year 6 - Friday

In the event that you have a concern regarding a child please follow this procedure:

• During school hours please contact Mrs Ceri Littlewood, safeguarding lead at Oldcastle Primary School.

• Out of school hours please  contact  the  out of hours Emergency Duty Team Tel No 01443743665

More information on Safeguarding at Oldcastle can be found on our website.