Final assembly of the year

We held our final assembly of 2025 this afternoon.  

Today we said farewell to two staff members.  Mrs Burr is leaving Oldcastle to focus on a different venture.  Having started in 2015, Mrs Burr has touched the lives of many children during her time in Oldcastle.  We wish Mrs Burr all the very best in the future. Mrs McManus is also leaving Oldcastle to take up a position in private industry.  Thank you both for everything you have done for Oldcastle Primary School and its pupils.

Mrs Loughran is also changing her role within school. From January, Mrs Loughran will not be in school during the day, instead she will run the after school club every afternoon. We are glad you are not leaving us just yet Mrs L!

We have a number of new staff joining us and we look forward to welcoming them to Team Oldcastle.  

Finally, in assembly, we were treated to a rendition of 'Twelve Days of Christmas' from some of our staff. The children loved it - thank you for entertaining us all.

Barney's Birthday

Monday, 22nd December, is Barney's 5th birthday, and we celebrated his birthday in our assembly today.  Happy birthday Barney - you are loved by everyone in our school community. The whole school sung happy  birthday to Barney in assembly today!   

Message from our School Governors

The governors would like to wish all our wonderful families and staff a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Sparkling New Year! 

Oldcastle has been full of hard work, joy, and brilliant achievements this year, and we couldn’t be prouder of everything our pupils, staff, and community have accomplished. Thank you for bringing so much warmth and spirit to our school.

As we look ahead to 2026, we’re excited for all the new opportunities, learning, and memories still to come.

In the new year, the governors will also be sharing regular updates, giving you a closer look at how we support Mrs. Littlewood and the amazing Oldcastle team, as well as what we do behind the scenes to help the school thrive.

Wishing you all a Christmas filled with laughter, rest, and plenty of festive magic! 

Christmas Concerts

This week we wrapped up the last of our 16  Christmas Concerts!  Thank you to all the parents and carers who came into school to watch the concerts, thank you to our amazing staff who produced spectacular concerts, thank you to all the PTA helpers for providing refreshments and raffle sales. Finally, thank you to our pupils for entertaining parents and carers with your wonderful Christmas stories.

We are delighted to have raised £ 2135 from the concert entry, which will be used to purchase new literacy books for the school.  The raffle ticket sales and refreshment donations also raised £2215 for the PTA.  Thank you so much for your support.

Nursery Christmas Concert

Reception Christmas Concert

Christmas Fun Day

On Thursday, we held our annual Christmas Fun Day.  We are so grateful to our amazing PTA for funding this event and we were delighted that Father Christmas was able to join us in the grotto and provide every child with a selection box!  Chopsy Elf also made an appearance and every child attended a special disco in the main hall.  It was a wondersful spectacular and everyone enjoyed.

Netball Fundraiser

The year 6 netball team have been fundraising over the last month to raise money for the team to attend a Dragons netball game in March.  They have sold a selection of hand crafted items at each of the Christmas concerts and held a cake sale after school on Tuesday.  We are delighted to announce that they have raised £362 towards their visit. In the new year, the year 5 netball team members will raising funds to allow them to attend the game.

Years 1 to 6 Pantomime

We had a lovely trip to the pantomime on Wednesday.  Children travelled to Maesteg Town Hall for the performance of Rapunzel and thoroughly enjoyed the production.

Nursery and Reception Christmas Show

Nursery and Reception enjoyed a lovely Christmas show by Tippee Productions on Wednesday.

Nolton Church  Christmas Tree Festival

We were delighted to learn that the Oldcastle Primary tree won first place in the Nolton Church Christmas tree festival. Thank you to everyone who voted for our tree! 

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 89.1%.  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. 

School Choir

We are so proud of our wonderful school choir performing at the Cor Bro Ogwr concert last Saturday.  You were amazing. Thank you, as always, to parents for supporting the event. 

Year 2 Evacuee Experience

Year 2 shared their learning about their topic 'The Evacuee Experience' with Year 1 today. Children in Year 2 showed their 'Evacuee Scrapbooks' and their Anderson shelter models, and talked to Year 1 about what it was like to be an evacuee. 

Toddler Group

• 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.