School Improvement Plan

Our School Improvement Plan is available for parents to view on our website.  Please do take a look to understand our school priorities for the year.  Also included is an evaluation of the previous year's School Improvement Plan. 

School Improvement Plan

Tesco Community Blue Token Scheme - last few days!!

It's the last few days of our blue token collection in Tesco so please help us out before 30th September!  

We are delighted to have been accepted to be included in the Tesco Community Blue Token Scheme from July to September this year. Our project is now live in stores so please support us! We are grateful to the support from Jessica Ennis-Hill in the video below!

Oldcastle Primary School, Community Pantry, Bridgend

Our food pantry ensures that our pupils and their families have access to nutritious food and essential supplies, all-year round.

The project with the highest number of votes across your region will receive £1,500, the second placed project £1,000 and the third placed project £500. 

Please see below a list of stores taking part in the voting on your project. Feel free to share this list of stores amongst your supporters and within your community.

• Bridgend 1 Superstore CF31 4AP

• Bridgend Extra CF31 3SQ

• Gentle Way Bridgend Express Express CF31 5EJ

• North Cornelly Express Express CF33 4LN

• Pencoed Express Express CF35 5NG

Parents Evening 

Parents evening appointment will be held week beginning 20th October.  Appointment bookings will be sent from our website provider next week.  You will receive an email from notifications@primarysite.net with instructions on how to book an appointment. Each class teacher will offer appointments over a two day period.

University Students

As a school, we collaborate with several education establishments to provide opportunities for students as part of their journey to become teachers or learning support officers. We will shortly have students from the University of South Wales and Bridgend College.  Students are included in our Team Oldcastle and will be involved in the classroom environment.

School Governors

Oldcastle Primary School has a governing body that plays an important role in school life to lead, support and improve.  The governors act as a go between parents, the local community and the school. Governors are impartial and make decisions that seek to improve the school.  

Our school constitution states that we will have a total of 18 governors and these will be made up of:

• 5 Parent Governors

• 5 Community Governors

• 4 Local Authority Governors

• 2 Teacher Governors

• 1 Staff Governor

• The Headteacher

At each meeting, governors receive, discuss and make decisions on a range of subjects, for example:

• budgets

• recruitment of staff

• disciplinary issues

• health and safety and maintenance

• pupils performance

• school inspection reports

Governors attend committee meetings for finance and curriculum and a full governing body meeting. In October, governors will issue an Annual Report to Parents. If you would like further information on the School Governing Body or would like to view minutes from the meeting, please click here.  School Governors.

World Mental Health Day - Friday 10th October

We are supporting World Mental Health Day on Friday 10th October and children may wear yellow to school on this day.

Seesaw for Nursery to Year 2

Parents in nursery to year 2 have been sent details of how to access your child's Seesaw account and see photos and details of their learning.  If you have any issues with accessing your child's account, please get in touch.

• 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 

Strengthening Our School Community : The Power of PTA Involvement

Don't forget the fill in the PTA Get Involved form below if you are interested in being part of our fantastic PTA.

PTA Get Involved Google Form

We would like to invite all parents and carers to a PTA meeting on Friday 10th October at 2pm.  Refreshments will be available and we hope you can join us and members of the PTA for a get together to discuss the committee, funding and exciting events planned for the school year.

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.

Schools Cross Country - Years 3 to 6

The Schools Cross Country competition will start back on October 18th and will take place at Pencoed Comprehensive. The event is open to all children in years 3 to 6.  Children and parents should meet at the venue at 9.30am for a 10am start.  Mrs Evans and Mrs Littlewood will be in attendance to coordinate the events. Please note no dogs are allowed on site.

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 95.3%.  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. 

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 to Aled from year 2 who has a yellow with whote stripe belt in his martial arts class.  

Well done to Elliot T who was awarded the Man of the Match trophy in his recent rugby match for Bridgend Sports.

Year 1 had a lovely trip to Nolton Church this week to look at historical buildings as part of their unit of work 'Connecting to the Past'.  Thank you to all the parents and carers who helped with the walk.

Fantastic artwork created the the Art Enrichment session this afternoon.

We were delighted to welcome Spiderman to school this week!  What a treat to have a real life hero visit year 4 to talk about how he has helped the local community in recent years.  Richard Durston has recently achieved a local unsung hero award from Bridgend County Borough Council.  Spiderman did a tour of the school which absolutely delighted our younger children.

Brynteg School - Years 5 and 6 Open Evening

Toddler Group

• 10th October - World Mental Health Day - Wear Yellow

• 10th October - PTA Meeting at 2pm in school

• 15th October - Individual Child Photos

• 20th to 22nd October - Parents Evening

• 23rd October - Flu Vaccine Reception to Year 6 - more information will be sent home shortly

• 27th October to 31st October  - October Half Term

• 21st November - INSET Day

• 20th December to 6th January - Christmas Holiday

• 5th January - INSET Day

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 - Friday

• Year 5 - Friday

• 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.