Remembrance Day

We were so proud of our pupils who took part in the Family Remembrance Service on Saturday in Bridgend Town Centre.

We were also delighted to meet Francis Dickinson, grandson of the captain of HMS URGE who kindly donated his book to our school

Anti Bullying Week - Odd Socks Day

Odd Socks Day on Monday 14th November marked the start of Anti Bullying Week and we encouraged all our pupils and staff to join in and wear odd socks on Monday.

Friendship Day

We've been celebrating friendship day today and every child has been creating a friendship link to thank a firend and think about what friendship means. The links have been displayed throughout the school today for all the children to see. Here's a selection.

Parking around the school

This week has once again highlighted the issue of parking around the school. Unfortunately, today we have had to send the following message to our parents:

We wanted to make parents aware of a concerning incident that occurred during the school drop off this morning. A child walking to school with his parent and younger sibling was involved in a near miss with a moving vehicle. The child was not at fault and was very lucky not to receive any injuries thanks to the quick thinking of their parent.

As mentioned a number of times, we are becoming increasingly concerned about the number of cars attempting to access the dead end area at South Street plus the area at the top end of South Street adjouring St Marie Street. Vehicles are parking on double yellow lines and are also mounting the pavement which restricts the ability to safely walk on the pavement. The access to school is extremely limited for vehicles and we strongly suggest that parents find alternative parking away from school to ensure the safety of our pupils and parents.

We have highlighted the issue with the local authority and we understand that civil enforcement officers will be patrolling the area.

Please help us by parking a little bit further away and walking to school to collect / drop off children.

School access

Thank you to our parents and children for your understanding in regard of the closure of the St Marie Street entrance. We are working with the local authority and local residents to resolve the situation and hope to have the entrance back open as soon as possible.

Child Collection Arrangements

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the NSPCC both recommend that no one under 16 years of age should be left to care for a younger child. Whilst there is no minimum age set in law, our school will implement suggested guidance and not routinely release younger children who require collection to anyone under the age of 16. Individual requests to consider a variation to this policy will be considered on its merits and clearly recorded; a parental signature will be required. Without an appropriate authorising signed request, the school will adhere to the guidance as listed above. If you wish an older sibling to collect your child w require confirmation of this arrangement in writing. Please email ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk to provide consent for an older sibling who is under the age of 16 to collect your child.

Junior Leaders

This week has been another busy week for our JLT. They have been interviewing Swansea University and they have been creating our child-friendly safeguarding poster. Today is Children in Need and we have an exciting day planned with lots of activities to enjoy throughout the day such as throw bean bags through the dragon's mouth, throw the bean bags in to the hoops and sports jump.

Layla, Lottie, Seren and Flo.

Children in Need

Thank you to all that supported Children in Need once again this year. We are delighted to let you know that we raised over £420 for the charity. We had some very spotty children in school today who all took part in a variety of activities led by our junior leaders and pupil voice. The activities included throwing and jumping to win pints for their house colour - thank you pupils voice and junior leaders for arranging the activities. Each house colour collected the following tokens today:

• Blue House - 479 tokens

• Yellow House - 216 tokens

• Green House - 300 tokens

• Red House - 301 tokens

Lost Property

We do not know how lost property can be so huge once again. Please do check with your child if they have lost an item of clothing and ask them to check lost property. Parents are welcome to look as well please pop into the office. We have a massive amount and here is a very small selection of the coats we have - do you recognise any?

We also have uniform that has been donated to the school so if you require any school uniform please get in touch. We are not currently accepting uniform donations due to the volume of uniform we already have.

Schools Cross Country - Years 3 to 6

The next Bridgend Schools’ Cross Country League will take place on Saturday 26th November and Oldcastle are currently doing extrmely well in the league table!!

1. 4 races available to pupils in years 3 to 6

2. First race begins at 10am so arrive by 9.30am

3. No dogs or smoking (or heaven forbid smoking dogs)

The schedule of meets prior to Christmas is as follows:

• Saturday November 26^th – Brynteg Comprehensive School

• Saturday December 17^th – Porthcawl Comprehensive School

Healthy Eating

We hope you can help our children bring a healthy lunch box and / or healthy snack into school.

School Swimming

Swimming lessons are offered to children in years 4, 5 and 6 over the autumn term.

Year 5 will swim every afternoon for a period of one week on the following dates:

• 5M - week beginning 21st November

Year 6 will swim every afternoon for a period of one week on the following dates:

• 6Y - week beginning 28th November

• 6H - week beginning 5th December

Children will be required to bring a packed lunch on these days along with their swimming kit, towel and goggles. The bus will collect them from school and take them to Ynysawdre Pool and then bring them back to school in time for the end of the normal school day.

Christmas Concerts

We are delighted to inform parents that we will be inviting parents into school to watch your child's year group perform a Christmas concert. Each year group will perform the concert on two occasions and parents / carers may order two tickets for each performance.

The tickets are free of charge. Due to health and safety reasons, we are limited in the number of people we can seat in the main hall so numbers will be strictly monitored based around the applications received via this form.

Please click on the link below to book your free ticket to the appropriate year group concert.

• Nursery Christmas Concert

• Reception Christmas Concert

• Year 1 Christmas Concert

• Year 2 Christmas Concert

• Year 3 Christmas Concert

• Year 4 Christmas Concert

• Year 5 Christmas Concert

• Year 6 Christmas Concert

Shine - Schools Emotional Well-being Service

Shine sessions will be starting in our school on Wednesday 30th November - if you are interested in taking part or would like further information, please contact us via the ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk email address.

PE Days

Children should wear P.E. kit to school on the day their class has a P.E. session.

• Reception - Monday

• Year 1 - Tuesday

• Year 2 - Monday

• Year 3 - Tuesday

• Year 4 - Wednesday

• Year 5 - Thursday

• Year 6 - Wednesday

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.

PTA

The Christmas Card designs have arrived back in school and these have been sent home with children today. These should be ordered as per the details on the proof - please note deadline for ordering is 29th November.

The PTA have once again linked up with Ty Cerrig Christmas Tree farm who offer cashback to schools when you buy a Christmas tree. More details on the flyer below.

Bridgend Community Outreach Centre

BARC are offering help and events and are based on Ewenny Road. Some of their current projects are our daily free meals, £5 food bags, support services, fuel voucher scheme and debt management. Information can be found at https://www.facebook.com/barccommunity/

Saturday 10th December, surplus stock sale. We will have all of our surplus stock from our second hand shop for sale. This includes clothes, toys, homeware and accessories. We ask for a £1 donation on the door (for as much tea, coffee and biscuits as you like) and all items inside are 50p per item. 1-3PM at the hub 13 Ewenny Road Bridgend.

Free tubes

We have two large plastic tubes in the school car park that we are looking to pass on. If you know someone who is interested please get in touch with us via the ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk email address.

Contact details

We regularly email and send App messages to parents - please ensure we have up to date contact details for you to ensure you keep up to date with school news. You can either email us with change of details (ask@oldcastlprimary.co.uk) or complete the change of details form.

Literacy

Reception have started their new book ‘Look Up’ and have been immersed in exciting space related activities. This week, we’ve made space chalk drawings, had real moon dust in our tuff tray and found a mysterious box in our classrooms. How exciting!

Year 4 have been working with the book 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes. They have been exploring synonyms, multi-clause sentences and conjunctions.

This week, Year 6 have created a Compendium of Critters based on the fictional animals in The Arrival. We then folded our descriptions into Origami Critters. A fantastic job Year 6!

Year 5 have been studying ‘Cogheart’ this week and have designed luggage tags, created comic strips and formulated some amazing descriptions about the characters in the book. Da iawn, Year 5.

Year 5 have been using the 4D room today to learn about the work that NASA do, in line with their new Literacy book 'Hidden Figures'.

Year 5 also watched the launch of the space shuttle Artemis 1 in the 4D room this week.

Enrichment

Friday afternoons are all about enrichment sessions. Children are excited about the different activities they take part in and always look forward to a Friday afternoon. What a busy Friday afternoon it was today!

Well done to Jayden from year 5 who competed in a Hip Hop Dance competition last weekend and along with his team mates won 1st place! Well done Jayden.

Inset Days 2022 / 23

Inset days for this academic year are as follows:

• Monday 5th September 2022

• Monday 7th November 2022

• Tuesday 8th November 2022

• Friday 31st March 2023

• Friday 26th May 2023

• Monday 24th July 2023

Term Dates - all term dates are available to view on our website

• Autumn Term finishes on Friday 23rd December 2022.

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.

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