Careers Week

What a week we've had this week with our Careers Week.  It has been a very busy week with lots of visitors and activities arranged to inspire our children in the world of work.   We are so grateful to all the visitors that have taken time to come into school to tell our children about their jobs.  This week children have been able to find out about the following jobs:

• Fashion Designer

• Police Officer

• Theme park designer

• Digital Product Manager

• TV commercial producer

• GWR Trains

• Paramedic

• Member of Senedd

• Mayor of Bridgend

• Football Kit Manager

• Royal Mint

• Army

• Rock Band

• Vet and Vetenary Nurse

• BBC News presenter

• Zookeeper

• Eye Care 

• Civil Engineer

• Barrister / Judge

• Rugby Player

• Weaver / Textile artist

• Quality Test Manager

• Poet and Editor

• Farmer

• Financial Advisor

• Hope Rescue Charity

• Tata Steel

• CGI

Children have been very inspired by the sessions and have completed some amazing project work throughout the week.  We love to hear what children think they would like to do for a job in the future - we hope children have come home and enthusiastically told you about their week.  The most important message this week is for children to understand the vast range of jobs that are available in the world of work.

It has been lovely to see children from nursery to year 6 being inspired and thinking about different jobs.  Children have used this inspiration to create all sorts of projects in the classroom - developing theme parks, fashion design mood boards, minecraft rollercoasters, creating zoo's, role playing jobs,  and so much more.  Children have been providing feedback on the week here's just a few:

"What I enjoy most about careers week is that I get to find out about lots of different jobs that I didn't even know existed!"

"I enjoyed speaking to Those Damn Crows because they are in a career that is one I want to do and I'm interested in"

"I loved learning about different types of jobs that I never knew existed! I have learnt a lot about having your own business and learning how to use money properly, I have learnt how to right my own poem and what to use."

"I liked the poem writer, she was very enthusiastic and kinda gave that enthusiasm to us and kind of hyped us up to be a poem writer."

"Choosing what activity to do, planning a zoo, doing the group rotation of career themed activities"

"I enjoyed seeing all the wonderful and different careers there can be, and all the skills that you need to do that job."  

"Learning about hope rescue and about her careers"

Children have been so respectful and engaging with all our visitors even when its been warm and stuffy in some areas.  Visitors have been very complimentary about our pupils, teachers and the school in general.

Here's a small selection of the photos taken throughout the week!!

The Literacy Tree - Flagship School

We were delighted to learn this week that we are being recognised as a Flagship School for The Literacy Tree which is our literacy scheme we use in school.  Throughout the school, from Reception to Year 6, we use Literacy Tree for our teaching of English. Literacy Tree is used across the UK and globally and is an award-winning educational platform.  We are excited to continue to work with The Literacy Tree and further develop our love of reading. 

School uniform

During the warm weather we suggest that children can wear loose cooler clothing but we ask that this is appropriate for school.  Please can children wear closed shoes / trainers.  Open toe shoes / sandals are not suitable for school as we see a number of injuries.  Thank you for your support. 

Sports Day - Years 1 to 6

Sports Day for children in years 1 to 6 will take place on Friday 30th June.  Children in years 1 to 3 will complete their events in the morning and years 4 to 6 in the afternoon.  

We are still finalising details for the nursery and reception children.

Sports Day - Nursery and Reception

Nursery and Reception sports day is now confirmed for Thursday 6th July in the afternoon.  The event will take place in Heronsbridge School.

House Colour T-shirts

The PTA have asked the school to forward this information to parents. 

Your PTA have made arrangements with a local company for parents to purchase a house colour t-shirt for your child if you wish.  There is no obligation to purchase the t-shirts - this is parental choice.  On sports day children may wear a t-shirt in their house colour.

It is a parental choice whether to have your child's name included on the back of the t-shirt. Parents may prefer to have your child's house colour printed or leave the back of the t-shirt blank.

Please click on the following link for further information - 

Child sizes - 

https://www.cheekybabytees.co.uk/collections/personalised-t-shirts/products/oldcastle-school-sports-day-t-shirts

Adult Sizes -

https://www.cheekybabytees.co.uk/collections/personalised-t-shirts/products/oldcastle-mens-sports-day-t-shirts 

https://www.cheekybabytees.co.uk/collections/personalised-t-shirts/products/oldcastle-ladies-sports-day-t-shirts 

Any orders submitted by 18th June will have no postage fee. The PTA will arrange collection of the t-shirts and these will be distributed from school on Monday 26th June. Orders placed after 18th June will be subject to a postage fee.

Community Food Hub

We are looking to create a Community Food Hub for the wider community to provide food parcels.  The food parcels would be offered at a discounted or pay as you feel rate and would be operated as a not for profit enterprise.  Our aim is to contribute to the reduction of food poverty and food insecurity. We would like reach out to our school community to find out if there are any volunteers that would be able to set up and run this venture once a month.  We would also be grateful for businesses to support the venture and help with initial set up costs.

If you think you can help please get in touch with Sara Peters via our ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk or by phone on 01656 815790.

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. 

Lovely to see so many scooters and bikes parked up at school this week.

Barney doing his job and chilling out with some pupils! 

Thank you Mr Matthew Williams for the donation of these pipes. The children are enjoying exploring water in a different ways and problem solving attaching them together.

Thank you Mr Ben Williams for the tree stump donations. The children loved playing on them today. Year 1 love their new outdoor learning circle and will be looking forward to using it everyday. 

Year 2 have been learning about the Titanic recently and loved recreating their own boat. So much work went into this. Da iawn pawb. 

Loic from year 5 using his minecraft book to help build his Theme park. Over the next few weeks year 5 will be developing their presenting techniques by creating videos and voice overs to share their world with the year group.  We can't wait to see them.

Contact details

Please ensure we have up to date contact details for you to ensure 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.  

Bridgend Schools Tennis Tournament

Following on from the success of our years 3, 4 and 6 recently we are delighted to announce that our year 6 tennis teams were runners up in the Bridgend Schools Tennis competition on Wednesday. Thank you to Bridgend Tennis Club for hosting. Well done to everyone from year 6 who played this week. 

Squash Success

Well done to Eliza and Heidi who travelled to Manchester last  weekend for the last competition of the squash season. What a season it has been! 

We are delighted to hear that Heidi won the girls U11 Manchester junior silver squash competition.   Eliza played extremely well and lost only to the No1 seed to achieve a respectable third place in the 13's competition. 

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. 

The PTA are organising Oldcastle Rocks again this year.  Save the date Saturday 8th July 2pm to 6pm!

Hope Rescue came into school this week to talk about working in the charity sector.  The charity are also raising funds and we wanted to share the following with you in case you were interested.

• The Hope Rescue latest appeal The Perfect Storm appeal | Hope Rescue

• Volunteers will be having a bucket collection outside Asda Bridgend tomorrow 10am-4pm

• Hope Rescue have a doggy donations box in the foyer at Tesco Extra Bridgend too if anyone wants to donate items from the list below they can be put in there.

Inset Days 2022 / 23

Inset days for the remainder of the school year

• Monday 24th July 2023

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

• School year finishes on Friday 21st July

Inset Days 2023/24

Inset Days have been approved by Governors for 2023/24 and they are as follows:

• Monday 4th September 2023

• Friday 22nd December 2023

• Monday 19th February 2024

• Friday 22nd March 2024

• Monday 3rd June 2024

• Monday 22nd July 2024

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