As we reach Week 12 of our school year, the festive spirit of December is truly upon us at Oldcastle Primary. The air is filled with excitement as we prepare for our Christmas celebrations.  Next week children in years 1 to 6 will visit the Princess Royal Theatre in Port Talbot to see the Cinderella pantomime  - we can't wait for this annual event.  Children may bring a small packet of sweets and a small carton / bottle of drink (not fizzy).

Children in nursery and Reception will have a special event on Wednesday with a visit from The Teepee Theatre company and their performance of The Selfless Elf. The theme is 'Kindness at Christmas', allowing children to consider others who may be less fortunate than themselves, while also bringing the excitement of the Christmas season to young children with a fun filled show. 

Christmas Tree Funding

We are excited to celebrate the festive season with our school community and are grateful for your continued support.  This week Mrs Littlewood, Mrs Peters, and our year 6 junior leaders visited Ty Cerrig Christmas Tree Farm to choose our main hall and reception foyer.  We think they look amazing. 

We are very grateful to the following for sponsoring our Christmas Trees, and we are also thankful for all the parents who have donated to our fund pot at main reception.

Carpenter Property Services Limited

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 91.7%.

Christmas Concerts

Christmas concerts will take place on the following days and times.  There will be two performances per year group and parents / carers will be able to apply for up to 2 tickets for each performance.  Tickets will be £1 per person and payment can be made in cash on the door at the time of the concert.  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 complete the Google form below to reserve your tickets for the performances you wish to attend.

Christmas Concerts Refreshments

The PTA will be providing refreshments at all of the Christmas concerts. We hope you can support them.

Christmas Concert Raffle

The PTA are asking for donations to create colourful Christmas hampers for each Christmas Concert Performance.

Please could each child donate an item based on the below colours for each class.  Donations can be whatever you wish in that colour such as, chocolates, sweets, smellies, candles, tea, coffee, drinks, biscuits or novelty items etc. 

Please hand donations to the office. The deadline for donations is Friday 1st of December.

A raffle will be held in each of the Christmas concerts . Tickets will be sold prior to each concert and the winner of the hamper will be drawn at the end of the concert.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Christmas Tree – School Cash Back Scheme

If you are trimming up this weekend, please remember that Ty Cerrig Christmas Teee Farm in  Bonvilston, CF5 6TR, currently have a scheme where our school can earn money. The scheme enables participating schools to receive money back from your tree purchase - simply select our school from the drop down in the appointment menu or mention our school name when you pay at the farm to earn cash back for Oldcastle school.

Please see the website for more information.

https://www.tycerrigchristmastrees.co.uk/

Food Pantry

Don't forget to visit the food pantry and tell your friends and family about the selection of items available.  Our food pantry is stocked with some lovely items. Pop in  and fill a bag for £5. Surplus food gets delivered to school every Tuesday but parents may visit the pantry on any day. 

On occasion we are also receiving some bakery items from Asda as part of our Fairshare allocation.  When we do we will have these items available on a Friday and are free of charge.  

Change to School Dinner Menu

11th December - The menu will be changed on this day to pork frikadellons or quorn sausage with beans and mashed potato.

20th December - The menu will be changed to sausage, quorn sausage, sweetcorn, peas and chips

• 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

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. 

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.  

Well done to Milena and Ioan from year 5 who competed in a kick boxing competition last weekend. Milena achieved a Gold award and Ioan a Bronze award.  Great news both.

We were delighted to learn about Lottie from year 5 success in her lifesaving club this week.  Lottie achieved two trophies in a recent awards ceremony.  Well done Lottie.

Even more success in year 5 with Jacob and Jake achieving their RED belt in karate!  Fantastic boys.

Bridgend Food Survey - please see below information regarding a Food Survey

The Bridgend Sustainable Food Partnership and BCBC are collecting information on how people in the county eat, shop, cook, and waste food. 

We are aiming for a wide range of responses to ensure that everyone's voice is heard. This work will shape the future of food in Bridgend and is carried out by  The Bridgend Sustainable Food Partnership. The partnership is a member of Sustainable Food Places, working towards transforming Bridgend County into a Sustainable Food Place. We work from grassroots level  to co-produce a strategy for Bridgend.   The following survey has5 sections with an estimated completed time of 6 minutes. 

We thank you for taking the time to help us shape the future of food in Bridgend. 

https://beinvolvedbridgend.uk.engagementhq.com/embeds/projects/36795/survey-tools/41004 

Oldcastle Toddlers will not take place on Wednesday 4th December.

We will be holding a Christmas party for our Toddler Group on Wednesday 11th December and this will be the last Toddler group session for 2024.

Sadie and Franks

We have been supplied with the following information which may be of interest to you.  Please contact Sadie and Franks if you would like further information. 

Circuit Training Class in Oldcastle Primary - pop along on a Monday evening or view the information on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/lizandtonyclass 

• 4th December - Panto Trip Years 1 to 6

• 4th December - Nursery and Reception Christmas show for children

• 6th December - Inset Day

• 12th December - Christmas Dinner Day

• 20th December - Last day of term

• 20th December to 5th January - Christmas Holiday

The next Parents Evenings meetings are planned for week beginning 24th March 2025.

Inset Days 2024/25

• Monday 2nd September 2024

• Friday 6th December 2024

• Friday 21st February 2025

• Friday 11th April 2025

• Monday 2nd June 2025

• Monday 21st July 2025

Health and Wellbeing / PE Days

• Nursery - Thursday

• Reception -  Wednesday

• Year 1 - Monday

• Year 2 - Tuesday

• Year 3 - Friday

• Year 4 - Friday

• Year 5 - Friday

• Year 6 - Friday

Christmas Wreath Making

Another lovely Christmas Wreath making workshop was arranged by our PTA on Tuesday evening. Thank you to everyone who attended.  The wreaths all looked stunning. Thank you to Sally, Kim, and Lowri for making the event a success.

Christmas Crafts with Baobab Bach

We had some very creative children visit the Baobab Bach gardens at Ty Penybont this week. We were so pleased to see your creations—they look very festive. Baobab Bach were delighted to see the wonderful decorations and Barney loved his visit too!

Nursery Language and Play

In our LAP session this week, we read the book ‘Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus’.  The children enjoyed using  some musical instruments to dance along with the dinosaurs in the story.  They used their handprints to make a stegosaurus, made some dinosaur fossils and the letter ‘d’ out of playdough.  The children also sang some lovely songs that they had been learning in nursery. Da iawn plant! 

Language and Play 

In our final LAP session, 5 & 6 continued reading ‘The Twits’ by Roald Dahl.  We looked at the characters, the Muggle-Wumps and Roly Poly Bird and how they worked together to get their own back on Mr and Mrs Twit for their cruel behaviour.  The children then had fun making their own Muggle-Wumps from pipe cleaners and Roly-Poly Birds out of paper plates.  They did a brilliant job! 

This week in the Nursery we have been working very hard, we have been practising our Nativity.   We have been using 5 frames to subitise and think about how many more.  

We have finished our mini- me and have been very creative. We also went to the 4D room and used Google Earth to find Wales and Bridgend.  We even found our school! 

Tennis

Class 3C had a lovely afternoon learning to play tennis today.

Year 4 leading their learning, answering one of their questions - why do we poop? We learned how the body digests food, releases the nutrients and how the intestines move solid waste from the body. 

Class 3D loved their outdoor learning session today with Mr Murdoch.

4S didn't let the rain stop their fun learning outdoors with the help of Brynteg.

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.