What a busy week we have had in Oldcastle Primary School!  December has arrived, and we have some lovely Christmas trees decorating our main hall and foyer, thanks to generous donations from local businesses and parents.  Our children are busy learning their Christmas concerts in between their normal day to day learning!

Next week on Thursday, our catering team will be serving over 300 Christmas dinners to our pupils. There is always a great buzz of excitement surrounding Christmas dinner day and we are grateful to our catering team for feeding so many children a Christmas dinner on one day!  

On Thursday, it is Christmas jumper day, and children may wear a Christmas jumper to school on that day.  We will not be collecting any money for the charity.  

Pantomime Visit

On Wednesday over 330 pupils from years 1 to 6 and staff visited the Princess Royal Theatre in Port Talbot to see the pantomime, Cinderella. What a great day it was and it was so lovely to see the children enjoying themselves during the performance.  The children were so well behaved and were a credit to the school.  We received really positive feedback from the bus company we used saying what a credit to the school the children were.  Well done everyone in Team Oldcastle on such a successful school trip.  

Theatre Visit

Our Nursery and Reception children also had a special treat on Wednesday with the Teepee Theatre company bringing their story about The Selfless Elf to Oldcastle. The theme of the show was '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.  Children really enjoyed the show.

Christmas Concerts

We are so excited to start our Christmas concerts next week. Nursery will be performing first on Monday and we always love seeing our youngest children standing so proudly in front of their parents, carers and grandparents.

Don't forget tickets will be £1 per person and payment can be made in cash on the door at the time of the concert.  Entry to the concerts will be via the single door on the right-hand side of the main reception.  We will open the door approximately 30 minutes before the concert.   Due to health and safety reasons, we may not be able to allow entry to anyone who hasn't pre-booked a ticket.

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

Christmas Concert Raffle

The PTA  will be selling raffle tickets in each of the Christmas concerts.  Raffle tickets will be £1 each or £5 per strip.  The winner of the hamper will be drawn at the end of each concert.

Christmas Tree Funding

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. We hope you enjoy the trees when you visit for the Christmas concerts in the following weeks.

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 94.1%.

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

School Savings Club

The last session of the club for 2024 will take place on Wednesday, 11th December. The club will resume in January.  

Bridgend School Savings would like to wish all our savers a Merry Christmas. Seeing all our school savers, new and old, enjoying saving their pennies and pounds each week makes it all worthwhile. I also want to thank all the staff, children, and families who support our weekly savings clubs.

As we approach the holidays, we would like to offer children the chance to withdraw from their savings. Your child does not have to withdraw any of their savings, as we will welcome back all our savings clubs in January, but if they want to withdraw any of their money, the easiest way to do so is by arranging an online Bank Transfer. This can be done anytime, including over the school holidays, and usually takes less than 48 hours.

To make a withdrawal, the trustee/guardian can follow this link to complete an online request: https://bridgendschoolsavings.com/download-forms/school-withdrawal-form/. If you are unsure about any details, including Balance, please enter “Don’t Know”. To withdraw the entire balance, please enter “Full”.

If you have any questions or need more information, please visit our website, www.bridgendschoolsavings.com. The website has an extensive FAQ section and a ‘contact us’ page, and all our forms are available to fill out online.

Merry Christmas!

Damian Faulkner

School Partnerships

• 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 Jayden from year 4 who gained a merit in his first violin exam this week.

Good luck to the Oldcastle children who will be taking part in the DC Thomas District rugby game on the weekend in Porthcawl RFC.  Wishing all the players the very best of luck, we can't wait to hear how you get on.

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. 

Football Session

• 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

Year 5 had a visit from UK parliament this week who discussed the structure of parliament, role of lords and MPS and how laws are made. The talk was really interesting and the children asked some great questions.

Language and Play

We had our last LAP session today, and it was based on the ‘Stickman’ storybook by Julia Donaldson.  The children made their very own stickman/lady and decorated them beautifully.  They also got to make a chocolate stickman with edible eyes!  Other activities included making a split pin stickman and the letter ‘S’ out of play dough. We finished the session singing some songs which the children had been busy practising for their Christmas Nativity.  Thank you to all the grown-ups who have joined us this term and to all the Nursery LSO for helping out.  We will be running NAP (Numbers and Play) next term, so make sure that you look out for the email in January with all the information on how to sign up. 

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.