What a fast term this has been!  Four weeks since we returned to school following the Easter holidays and what a lot we have crammed in.  We hope you have managed to catch up on your child's year group newsletter which has been emailed to parents this week.  In case you have missed the email please click here to view the newsletters.  These are prepared by teachers to provide you with an overview of your child's learning.  Year Group Newsletters

Don't forget next week is half term and school is closed.  Children return to school on Tuesday 3rd June as we have an inset training day for staff on Monday 2nd June.

We return to a very busy last term in school.  We will be holding our annual Careers Week, swimming for years 5 and 6, year 6 transition days with Brynteg, our Bump Up Day, and year 6 will be super busy preparing for their end-of-year production, Grease. All in all, a busy term. 

Assembly Today

Today we held a whole school assembly to recognise our recent sporting successes.  Each group of children came onto the stage, and the rest of the school clapped the children's success.

Firstly, we thanked our house captains and junior leaders for helping out at all our sports day events recently.  The children are a great help at the events.  

We also congratulated Blue House Captains - Osian and Bella, following Blue House success at the Year 1 to 6 sports day last week.

Next we congratulated all the children who have attended the Saturday morning Cross Country races over the past few months. 

Our football players have represented the school in matches/tournaments over the past few months, and we are delighted with the progress they have made.  

Our rugby team have had many successes this season and we were delighted to congratulate all the players this morning.  We are grateful to Mrs Evans for running the training sessions and ensuring the teams success.  Thank you also to Mr Durston and Mr Baldwin for giving up your time to help with the coaching of the team.

Three of our rugby players deserve special recognition as they have been part of the Bridgend District Rugby squad this season.  On Wednesday, the boys competed in the DC Thomas District rugby competition and the team won!  Well done Frankie, Boaz and Aaron. We look forward to hearing about your future rugby successes!

Sports Day - Nursery and Reception

Sports Day for children in nursery and reception took place today in Heronsbridge School.  Thank you to the parents and carers who helped us walk the children over to the school.  The children did really well representing their house colour in the events and we were super lucky to have the sun shine for us again. Thank you to the PTA for serving the refreshments today.

PTA Thank You

We are very grateful to our PTA for supporting the sports day events with the provision of refreshments.  Last week at the year 1 to 6 sports day the PTA raised over £400. The tireless efforts of the PTA are very gratefully noted by the school.  

Thank you to the parents who donated cakes they all looked really yummy and sold very well!

Schools Cross Country  Presentation - Years 3 to 6

Congratulations to everyone who has taken part in the Schools Cross Country competition this season. Saturday was the final race, followed by a presentation. Special congratulations go to Scarlett from year 4 and Samuel from year 6 who achieved an individual award. 

Community Food Pantry

Our Food Pantry has had a makeover this week with the addition of new purpose built shelving thanks to grant funding received from BAVO.  We are grateful to receive funding from BAVO for the food pantry and we are delighted with the new shelving.  We have ongoing funding for the pantry and along with donations of food from Baobab Bach.  The pantry is stocked weekly, mainly on a Monday morning, and this is available for all parents and carers to make use of.  The pantry works on the basis of 15 items for £5.

Online Safety Parent Workshop - Tuesday 24th June at 4pm PLEASE NOTE THIS DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED 

We are excited to invite you to our upcoming ‘Online Safety Learning Event’. The event aims to encourage thinking about child development and their everyday use of social media, mobile apps, and device habits while highlighting the increasing risks posed to children by the online and digital world. 

The event will be run by Mathew Jones, Digital Lead Officer for BCBC and will be held in school.

Date: Tuesday 24th June 2025. 

Time: 4pm-5pm

The parent/carer online safety learning session will cover:

• Mobile apps: categories of apps and age-restriction.

• Child-development and maturity: are children ready for social media and over-aged apps? 

• Monitoring apps: mobile apps to be aware of, emerging technology, restriction and configuration of devices.

• WhatsApp: what parents and carers need to know, risks and advice

• School Health Research Network (SHRN): Digital and social media concerns for primary-aged pupils (sharing of data)

• Bridgend context: research studies highlighting outcomes for children and young people in Bridgend

• Reporting and Removal: tools to share with children

• How families can support children: Family Agreement 

The intended outcomes of the session include: 

• The types of mobile apps children are using;

• Mobile apps to be aware of and those that pose risks;

• Mobile app age-restriction settings;

• Encouraging thinking – are children ready for social media and over-aged apps;

• Encouraging thinking around the use of WhatsApp;

• The concerns for Bridgend children who are engaged in in-appropriate

• online behaviour; 

• How to report and remove harmful content.

• Family agreement to build trust and promote online good habits

If you are interested in attending this session, register by completing the Google Form  - Online Safety Registration Form

Barclays Community Champion

Luke from Barclays Bank is a local community champion and visits Oldcastle most Wednesday afternoons to offer advice on a variety of areas.  You don't have to be a customer of Barclays Bank to benefit.  Luke is there to offer help and support on digital and money matters and will be based in the Community Room from 1.30pm. Please do pop in and have a chat and a cuppa.

This week Luke brought along the Barclays mobile van for children to have a look at. The electric vehicle is like a mobile banking office and children loved taking a look around.  Luke and a colleague also delivered a coding session to our year 4 pupils this week which they really enjoyed.

Weekly 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 93.2%.

Oldcastle Rocks

• Saturday 5th July - Oldcastle Rocks. Always a highlight in our school year as we bring the community together to enjoy some fantastic music and entertainment.

• We are really looking forward to the event and we hope you can join us.  We will have the usual music entertainment, raffle, children's activities, bars, bbq and other food.  If you are able to donate a raffle prize or bottle for the tombola please get in touch or drop something into the main office after half term.

• We will have a variety of stallholders offering lovely items. If you would like a stall, please drop us an email on ask@oldcastleprimary.co.uk

• With Oldcastle Rocks fast approaching, the PTA are asking for any help/ideas/support/new members. A planning meeting is going to take place in The Oldcastle Pub at 7pm on Wednesday 4th June. Everyone is welcome to join the PTA. If you are unable to attend but could help or have ideas for the PTA please feel free to contact us at 

Take a look at the PTA Facebook page to keep up to date with events. Oldcastle Primary PTA Facebook Page 

After School Club and Late Club Prices Increase from 1st September 2025

The following information has been emailed to all users of the after school and late club facility. Following a review of our Afterschool and Late Club provision, we find it necessary to make some adjustments to our pricing structure. The increase in fees is due to increases in our operating costs and will allow us to continue to offer the service you expect both now and into the future.

Prices will increase from 1st of September 2025 

• Afterschool Club will increase to £9.00 per session

• Late Club will increase to £2.50 per session

We thank you for your ongoing support and trust that these changes will help us to continue providing you with the service.  Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the school office.

Careers Week - Please share with any contacts you may have

In June we will be holding our fourth Careers Week where we will invite visitors into school to tell us all about their job.  We launched Careers Week in 2022 and were overwhelmed with the support we received and the children absolutely loved learning about different career options.

Our aim is to inspire and educate our children and enthuse them about the array of different jobs that can be done.  We are hoping that we can encourage our community to get involved in our Careers Week by coming along to school and talking or demonstrating what you do in your job.  If you cannot visit but are able to support us in another way, for instance a pre recorded session or other support, please let us know via the Google Form below. We are looking for a range of different job roles to enthuse our children and this is the type of information we think would be useful :

• Explain what your job is and what your day-to-day responsibilities.

• How long have you worked in this job?

• What do you love the most about your job?

• When did you decide you wanted to work in this job role?

• Did you have to do any training for your job role?

• Was there something you learnt/did at school or someone that inspired you to pursue this line of work?

• Practical display - ie show something about your job or do a display, for instance, flower arranging - florist

We are looking for a wide variety of career / job options that will inspire our children.  If you can help out please let us know by completing and submitting this form.

Careers Week Google Form

If you require further information please get in touch with Sara Peters, Grants, Media and Health and Safety Manager on 01656 815790.

• 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 Gethin

Gethin from year 6 competed in the Cardiff Tiger Bay swimming competition in Cardiff International Pool last weekend.  He came away with 4 Personal Best’s out of 5 races. 

Year 2 success

Lois Lee recently competed in an equestrian vaulting competition for Talygarn Vaulting Team and had great success. Well done Lois Lee. 

Pupils in years 5 and 6 have been working on a collaboration with Swansea University on a real life academic research project over the last term. On Tuesday, four pupils accompanied Mrs Littlewood and Miss Ellett so they could present their findings to academics at the university. Well done Henry, Maya, Bella and Ava, for representing the school so well. 

Year 5 Enrichment

• Monday 26th May to Friday 30th May - Half Term

• Monday 2nd June - Inset Day

• 4th June for 5 weeks - Year 5 swimming every Wednesday

• 5th June for 5 weeks - Year 6 swimming every Thursday

• Tuesday 10th June - Class and Team Photos

• Saturday 5th July - Oldcastle Rocks

• Friday 18th July Term Ends

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

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.