Governors Learn how to read!

Last week The Castle School Governing Body got together with The Castle School Leadership Team for our annual Strategy session. We had a very good and productive time and the first hour was spent taking our governors through our exciting new reading interventions that we are using with our young people in school. We felt that it was very important to give our governors a first-hand idea of what it is like to experience one of our reading interventions - such as Fisher Family Trust, Catch-Up or Read Write Inc. The governors had a great time in their groups, led by Rhona O'Neill, Sandra Young and Julie Reeve. It was great to see everyone working together and the governors throwing themselves into it.

We are very excited about reading this year - there is a real buzz about the school.If you would like to know more about any of our reading interventions please contact your child's class teacher.

Kenya-Do-It..... Yes we can!!

On Friday last week, staff pupils and many parents took part in our Sport Relief Challenge to virtually travel the 896km from Kitale to Mombasa in Kenya. Everyone got involved with various activities to try and complete the vast distance including walking and running our special 1km wiggly track on the field, traveling in wheelchairs, cycling on our exercise bike, walking, dancing in fact moving in any way possible. Ali Watkinson, our music teacher was the most inventive - she covered a distance of 2km with her hands by playing scales!

After a very enjoyable and exhausting day we are pleased to announce that we smashed the distance by over 100km with a grand total of 1020km covered! We also raised an amazing £612.66 for Sport Relief in the process.

A wonderful day had by all. We are also in the Newbury Weekly News in an article about Sport Relief, which is great.

Thank you to all the pupils, staff and particularly the parents who made this all possible.
 

Paralympic visit on NWN website

We have had a lovely article written by the Newbury Weekly News  for their website (Newbury Today). Click the link below to have a look at the article:

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/2014/paralympic-gold-medallist-pays-visit-to-castle-school

Castle Stars in the NWN

There is a lovely article in the Newbury Weekly News this week celebrating our pupils amazing success at The Royal Albert Hall last week. Here is a copy of the article, but get the paper for a decent copy.

 

We also had a lovely letter from Richard Benyon, The MP for Newbury. Here it is below:

Paralympic Champion Visits Castle School

Castle School was all-a-buzz on Monday morning when 2 time Paralympic gold medallist Graham Edmunds visited us.

Graham Edmunds won gold medals for the 4x100m Freestyle relay at both the 2004 and 2008 Paralympic Games.

The morning involved a variety of activities including a team exercise where groups had to build bridges out of paper to support 100 copper coins, which led to some amazing teamwork and also to much hilarity. Then the pupils played boccia, curling (with special curling stones with wheels!), archery (with arrows that have suckers to stick to the board) and seated volleyball. The pupils absolutely loved it, especially when Graham showed them his gold medals. At the end they were really buzzing with excitement and at the fact that they had met a true Paralympic champion.

Days like this are so important to our pupils – they inspire and show that, with determination, spirit and belief anything is achievable. I am sure that this will lead to more participation in sports for our young people; something we believe passionately in at The Castle School.

Here is Graham instructing one of our students on how to use the bow and arrow.

Wow - Castle at the Albert Hall

On Tuesday this week (11th March 2014) 17 Castle School pupils and 9 staff (supported by many mums, dads and grandmas) travelled to London to perform in The Royal Albert Hall. What a fantastic day. We left very early from school and spent the morning rehearsing in The wonderful Albert Hall. Then we had a break for a few hours to have a look around London on coach and then grab a bite to eat before returning to perform the Carl Orff work Carmina Burana. We stood and performed with 1000 other young people from Berkshire secondary schools. It is an understatement to say it was amazing. Our pupils made us very very proud indeed. They sung their hearts out and showed everyone that we can do anything that we choose to do. Of course, we couldn't have done it without the support of the staff: Lisa Boorman, Dominie Burton, Ola White, Chris Mason, Sandra Young, Pearl James - and James Whybra for being our parent-liaison for the day; and parents for supporting and encouraging throughout the whole journey.

But there is one person who made the whole adventure possible with her energy, drive and determination is Ali Watkinson - our phenomenal music teacher. She made this a reality and ensured that all our pupils were able to perform alongside some of the best musicians and singers the county has to offer.

Well done to everyone. If you click this link you will find a Youtube video that was taken on the night and shows a selection of the songs so you can see how incredible it sounded. Share with friends and show what our kids are capable of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmXYOqrLYaY

Thank you again to everyone involved - this was a true team effort

Stars of CBeebies!

Exciting news - Two of our young pupils appeared on television yesterday on the show 'Something Special' with Justin Fletcher. Harry and Adam were seen on the show helping Justin to pick fruit and vegetables at Grays Farm in Wokingham. Something Special is a very popular programme and features Justin as Mr Tumble - a favourite amongst our young ones. Adam and Harry were very excited as the class watched them today. You can see the whole programme on iPlayer by clicking on this link - enjoy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03xphgj/Something_Special_Were_All_Friends_Fruit_and_Veg_Picking/