Friday 13 June 2014

Celebrating 50 years - our 1960s week

This week, to celebrate 50 years of The Castle School, students and staff have been enjoying a 60s themed week.

We have all been taking part in a whole range of activities based around the 1960’s – the decade when the school first opened. This has seen the pupils tasting various foods from the era and voting for their favourite, which turned out to be pigs-in-blankets. Their least favourite was Gypsy Tart, which contained evaporated milk. At lunchtimes we have been showing 1960s cartons with popcorn, we have a 1960’s dance today and on Wednesday we had a wonderful whole school picnic on the field. The weather was very kind and the staff and pupils ate their lunch to the tunes of the 1960s.








 





Castle's Got Talent

We had a wonderful talent show this week called "Castle's Got Talent". We had entries from pupils of all age groups and they really did us proud. The confidence that our young people showed is a credit to their parents and to the staff who work with them. There were lots of proud mums and dads in the audience with tears in their eyes.

Everyone was amazing and a special mention needs to go to Nathan Hopkins who compered the whole event with great humour and banter - you would have thought he was a professional.

Thank you to all who helped organise, especially Christine Cranstoun who planned and implemented the whole event - quite a logistical achievement!

Here are some photographs from the event. I hope to possibly put the video on Youtube and then send parents the link.

 Nathan starts off proceedings
 
 Aaron and John play along to "We Will Rock You" by Queen
 
 The judges, Helen, Tracey and Ali - watch out Simon Cowell!
 
 Nathan doing a sterling job of compering the event
 
 Ricky and Bradley - The Winners - well done lads
 
 Adam with his Michael Jackson Routine
 
 Brad, Leo and Dante sing about Pinocchio
 
 Eddie, Dan and Sam play experimental music
 
 Rock Star Ashton!
 
 Bruno showed us some pretty impressive moves
 
 Appleby Class perform some moves to Swan Lake
 
 The appreciative audience - a packed house!
 
 Soccer skills from Kira and Alisha
 
 Lily dancing to Jason Derulo
 
Abbie singing Story of My Life by One Direction to end the event

Friday 6 June 2014

50th Anniversary Day

We all had a lovely time on Thursday celebrating our 50th anniversary. Many staff who worked at The Castle over the years returned to celebrate with us. It was a wonderful time and everyone reminisced about their experiences. We all learnt so much from their stories and we thank everyone for coming. It was particularly pleasing that Joyce Platts could come. Joyce is the wife of the late Dennis Platts who was the first headteacher at the school. Here are some pictures from the day. I have highlighted the roles that the ex-members of staff had in brackets:

John Evans who was a pupil here when the school opened in 1963 and also was the key person who got the whole celebrations rolling.
 
Happy Birthday Castle School
 
Pupils present and past
 
 
 Joyce Platts (wife of the late Dennis Platts) and Jon Hewitt (Current Headteacher)
 

 Cathy Thurneysson, Elsie Cooper and Rosie Pringle (teaching assistants)

 Ola White in the green (deputy headteacher) talking to Sue Bourne (Senior Management Team), Sue Hayes (teaching assistant), Francesca Crook (teaching assistant) and John Evans with his partner Pat
 
Kate Dress (current governor), John Evans and Pat Meacham, Anne Butterworth (physiotherapist), Tracey Warwick (current governor), Margaret West (teaching assistant)

Two colleagues celebrating with a well-deserved cup of tea after a tour of the school
 

 Cythia Gingell (Deputy Headteacher)
 

 Adam Veness on the right (old Castleonian) with present pupils

 Carol Winter (on the PTA and cut the first turf for hydro-pool)

An amazing spread of cakes made by the students in Tintagel Class

Thursday 5 June 2014

Our bugs are rubbish!!

Pendragon class have been learning all about rubbish in their Citizenship lessons.  As part of this work, they've looked at good and bad environments around school and the wider community; thought about the impact of droppinig rubbish and who is responsible; thought about how to improve the school environment; and even made a rubbish rap! Their final mission was to create a bug from rubbish.  This is what they created...