Secondary Sports fun - at last!

3rd time lucky for Secondary Sports day and we couldn't have wished for better weather. The pupils took part in a range of field events first, including shot putt and standing jump. The competition was set high in the tennis ball throwing by Kirra Bidmead, with an impressive 36m! Determination was in abundance around all the activities and this later flowed into the track events. Jake Hunter proving that on the day he was the fastest pupil in the school. But the Olympic value which was most present throughout the morning was 'friendship', it was absolutely wonderful to observe and hear the pupils encouraging and supporting each other.

A huge thank you to all the staff who supported, cheered, encouraged and demonstrated!!

A massive thank you to Cameron, Henry and Duncan of Corfe Class for helping set up, clear away and run the events. Well done to the Sports Leaders who inspired these 3 young leaders during Primary Sports Day.

Helping with school lunches in Ghana

For some time now we have worked with Action Through Enterprise (ATE) on several projects. The most recent has been to help raise money for lunches for children in schools in Ghana.

Sarah Gardner, The Chief Executive of ATE, wrote this before we got to our final total: "Children at The Castle School Newbury have been working hard to raise money to buy school lunches for children in Ghana. Their dedication has paid off and they have now raised enough money to buy 700 school lunches!!! How amazing. Thank you so much to all the generous children, staff and parents that have helped with this fantastic fundraising"

Many of our pupils have been involved, not least Clayton who has been a real ambassador and has been pivotal in getting to our wonderful total of £170.76! This amount is now enough to provide 853 children's meals!

Clayton with our totalizer and the box of 20p pieces being collected

 

 

If you like to know more about ATE please click the link below:

 

http://ateghana.org/



 

Sporting fun for Primary classes

On a sunny afternoon last week our Primary pupils took part in a wide range of sporting events for our Primary Sports Afternoon. It was all very active and many parents joined in the action as well! Here are some photos of what happened:

Secondary Sports Morning

Secondary Sports will now take place on Thursday 21st May at 9.30am. Let's hope we are third time lucky! We hope that we have sunshine and NOT showers this time.

Judo Paralympian Visit

On Thursday 7th May we were joined by Ian Rose, a Judo paralympian. Ian gave a awe inspiring assembly to the whole school, which was both fun and inspirational. 14 pupils were then given the opportunity to attend an Olympics values session. During the session the pupils carried our drama activities and a bridge building challenge.

During the afternoon a PE teacher form Park House School delivered range of Paralympic sports for the 14 pupils. All really enjoyed the archery and seated volleyball.

 

Here are some pictures of the exciting and inspiring day:

 

 

Castle Growing Success at Agricultural Challenge

On Wednesday, students form Windsor and Bamburgh Classes went to Mary Hare school for a celebration day for The Agricultural Challenge. Several schools displayed the work that they had produced over several months of hard work. Windsor Class got a first prize for their Rushall Farm diaries, which were very interesting and informative. Bamburgh students got first prize for their very tasty muffins. Bamburgh also came third overall. We are very proud of our students, especially their impeccable behaviour and the eloquent way that they spoke to the judges. Aaron from Windsor was so impressive, he even made one of the judges cry! He said "If you are kind to animals, they will be kind to you."

A great day had by all. Well done Windsor and Bamburgh. Here are some photos of the day

 

George and Sophie proudly show off their work

 

 

Team Windsor with their display

 

 

Windsor Class with their certificates

 

 

Charlotte and Natalie from Bamburgh Class with their Scarecrow

 

 

The wonderful tactile picture made by Bamburgh Students

 

 

Winning Muffins!

New dates for Sports Days

Dear Parents and Carers,

Due to the rather inclement weather this week we have taken the decision to postpone both sports days due to safety.

The proposed new dates are as follows (weather permitting):

Primary Sports Afternoon - 1.30pm on Wednesday 13th May 2015

Secondary Sports Morning - 9.30am on Thursday 14th May 2015

We look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

Many thanks,

Castle School part of music video!

Last year Josh Savage, an up-and-coming musician and songwriter embarked on a tour of living rooms and very small venues across the UK and France. We were one of the places chosen and he came to us to give our students a wonderful intimate concert of his music. Following this we appear in his latest video - and very sweet it is too. We appear at 2m23s briefly.

Click here to watch the video on YouTube

You can visit Josh's site by clicking here

Amazing volunteers at The Castle

Over recent weeks we have been privileged to have volunteers from 3 major organisations (Vodafone, SSE and Intel) visit the school to help with key projects. We are very grateful to these organisations and the individuals who gave up their precious time to help. Below is information about what each group did.

Vodafone

About 40 volunteers from Vodafone Headquarters descended on us for a day of painting and sprucing up. The team worked tirelessly from morning to late afternoon paining all our fencing and wood in the Key Stage 1 and 2 playgrounds. They did an incredible job and the areas now look really lovely and it makes such a difference.

 

Vodafone staff painting KS1 playground

 

Painting the Discovery area

 

Quick work form the team

The exhausted team happy with their work

SSE

During the Easter holidays a group of SSE employees came in and transformed the steps at the back of the school, next to the secondary swings. For years these steps had been a problems - being too big to be of any use to anyone. However, not, thanks to SSE, we have a really lovely set of wooden steps that allow our pupils to get up and down the rather slippery back.

Intel

For a while we have had lots of overgrown plants at the back of Beaumaris Class. This has taken away much space in the breakout area. Kindly, Intel showed up and did a day's hard labour removing all the plants (even down to the roots!) and repainted the area to make it look much more appealing. There is a video on the Newbury Weekly News site - click here to watch it

 

 

A lot of bush clearance was needed

 

The team removed the trees and took them away as well!

 

Now the painting starts!

 

The finished area - wonderful!