Wishing you all an amazing summer

As we come to the end of another busy and exciting school year, as all our pupils and staff head off for their well-earned summer holidays, I would like to say a huge 'thank you' to all our parents and carers for their continued brilliant support this year. This makes the difference.

I am sure that you will want to share with me thanks to our amazing staff team for their care, hard work and commitment that they have shown this year as always. As I always say, I am an incredibly lucky person to be able to be the Headteacher of such a marvellous group of professionals.

Of course, I would also want to thank our truly incredible pupils; the people who really make The Castle School the special place that it is.

Have a great summer and we will see all our students ready to learn on Tuesday 5th September 2017.

Windsor visit Windsor!

On 17^th July 2017 Windsor Class went to visit Windsor Castle.

We arrived and we saw the Changing of the Guards outside the Castle to start our day.

We then walked to the learning centre within the grounds of the Castle, where we met a lovely lady called Jo who looked after us and we were allowed to have lunch there.

Once we had lunch we then made our way to go into the Castle through security. We made our way around the Castle grounds and went into the Queen Mary Doll house exhibition to see an incredible dolls' house on display and saw children’s clothing which the Royal Family had worn.

We finished our visit by watching Guards on parade and marching through the Castle grounds shouting out ‘Make way for the Queen's Guards’ which made everyone jump as we were not expecting it.

Everyone had a fantastic time and really enjoyed the experiencing in seeing the Castle that the classroom is named.

More riding success

On Sunday, Chloe and Sam took part in the RDA National Championships where Chloe and Sam both competed in the Countryside Challenge. Chloe came first winning her class and Sam come fifth, which is amazing considering there were 15 competitors and they both only began riding in September. Chloe was awarded a trophy for winning and they both also received some extremely fancy rosettes. We are so proud of Chloe and Sam for their achievements, what's next guys, The Olympics, perhaps?

Prom 2017

We had a wonderful Prom this year as students, staff and parents will attest. It was a lovely evening with lots of dancing and fun. We were extremely grateful to Thomas Fry's father for providing the meat and doing the barbecue, even though Thomas left last year. He has even said he wants to come and do it next year! That is good news as the burgers were amazing.

It was lovely to see all our students having such a wonderful time. Here are some photos from the night. Look out in the Newbury Weekly News when the Prom edition comes out as we will be in there!

Balmoral, Skipton and Corfe Church Visit

Balmoral, Corfe and Skipton Classes took a trip to St Thomas' Church in Woolton Hill. They met with Rev Christine and she began by introducing herself. We then asked her lots of interesting questions, including: 'How old is the church?' (168 years old), 'How many vicars had been at the church?' (13) and 'What was the oldest grave?' (probably about 165 years old). We then went on an 'eye-spy' hunt around the church, looking for different things; lectern, pulpit and font, were just a few . Jo then took us outside to look at the new roof, grave-yard and special double doors that are only used on special occasions, such as a wedding. We finished by having our snack, before coming back to school. Once back at school, Molly and Jess were very impressed with how much we could remember.

Our Wonderful Horse

The pupils at The Castle School thought hard about how they wanted to decorate their horse, given to us by Newbury Racecourse and in keeping with this terms topic of ‘By The Sea’, they decided to create ‘Oceana’ (named by Ellie from Colchester Class!) the ‘sea’horse!

The children visited Mudeford before half term and enjoyed exploring the beach, collecting seashells, learning about seaside safety and we even went on a little ferry trip! 

Upon their return, the children used laptops to look up various images of sea creatures, from killer whales to Spongebob and Ursula the sea witch! They used these images to create their own masterpieces and with a small amount of help were able to transfer these onto Oceana. They then glued on shells that they had collected from Mudeford beach and of course, a school art project is not compete without a bit of sparkle!

Here are some pictures of their work - an amazing whole school collaborative achievement.

on a little ferry trip!

Donnington Care Home Tea Party

Once a fortnight, as part of their Guided Options, Key Stage 4 pupils have been visiting Bupa Donnington Care Home. Today, we were lucky enough to be invited to their tea party organised by Vodafone. As always, our students had a fantastic time interacting with and entertaining the elderly residents. Our link with Donnington Care Home has become even more beneficial than any of us could ever have imagined. It gives both our students and their residents an opportunity to listen to and to communicate with people in their community that they would not normally see.

Emily Marshall (Class Teacher)

Skipton and Balmoral go den building!

Last week Balmoral and Skipton went to Greenham Common with the mission of creating a den! We were very impressed by the dens that the children built but most of all we were proud of how well they all worked together. They showed fantastic team work, cooperation and determination!

Donnington Activity Week

Donnington have just about recovered from last week's Activity Week in time to share with you all about it!


Donnington had a fantastic week full of overcoming personal fears and conquering personal challenges. All the students showed fantastic encouragement towards each other and demonstrated what a caring and mature team they have grown to be.


Here are a selection of photos taken at Mudeford Beach, Paultons Park and Dinton Pastures (where we went wall climbing and canoeing).

Sports Days 2017

Last week we had our annual Sports mornings, for Primary and Secondary departments. Despite the high temperatures for our Primary pupils we saw them showing great determination and sportsmanship. Pupils represented their teams in both track, and a variety of field events offering encouragement and support to one another. We were lucky to have some helpers from Tintagel, Donnington and Dover class to help assist the primary pupils with the activities.

The Secondary pupils were fortunate to have a cooler day and continued to show the same perseverance and motivation as the primary pupils. The morning was rounded off with pupil relays followed by a staff relay which saw the leadership team just take the lead over Tiverton staff.