Forest School Fun

This year we have started a very exciting venture with Growing2gether and The RENEWAL Project in Newbury to run a Forest School for our young primary pupils. Each week pupils from Cardiff and Pembroke Classes walk down to the woodlands in Shaw to experience the different aspects of forest work including bushcraft along with experiencing nature first hand. Our pupils benefit massively from this, not only in terms of increasing their understanding of the natural environment, but also in terms of working together and developing their social skills.

Exciting Winter Growth

It may be winter, but our wonderful class teams have been planting and nurturing their beans over the past few weeks and we have now got the first shoots of growth! There was a competition for a box of chocolates to the first picture of new growth and that went to Donnington Class.

This may not look like much, but this is a result of the care and attention given by the class. This will grow and turn into a wonderful bean plant, as will other classes. The next competition is for the most number of shoots in a bed.

Castle Children in Need Day

The wonderful pupils and staff of The Castle School dressed up in spots and beards of all shapes, sizes and styles on Friday to raise money for Children in Need. Lots of fund was had by all and lots of money raised. We will let you know our total once it has all been counted. IN the meantime, enjoy these pictures form the day:

Frankenstein at Newbury College

Students from both Lancaster, Caernarfon and Stirling have been lucky enough to attend a private performance of the highly acclaimed 'Frankenstein' from the Watermill Theatre.  This was performed at Newbury College and formed the climax of our workshops that have been running for the past 6 weeks.

It was a truly amazing experience for all students who, having acted out their own version of the story last week, were able to see it done by professional actors.

Here are some pictures of our students in their workshops:

The Castle remembers

Pupils at the Castle School today, at 11am, remembered all those who have fallen in all wars. We had a 2 minute silence and heard poems from pupils. Very moving indeed

 

 

Fund Raising Quiz a success!

On Tuesday 8th of November, Lancaster Class held a quiz night to raise money for charity.  In particular they were raising money for Special Needs Children in Ghana, who are shunned by society and not given chances to thrive and be educated.

The students cooked a delicious curry to serve to a packed room of 'quizzers'.  Money was also raised through a raffle and donations for drinks on the night.

In total we raised a profit of £631.00 which the students are all very proud of.

Don't forget on the 8th of December in the afternoon, Caenarfon Class will be holding 'A Christmas Café' with stalls selling gifts.

Pastoral Team Christmas Craft Lunch

The Pastoral Team would like to invite you to a Christmas Craft lunch to be held at:

The Castle School on Wednesday 14^th December 2016

From: 12:30 to 2pm in the Jane Evans Room.

Please come along and create a Christmas decoration – we will provide everything you need together with a light buffet and tea/coffee.

Limited spaces are available so please let us know as soon as possible so we can allocate on a first come first serve basis.

Jackie – 07824 551 857   Pauline - 07824 551880

Or you can call the school office on 01635 42976

We look forward to seeing you.   Jackie and Pauline

Harvest Thanks

As you will be aware, we had our Harvest Festival before half term. Thanks to all our parents, pupils and staff we collected a large amount of food, which we distributed to the West Berkshire Foodbank. Here is the lovely reply to Libby (Windsor Class Teacher) from Sue Stevenson:

Hello Libby,

Please thank everyone for the fantastic amount of Harvest donations and for decorating the boxes so beautifully. The collections weighed 96.3kg which is the equivalent of 87 meals for those in need.

Daphne (who collected) took some photos so I hope to upload those to our website in due course.

Once again, many thanks for your support.

Kind regards

Sue Stevenson

West Berkshire Foodbank

Dressing up for Diwali

On Wednesday afternoon some of the KS2 Classes (Balmoral, Conway, Skipton and Corfe) joined together to celebrate the Hindu Festival of Diwali. We created Diwa lights using salt dough, tea lights and sequins. We tried a delicious vegetable dhal made by Conway class with poppadoms and naan bread. We dressed up and created saris out of patterned fabrics and danced to some bhangra music! A brilliant time was had by all

Jess Beasley

Castle at The Special Olympics

The Post 16 athletics team - Luke , Alisha, Bradley, Tyrell, Ryan, and Justin - did very well again at the regional event at Lee Valley athletics centre on Sunday 30th October. They came away with an impressive thirteen medals:- 2 gold, 7 silver,  and 4 bronze. The events included long jump, shot put, 60metres, 200 metres and a 4x200metre relay.

I am very proud of them for competing so well and also for their excellent behaviour and patience throughout a very long day. They will be showing their medals to other pupils on Friday at Post 16 assembly.

Gill Foster

Welcome back to the run-up to Christmas!

With only 51 days until Christmas, there will be lots of fun events and learning taking place at The Castle School. These are listed on the school calendar so please have a look there to see what is on and what exciting things your children will be getting up to.

I wish everyone a pleasurable and productive term and look forward to seeing some amazing learning taking place.