We are delighted to be back horse riding with our local Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA Morpeth Group).

Students across our Early Years and Formal pathway are thoroughly enjoying taking part in this new experience. Fantastic engagement from all of our students and we are already seeing increased confidence and skill development when riding, we have been working particularly hard on our balance, posture and communication and listening skills.

Well done everyone and thank you to RDA Morpeth for warmly welcoming us back for our weekly horse riding lessons.

Stay and Explore

Thank you to everyone who supported our first stay and explore session. It was great to see everyone getting involved and having fun. We had four workshops session running for parents and families to share with their children, with lots of information about activities and ideas to use at home.

Our 6^th form enterprise team made some lovely cakes and treats and were on hand to serve teas and coffees. Thank you to Mike Nash, our parent governor who kindly joined us to play some live music and have a sing along.  It was great to see everyone having fun, working together and having a chat and getting to know each other.

Sensology – Waking up the senses

Sensory Art

Sensory Cookery

Musical Interaction

World Book Day at Castle School

World Book Day’s mission is to “promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and
young person the opportunity to have a book of their own”. At Castle School we also firmly
believe in the importance of reading for enjoyment and have participated in this day for
many years. This year each pathway chose a different theme/story or author relevant to
their students to focus on. Early years had a space theme; pre-formal classes focused on the
story of The Day the Crayons Quit; the semi-formal pathway classes each focused on a
different Julia Donaldson Book; our formal pathway had a super hero/Comicon theme; and
6th Form focused on the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

It was great to see both staff and children dressing up for the day as book characters, many
linked to the theme of their class. Enrichment activities in classes revolved around the class
story chosen and included speaking, listening and reading activities, role-play and art and
crafts. There was such a ‘buzz’ around the school as children responded to the enthusiasm
of staff and enjoyed their chosen theme. It was truly a day where we celebrated the joy of
sharing books with our students.

A huge ‘Thank You’ to Bothal Lodge (4116) for their extremely kind
donation of £1,000. We look forward to using their generous
donation to provide an animal experience and therapy dog sessions
within school. Special thanks to John Ternent and Bob Lisle for
representing Bothal Lodge Freemasonry and visiting Castle School to
present the cheque. Thank you so much for this kind opportunity.

National Careers Week

To mark National Careers Week, we had a career focussed day in school. Castle staff dressed up to raise awareness around different jobs and everyone had a great day learning about the different job roles.

Each class set up a window display related to a job/people who help us and everyone had a fantastic time learning about a range of different job roles, dressing up and exploring props related to the job. Our Sixth Form students also focussed on learning about different skills needed in each role.

A big ‘Thank you’ to Asda who provided Aydon Class with some amazing resources for their ASDA-themed careers day.

Castle School has achieved ‘Good’ in its Ofsted report published on 10th January 2023.

This is the first time the school has been inspected.

In the report, the inspector opened by saying “NCEA Castle School is a warm and welcoming place”.

“All pupils are encouraged to achieve their best and ‘shine their light’. Pupils enjoy coming to school and are proud of how well they do.”

“Pupils feel safe at NCEA Castle School. They say that bullying rarely happens. They know that they can let adults know if this were to happen and it would be sorted out..”

The inspector praised the school for being highly inclusive, “the core values of love, inclusivity, goodness, hope and truth are shared by pupils and staff alike”

Other highlights included that ‘Learning is both appropriate and meaningful.’and that‘Staff work alongside other professionals to understand how best to meet each pupils’ specific needs”

Areas that could be improved included the processes for quality assurance of the curriculum and the personal development programme and its wider opportunities for pupils.

Patrick Ford-Hutchinson, Acting Head of School at Castle School, said:

“I am delighted with the outcome of our recent OFSTED inspection. The report is very positive and I am glad that it captures the school so well. I would like to take the opportunity to thank and congratulate the staff on their hard work and continued support for the children and families in this community”

Alan Hardie, Chief Executive Officer at NCEAT, commented:

“I am thrilled that OFSTED recognised the hard work of staff in making Castle School a place where all of our pupils can “shine their light” and achieve their best. This was Castle’s first OFSTED inspection as a separate school and our whole community can be very proud of the report”.

Well done to everyone. As a community we deserve to celebrate this report and be proud of our school.

We would like to invite you to our next parents group on Tuesday 29th November at 1.30pm in Duke’s Hall.

Our sixth form lead is going to do a short presentation on 6th form in Castle school. There will then be the opportunity for you to have some time together over a cup of coffee.
We look forward to seeing you

Aydon Class took part in a community project to design posters to promote a new sustainable planting solution in Ashington.  Our pupils were delighted to see their posters transformed into signs on Ashington main street and they also received a cheque for an amazing £500 towards supporting sustainability within our school.

Dawn Watson, teacher at Castle School said,

“Our pupils have missed being able to be out and about over the past couple of years. This project allowed us to reconnect with the town and contribute to our local community. They were really enthusiastic about making the posters and were delighted to see their work transformed into the amazing signs that will be on show for all to see. The pupils are already thinking about how to spend the prize money in our school playground.”

Well done everyone and thank you to Ashington Town Council.

Read more about it here: https://bit.ly/3p2Wp69

Water bead neck cooler (amazon) or make your own.

• Buy waterbeads/zorbies from eBay or amazon.
• Put them in a container and fill with water. Wait for the beads to plum up.
• Fill a stocking with beads to a level you are happy with. Cover the stocking with a strip of material leaving two lengths to tuck down Tshirt. Place in fridge  to cool. When the beads shrink simply place it back in a bucket of water to plump.

General Activities

1. Try Freezing favourite fruits to crunch on e.g. grapes, blackberries, strawberries etc.  Cut the grapes and berries into quarters for safety.
2. Freeze juice or water to make ice chunks to crunch on or crush up. If using cube trays bash the cubes into pieces before giving to the child.
3. If children chew on their clothes wet a flannel, tie a knot in it and freeze for the child to chew on the cool flannel rather than their clothes
4. For cuff chewers dampen sweatbands (non-fluffy/bobbly bands) place in fridge to cool and place on wrists.
5. Dampen a headband or sweat band with water and place in fridge for forehead cooling.
6. Use water spray bottles with cold water to spray.
7. Make up a container or water beads, place in fridge for them to explore and cool. (DO not use these if your child eats non-food items) Place them in a ziplock bag and supervise play if they tend to eat non-food items.
8. Make up zorbie/waterbead bottles and place in fridge to tip and watch them roll.
9. Chill waterbead squeeze balls to handle or roll on arms

Feet activities

1. Wet large sponges and put on a small amount of washing up liquid. place in fridge- use in washing up bowl to stamp n to make bubble sponges and cool the feet.
2. Footspa with cool water
3. Use ziplock waterbead bag to rest feet on and squidge
4. Play football with wet sponge ball.
5. Waterbead ball refrigerated to roll under feet.