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🌈 LIGHThouse – Special Lockdown Edition
By Ms A Thompson8th January 2021
Category : Latest News
Monday 4th January 2021
Dear Parents and Carers
We have taken the difficult decision to partially close Castle School on Tuesday 5th January and Wednesday 6th January. This means that it will be open only to the children of key workers and to extremely vulnerable children, whose needs can be met more safely in an educational environment.
As you will be aware, unions representing both teaching and support staff have advised their members not to support the full reopening of primary and special schools in Tier 4 areas. In addition, clinically extremely vulnerable staff once again have to work from home in Tier 4. Combined with staff absences for other reasons, we are unsure, currently, whether we will have sufficient staff available to open safely for all pupils.
I am aware that many parents/carers will be very anxious about children returning to school due to the current rate of Covid transmission and should this be the case, we are very happy to work with you to ensure the best outcomes for your child – no parents will be fined for keeping their child out of school at the present time.
In light of the above, if you are able to safely keep your child at home for the next 2 days, Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th January, this would give us the opportunity to fully consider these new developments, update procedures where necessary and decide on immediate next steps.
If you require a place in school, please contact us via the school email or one of the telephone numbers that has been texted to you.
I am sorry that we’ve had to take this decision, for the very short notice given and for the inconvenience this will cause you. We are working to try and fully reopen as soon as possible. We will review arrangements for the rest of the week and give you as much notice as possible about any further changes.
Thank you for your support
Sara Wild
Principal, Castle School
Thank you to you all for taking part and making it such a success – and also for sending all of your lovely photographs in. After a difficult year, you really have helped to show how special Christmastime is here in Castle School
Christmas Weekend Challenge 1 (5th – 6th December)
Castle Christmas Bake Off!
Christmas Weekend Challenge 2 (12th December – 13th December)
Castle gets Creative for Christmas!
Thank you so much for taking part!
We have absolutely loved seeing each and everyone of your photographs/videos, so we have decided that as well as our ‘pick a name from a hat’ draw to win an Amazon voucher, everyone who joined in with either of the challenges will receive a small prize too.
Here is Sara drawing the lucky winners! We will get the prizes to you all in January
A huge well done to everyone who took part, you are all absolute stars!
🎄 Merry Christmas 🎄
Christmas might have been a little different this year and we’ve missed welcoming you into school to share in our activities, but behind closed doors, we have done everything we can to bring the magic of Christmas to life for our pupils. We are delighted to be able to share ‘The Magic of Christmas’ in Castle School with you all!
Here you can view all of our Christmas videos in one place.
Enjoy and a very Merry Christmas to you all🎄
Castle School’s Festive Highlights 2020
Christmas in Castle School 2020
Watch as we prepare our very special ‘Castle Window Displays’ and see our children and young people, from nursery through to 6th form, as they take a tour around school to view all of our wonderful window displays.
A HUGE well done to all of our pupils and staff for all their hard work preparing the displays. As Sara can be heard saying in the video, “Move over Fenwick’s, Castle School are in town now!”
And finally….
The Magic of Christmas in Castle School – Extended show reel of our festive highlights
‘Tis the season to be Jolly’ 🎄
Although things are a little different this year, we wanted to do something that would give us a sense of ‘togetherness’ throughout school.
Every day from the 1st December we had a different Christmas challenge to complete in our classes and as you will see, we have all thoroughly enjoyed taking part. A big ‘Thank you’ to Storm for organising the daily challenges.
Here you can catch up on what we got up to each day.
Day 1
Decorate a Christmas tree/explore Christmas decorations
Day 2
‘The Christmas Alphabet’ Find/name/explore a Christmas object beginning with your chosen letter of the alphabet
Day 3
Play a game together
Day 4
Make a Christmas picture or Christmas card for a local care home
Day 5
Share a Christmas sensory story
Day 6
Try a new food or enjoy some Christmas related food!
Big shout out to our fabulous catering team for Christmas lunch
Day 7
Dance and singalong to your favourite song
Day 8
Explore some Christmas scents and textures
Day 9
Wear your Christmas jumper/ Wear something Christmassy
Day 10
Explore a Christmas themed messy sensory
Day 11 and Day 12
Make a party hat or decorations. Have a party!
Day 13
Sing and sign along to a Christmas song!
Big thank you to Lucy for this lovely Christmas song.
Day 14
On day 14, we set a challenge to our families to spend some together and enjoy watching our Christmas videos
You can catch up here ↓
‘The Magic of Christmas in Castle School’
Our Enterprise Team have worked very hard this term to create a safe environment, wearing gloves and aprons at all times, to enable them to continue to make and sell a range of Christmas gifts,
Over 100 orders of hessian reindeers filled with reindeer dust or sweets, homemade dog biscuits and other festive treats have gone out successfully this year, and we would just like say a big thank you for all of your support in placing orders and your kind feedback. Each venture, each year just gets bigger and better and we could not be prouder of our young people!
A Royal Feast!
As a special treat for all their hard work and success, our enterprise team enjoyed a Christmas lunch together with all the trimmings.
Developing independence is a key focus for students in Aydon Class and they really did do us proud as they worked together as a team to prepare and cook the food, set and decorate the table before sitting down to enjoy their meal together. And of course, like any other Christmas dinner…there was the mammoth task of cleaning up afterwards and everyone played their part! Well done Aydon Class
An amazing interactive Christmas show, specially designed to be multi-sensory and accessible
Christmas for Kids (C4K) are a charity who creates and performs shows for free at children’s hospices across the UK at Christmas time. They have had to be extra creative this year due to COVID-19 and they worked tirelessly to create a digital Christmas show this year, so all the children they would usually reach did not miss out and we are so grateful they did! They kindly offered the show, free of charge, to a wider audience including SEN Schools reaching even more children and young people this year. AMAZING!
Benson’s Letter created a real buzz around Castle School!
The children were full of joy and excitement both during and after the show, the atmosphere was magical. The props complemented the story perfectly and it was extremely helpful for the adults to have the resource pack to allow us to prepare in advance.
It is sometimes difficult to find an online resource which is able to really hook and engage our learners however Benson’s Letter did this perfectly. The children loved every minute of it, we wish we could do this every year! The show was full of singing, dancing, silliness and the Christmas spirit. Everyone at Castle school was thrilled to take part in this show and we hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did. (Storm Knight – Secondary PMLD Teacher)
Click any photograph to view as a slideshow
To everyone at Christmas for Kids, we send our sincere thanks to you all for allowing us to be included in something so special. It was truly wonderful and we loved your 🎵“Silly, smashing, happy crazy show!”🎵
A HUGE ‘Thank you’ to the Co-op in Pegswood for including Castle School on their ‘Christmas Wish Tree’
We were blown away when Sinead and Joanne (Co-op, Pegswood) arrived to drop of the gifts and we can’t thank the Pegswood community enough for their kindness and generosity. So much thought had gone in to each and every gift and we are extremely grateful.
As you can see, Norham Class were filled with excitement when they opened all of the gifts on behalf of school.
Click any photograph to view as a sideshow
Thank you once again and we wish you all a 
Wonderful Christmas
Wonderful Christmas 🎄 LIGHThouse – Issue 15 – 10/12/2020 click image below:
🎄 LIGHThouse – issue 14 – 10/12/2020 click image below:
