Prynhawn da,

On Monday this week we held our Curriculum for Wales training day and were joined by a number of colleagues from primary schools. It was wonderful to welcome these teachers to Castell Alun and ensure that we all plan together as we move forward into a new era in Welsh Education. This collaboration will, of course, be ongoing for a number of years to come and we are excited about the opportunities that the new curriculum is already presenting to our students. Diolch yn fawr to our entire team, including all primary colleagues, for your work in establishing the new curriculum for our students.

We are looking forward to Dydd Gwyl Dewi / St.David’s Day on Friday 1st March. We will celebrate with our annual assembly with the meaningful message of doing the little things / y pethau bychain. The Welsh department will also host some fun activities for our students, including Welsh bingo, a scavenger hunt and some craft activities. We are proud of our position and heritage as a school in Wales and it is essential that we do all that we can to promote the positive message which St. David gives us.

Really well done to Hatty and Megan (Year 7) who represented Flintshire School Girls last weekend and played Wrexham School Girls at Flint Town Football Club, achieving great success. Last week was also a fine weekend for Bethan (also Year 7) who qualified for the NE Wales Squad Cross Country team.

As we look to the future we would wish pob lwc to our students who will represent our school and indeed North East Wales in their respective netball squads this weekend in the Intercounties Trophy in Cardiff – Ruby and Daisy (U18s), Ffion, Alex and Sophie (U16s) and Erin, Phoebe and Lucy (U14s).

Perhaps a little further into the future we also want to wish pob lwc to our lads’ Sixth Form Football Team who play Friars School, Bangor in the U18s Welsh Cup QF fixture at home next week. Also, a special mention to Tom (Sixth Form) who has now been selected to play rugby for Wales U18s. This is quite an honour, di iawn Tom!

We are really looking forward to meeting parents of Year 9 students once again on Thursday evening next week. This Parents’ Evening is indeed highly significant for each of our students as they consider their course offer for GCSE (or equivalent) subjects and consider beginning Year 10 in September 2024. Specialist advice is available throughout the evening from subject tutors and there will be talks from Mrs. Gail Davies on the KS4 Curriculum on three separate occasions during the evening.

Tomorrow morning (yes – that means Saturday!) there will be a Table Top sale run by CAFA taking place in the Sports Hall from 10am to 12.30pm. Everybody is welcome to join us and all of the proceeds will go towards the school. Please do your best to come along.

Unfortunately, next week we will not have a school blog as a number of school computer systems are being updated at Castell Alun. You are still able to contact school as usual and staff will still be enabled to get in touch with you, should the need arise. Our next Blog will be on Friday 8th March.

Diolch yn fawr