We are already three weeks into this particular half term and, despite the short daylight hours, time is simply flying in school! We remain grateful for the decent winter weather as we complete the final elements of our new build refurbishments and put the finishing touches to our brand new all weather pitch. Everyone is really excited about being able to use the new astro-surface and we are also looking forward to getting our entire car park back.
We were stunned by the wealth of hits on our website at around 6pm yesterday evening as our Sixth Form Virtual Open Evening went live. Unfortunately, we do have to apologise as the volume of interest led directly to technical difficulties and a number of people were unable to view the relevant information until a couple of hours later. Please rest assured that all subject videos, talks from specific leadership staff, descriptor leaflets and our digital Sixth Form Prospectus are now accessible to everyone online. Thank you so much for your patience and massive interest in our Sixth Form, whether you are currently a member of the Castell Alun family or are considering joining us from another school for post 16 studies in the near future. We actually participated in an Estyn Thematic Post-16 review yesterday and are proud to announce that the Inspectorate was incredibly impressed with our curriculum provision, care support and guidance and the opportunities we are able to provide for all of our students at Castell Alun, despite the great challenges of the previous two years.
Well done to students in Year 11 who have undertaken their mock examinations this week. For many this has been a first experience of examination conditions in the school Sports Hall, and nearly everybody has acquitted themselves exceptionally well. The Welsh Government and Qualifications Wales have again expressed their intention to run summer examinations as planned, albeit with some tweaks to the content of certain specifications.
We are sure that everybody is continuing to monitor both developments in Wales and indeed over the border with regards to Covid regulations as we move forward into the next stage of the pandemic. It is important, however, to remember that Welsh Government have said that mask wearing and such mitigations will continue to be necessary in schools until at least half term, whereupon a further review will take place. As ever, we will keep you across all developments as and when we receive further relevant information. We would like to thank all of our students for their patience and support in this area and we are proud of their desire to look after each other and themselves.
At this time of year it is perhaps more difficult to run competitive events against other schools, but we hope to be able to report on further team and individual successes once again next week. Please do keep any individual success stories coming in because we all love to hear about the things that students are doing outside school.
A final reminder for this week – if you feel able we would love you to support CAFA’s Valentine Balloon Race in order to raise very valuable funds for our school and you can do this by following link – https://castellalun.com/wp-content/uploads//2022/01/CAFA-Balloon-Race-2022-Letter.pdf
Have a nice weekend.