Blog 3rd February 2023
Bore da pawb
The week has felt quite odd with the campus having been closed to students on Wednesday due to industrial action. We would like to thank you for your patience and we all remain truly hopeful that the current dispute can be resolved as soon as possible. Should this not be the case, further information will follow about subsequent planned days of potential strikes.
This morning our Year 11 students have been part of a ‘mock examination results day’. This is the first time we have run such an event at Castell Alun. Our intention is to simulate the real day in August and thus allow students to experience a genuine sense of how they may feel when they receive their grades. Inevitably today some have been a little disappointed, with others feeling very pleased indeed. Those who have not yet achieved the standard that they hoped for will now be able to use the experience of today to help them in their drive to improve personal standards in some subjects. Any students in Year 11 who are absent from school today will be able to collect their results envelope from the Examination Office at school on Monday morning. Furthermore, as we mentioned in this blog last week, our Sixth Form Open Evening was incredibly well supported and we will now be running option talks during registration for all interested Year 11 students in the run up to half term.
This week we welcomed Nicola Eyes from Hope House to receive the cheque for the money raised from our Christmas Market. Year 10 students in the photo Luca, Louie, Sam, Will and Evan were in the group that raffled the signed Wrexham Football Club shirt and raised £500-00. In total our students raised a whopping £3526 for Hope House and honed their creative, marketing and team working skills in the process.
As part of their Level 3 qualification, Sixth Form Business students must embark on creating a marketing campaign. We were thrilled this week to have guest speaker, Nadia McKane, Marketing Director for Platts Agriculture Limited, visit us to inspire our students. Nadia not only gave an informative talk on her role but she set the students a scenario task to create a marketing campaign. The campaign was a new brand of clothing aimed at farmers aged 17 to 25 years old. Our students were able to develop innovative and creative ideas while implementing knowledge passed on from the presentation. We are truly grateful for Nadia’s input and our students enjoyed immensely working with a fantastic local business that takes an active role in assisting them to understand business in the real world.
Christmas now feels like a distant memory. However, last month, Year 7 students went on their annual trip to see the panto at Theatre Clwyd, a tradition that has been running for many years at Castell Alun. The students were thrilled to watch an outstanding performance of ‘Robin Hood: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto’. They enthusiastically participated throughout the performance and demonstrated great behaviour. You may also remember that we had to postpone our planned Christmas concert due to illness and have now rescheduled an ‘Expressive Arts Concert’ for Thursday 9th February. A great deal of talent will be showcased and tickets are available from school at a cost of £3. We would love to see you all!
Developing bilingualism across our school continues to be one of our main priorities. To continue to strive towards our goal we have now set up a Welsh Student Council. The students meet regularly with Mrs Wareing and students and staff combine effectively to discuss ways in which we can further enhance our cultural provision and pride in our nation. The Welsh Student Council is currently passionately engaged in organising St. David’s Day events… more news to follow!
It would be remiss of us not to mention once again the Castell Alun Friends Assocation and please do remember that everyone is most welcome to attend their next meeting in school on Tuesday 7th February, at Castell Alun at 6.30pm. This wonderful group of tremendously committed school friends are always very keen to add to their membership.
Our students continue to love their active participation in various sports and it is interesting to see that the new library stock of books on ultimate football heroes have flown off the shelves in recent times also. Many congratulations to our Year 8 football team who have made it through to the quarter finals of the Welsh Cup after winning on penalties against Y Moelwyn this week. Come on lads we can go all the way again this year! Really well done also to Nell, Ruby, Issy (Year 11), Sophie (Year 10), and Alex and Ffion (Year 9) who represented NE Wales in the Welsh Intercounties netball tournament this week and congratulations to Ruby who won the U16s player of the tournament award. The very best of luck also to Tom (Year 11) who will represent RGC U18s facing Cardiff Pathway this weekend.
Mwynhewch y penwqythnos – enjoy the weekend