HYDREF-AUTUMN 2016

Name: Tutor Group:

Visit our website: www.castellalun.com Follow us on Twitter: @CastellAlun The Headteacher’s weekly blog is also on the website.

NEWSLETTER - CYLCHLYTHYR REAL WELSH DRAGONS

Students have had their business acumen put to the test in the

name of charity and education. As part of their Welsh Baccalaure-

ate qualification studies, Year 10 learners delivered presentations

on potential business ideas to a panel of “dragons” in their “lair”.

On top of that, students also had to devise ways to turn a profit

from their businesses using a £5 grant from Hope House Children’s

Hospice. The proceeds from their endeavours would then go back to

Hope House in the form of a donation. Almost 50 sets of students

presented their ideas to a panel of judges, including representa-

tives from MBNA, Glyndwr University and NWN Media. Among

the pitches put forward were car wash services, Christmas cards

and decorations, bake sales, smoothies, bath bombs and lip balms.

Mr Simon Jones, Castell Alun Welsh Baccalaureate Co-ordinator

said “Our Year 10 students have been working alongside their

group tutors for weeks on these pitches in the hope of being

awarded £5 for their business ideas. Every group knows how

important it is to turn the £5 into profit for an amazing local

charity and this explains the hours of effort that they have

committed to the task. I am proud of the professional pitches our

students have been presenting to the panel of representatives and

anyone listening to them would quickly see the high level of

business acumen already being shown by these students.”

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

On the last week of September, pack a warm

sleeping bag they said, off we went to the

Denbighshire Moors, the back and beyond. We forgot

to ‘break in’ our boots, so blister plasters were used to

patch up the raw bits. It was tough, boggy, and on a

few occasions we had to relocate, the correct phrase

for getting lost.

Cooking was slow, no Jetboil or even a camping gas

stove, just soggy meths that just about warmed the

pot noodles. They were right about the sleeping bag,

but forgot to mention that ear plugs would have been

great to block out the noise of the hurricane.

Day 2 was a ten mile joyous walk to the foothills of

the Clwyds, and a campsite with facilities to make

your eyes water. A bit of rain did little to dampen our

spirits.

Day 3 An early start, up the hills, even ones we

weren’t meant to go up, before our parents could find

us at a tiny car park, before heading off to McDonalds

for a reality check and 16 chicken nuggets!

But you know what? We’d do it again in a heartbeat.

It was great! By Ruth Cooper and Sian Evans

ECO-COUNCIL

The Eco-Council is an organisation of students from Year 7, 8 and

9. We meet twice every half term to discuss ways to improve the

environment around the school. This year we will focus on

recycling and litter. In the first meeting we discussed our schedule

and plans and ideas for the year. We have now already put

together a programme for new recycling bins to encourage

students to be more

“green” around our

campus. These

recycling bins have

already been placed

in every classroom

and we will be

promoting their

correct use next half

term. By Lily Burt

and Nicky Rush

Our Year 7 have settled into school life very quickly and are already making strong progress. Students have made the most of all the opportunities on offer. A number of students have already gained bronze and indeed silver merit certificates and the Year 7 Council has been chosen.

ALREADY PART OF THE FAMILY

GIDEONS VISIT SCHOOL

New Year 7 Students at Castell Alun have been

visited by the Gideons and each student was

given a copy of the New Testament. Each year

the Gideons visit thousands of British

secondary schools and gatherings of university

and college students, along with making

personal presentations to medical personnel and uniformed services. The

215 Castell Alun Year 7 students not only learned about the work of the Gideons, but also were encouraged to consider

ways in which to overcome crises and indeed meet the challenges of everyday life, such as embarking on a career or simply

dealing with anxiety. They were told stories of how their free gift had helped numerous people who were struggling with

the challenges of life.

CASTELL ALUN’S BEST EVER RESULTS

It seems like a little while ago now….things move on so fast, however, parents and students were thrilled with Castell Alun’s exceptional GCSE results in summer. For the first time ever, the higher grade pass rates in English Language and Mathematics were both in excess of 80%, with well over three quarters of all students at Castell Alun achieving the national benchmark of five A* - C GCSE grades including higher grade passes in English and Maths. Perhaps even more striking for this mixed ability cohort however was the fact that 55 students gained an amazing five or more A or A* grades that included English and Maths. Furthermore, serving only to endorse the school’s unswerving vision and commitment to truly compre-hensive education, 95% of the entire Year 11 group claimed at least 5 higher grade passes. In addition to all this, 95% of all students were also awarded the Welsh Baccalaureate Intermediate Diploma.

And the story didn’t end there! We sent more students off to university this year than ever before. In a tremen-dous year of Sixth Form results the school not only saw its students accept a record number of places on tradi-tional top Oxford, Cambridge and Russell Group Univer-sity courses, but also had a number of hard-working, gifted young adults achieve places on highly acclaimed diverse niche courses around Great Britain. In a bumper year, over a quarter of all grades awarded were at A or A*. Furthermore, from a truly comprehensive open Sixth Form intake, 70% of all students secured 3 or more A*-C grade passes with every single student managing to achieve the national measure of ‘Level 3 Threshold’, equating to 2 or more A level passes or equivalent. The Castell Alun Sixth Form is now larger than ever before.

As a community, we recently mourned the loss of a quite exceptional man, our Chair of Governors, Cllr. Tom Jones. Cllr. Jones led the governing body of the school for over 40 years and was passionate about getting the very best possible for every single boy and girl in the comprehensive sector of state education. He was, without doubt, a man whose influence was beyond measure on all who knew him. The school wishes to dedicate this wonderful set of results for students of all abilities and backgrounds to his memory.

Dates for the Diary...

21st – 25th November Year 11 Trial Examinations Wednesday 30th Nov Year 8 Parents’ Eve (4pm – 6.30pm) Monday 5th Dec Year 7 MENT Tutor / Parent Meetings (1.15pm – 3.30pm) Tuesday 6th Dec Year 7 ORUS Tutor / Parent Meetings (1.15pm – 3.30pm) Monday 12th Dec Presentation of Certificates (6.15pm for 6.30 start) Thursday 15th Dec Christmas Concert (7pm) Friday 16th Dec School Closes – Christmas Holidays Tuesday 3rd Jan Staff Training Day Wednesday 4th Jan School Re-opens to Students 5th – 11th Jan Year 12 and 13 Trial Examinations Wednesday 25th Jan Year 12 Parents’ Eve (4.00pm) 30th Jan – 3rd Feb Years 9 and 10 Internal Examinations Wednesday 1st Feb Sixth Form Open Evening (6.30pm) Friday 17th Feb School closes – Half Term Holidays Monday 27th Feb School Re-opens

Lower school students dressed up and ran in order to do their bit to support their school recently. The event is just one of the many colourful high points of a term of fund-raising and all monies are disbursed via the School Council, a body which represents children of all ages at the school. Year 9 student, Connor de Winter, commented, “We all love doing stuff like this. It’s how we do our bit I guess. It’s loads of fun too and the teachers make sure we enjoy ourselves.” At Castell Alun all year groups adopt a charity and run specific events in order to raise vital funds for these worthy causes. In previous years monies raised for the school itself have bought a new sound system for the Sixth Form area, outdoor ‘picnic’ style seating for main school, drinks machines, wet weather activities, digital equipment and monies have also been used to subsidise school t r ip s an d musica l productions.

FUN RUN FOR SCHOOL

Success Stories In Golf, Matthew Sandoz of Year 9 has had yet another successful season. Matthew is a member of the Golf Union of Wales Regional Squad and won the Denbighshire County Boys U15 and U13 Championship at Abergele and finished 2nd in the North Wales Boys U13 Championship with a gross 73 at Holywell. Perhaps his greatest achievement, however, was winning the Welsh Boys U13s Ch a m p i o n s h i p a t Llangollen. Matthew is highly likely to be picked to play for Wales in the coming seasons, an accolade becoming of both his talent and dedication to the sport.

Four Year 10 girls have played for the Flintshire U16’s Hockey Team at a

tournament in Rydal. Shannon Samuel, Lucy Jones, Nia Pritchard

Taylor and Harriet Le Tissier all performed exceptionally well and helped

their team to a resounding victory at the tournament, as did Molly Cross

from the Sixth Form who represented the U18’s team.

Well done to netballers Lily Cottle and Lucy Thompson for representing U14 Flintshire at the North East Wales Triangular Tournament. They will now have a trial for the U14 North East Wales Team. Well done also to Holly Atkinson who represented the U16 North East Squad and Tara Young, Lucy Fowles, Erin Chadwick and Celyn Jones who represented the U18 squad. Incredibly Flintshire actually won all of the age groups at this prestigious tournament! Our netball teams are brimming with talent at Castell Alun, with the Year 8 team beating John Summers 6-3 and Connahs Quay 4-3 at the play night just a couple of weeks ago.

The Boys School Tennis Team also won the North Wales qualifying round of schools’ tennis championships and thus qualified for the national UK Rounds. With yet further personal sp or t in g success I ssac L eck i an d team-mates, Will Owens, Toby Rees Slawson, Zac Hewitt and Aiden De Winter represented Castell Alun to a very high standard and are eager to make their mark on the national scene now also.

The current Year 9 cohort encompasses a large number of athletic students, with both the boys and girls teams qualifying for the Welsh Athletics National Championships in Brecon. At the event Issac Lecki set a new discus record for Wales – quite a feat! Tegan Rawsthorne, 13, also won her event, the 100m by quite some way and is tipped to go on to great things by many top coaches.

Cerys Jones of Year 9 has just won a bronze and silver medal in the prestigious AMA NorthWest Karate Championships and then went on to take the gold medal at KATA BKI National Championships. She hopes now to go on to represent her country in the near future.

Sixth Form student, Sam Affleck,

recently represented England Under 17

Boys in basketball in a two day tourna-

ment and has ensured he will be on the

team sheet again at the next

international event. Also in the current

Year 12, Simon Price, has taken the

Welsh Under 18’s Mountain Biking title

and has won a number of events around

the country recently.

Students at Castell Alun High School are

living up to their high expectations in the

sporting arena. After a few superb

sporting years for the school, recent

national successes have once again

confirmed the calibre of athletic boys and

girls being produced by the school.

However, our students successes are by

no means limited to sport.

Emma Baker, Year 11, has been working hard in the last 18

months to fundraise so she can take part in the Gunjur

Project, this project takes young people out to Gambia

where they support and work on identified projects to

help the communities. She will be participating in

identified projects such as decorating a children’s nursery,

organising a sports day with local children and helping

with the very important work of peer education on female

health and internet safety. Well done Emma, we are really

proud of you and your dedication.

Egni a Lwydd

Effort Brings Success

Castell Alun High

School

Fagl Lane,

Hope, Flintshire

Tel: 01978 760238

www.castellalun.com

Head: Mr Graham

Hughes

‘Students Help Those In Need’ Year 7 students and their parents recently went grocery shopping in order to celebrate Harvest. All tutor groups produced a bumper hamper of groceries that will be distributed to those in need. The year group decided that this year’s harvest contributions should be given to the Mold Food Bank in order to support their work with those experiencing challenging circumstances in local areas. Two members of tutor group 7N actually read in front of an assembly of over 1400 people in order to celebrate the event. Jack Rayers, 11, and Phoebe Davies, 12, delivered short presentations on the need for each of us to use the gifts we’ve been given to help others. Phoebe commented, “We were a bit nervous to begin with, but we’d practised our pieces and were really proud to be asked to take part in such a big event.” Jack added, “I think our school collection was a really good idea because it helps us to understand how we can all contribute in our own small way to improving the lives of other people.”

They Really Care Castell Alun Year 11 student, Daniel Roberts, and his Grandad, Mr John Roberts, proved that they understood the meaning of community recently when they teamed up to right a wrong done to the school. Daniel had been asked to keep an eye on the school garden over the holidays and, during one of his scheduled checks, found that the shed had been vandalised. Thinking quickly, Daniel sought to rectify the problem and, remembering that his Grandad had taught him many practical skills in the past, gave Mr Roberts a call immediately. Together the two undertook a renovation project, which entailed them measuring, sourcing and fitting new panels to the damaged property. With the shed now looking as good as new and the garden blooming, Daniel humbly commented, “I only did what any other student at Castell Alun would have done. My Grandad is always there to help. We really value my school and I quite enjoyed the project really.” Mr Roberts added, “It was a pleasure to help and well done Daniel for getting stuck in when he was needed.” The Castell Alun school garden was designed and built by Welsh Baccalaureate students 2 years ago and is maintained as part of the students’ studies.

Daring to Wear Pink Students in the Castell Alun Sixth Form have donned a variety of pink garments in order to support the Breast Cancer Awareness Cam-paign. As part of the ‘Dare to Wear Pink’ initiative the 300 students all made a donation to the plight of the Breast Cancer Charity and then selected their pink clothing, which they wore throughout the school day on Friday. Asst. Sixth Form Student Development Manager, Miss Sarah Edwards, commented, “The stu-dents have really entered into the spirit of the day and were quick to support the vital work of such a good cause. With such a large Sixth Form population we have raised a considerable amount of money and all students have given generously and had fun participating.”

Rocking All Over Castell

Alun

Just a couple of weeks ago we

had a fantastic drumming

workshop for Year 7 with Jeff Rich

of Status Quo fame. The students

were completely immersed in the

hands on practical session.

Thanks to Jeff for his time, and

who knows, maybe some students

were so impressed that they'll be

the next generation of rock stars.