Year 1- Year of Prayer- New Life
This week as part of the Diocesan Year of Prayer, Year 1 planted cress seeds. As we did this, we prayed to Jesus to say thank you for the new life that He brings at Easter. We enjoyed some beautiful prayers to say thank you for the baby animals such as the chicks, rabbits, lambs and calves that are brought into our world. We also said thank you for the beautiful plants that are in bloom, including those that provide us with food.
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Barney's Best Bits- Summer 1 Week 1
Dear parents and carers, I hope you all had a restful Easter break. This past week has been short but incredibly busy, and I wanted to take a moment to welcome you back and share some highlights from our week of living life in all its fullness here at St Barnabas. First, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the parents and carers who attended the parents' evening on Wednesday. We had an impressive turnout, with 92% of you attending. Your involvement is invaluable to your children's education and growth. I would also like to welcome the 30 children and their families into our school family that have gained a place at St Barnabas this coming September. We will be in contact soon with details about our transition. You are very welcome to attend our stay and play sessions over the next three Wednesdays from 9.00am. *Weekly Highlights* St George's Day Celebration: We started our St George's Day celebrations and they will continue into next week as St George’s Day has been moved to Monday 28th April by the Church of England, due to it falling during Easter Week. Reception Class Dentist Visit: Our Reception class had an informative visit from a dentist, teaching them about dental hygiene and care. Year 5 Earth Day Worship: Year 5 presented a wonderful worship on Earth Day, focusing on how we can care for our planet and God's creations. They also prayed a special Earth Day prayer written by Pope Francis, who sadly passed away this week. Year 3 Author Visit: Year 3 had the pleasure of an inspiring visit from author Jay Flynn, which greatly enhanced their understanding and writing of biographies. Voice 21 Visit. In school we have been working over the last year on developing oracy across school. We had a visitor from the Voice 21 project yesterday and she was so proud of the progress that we have made as a school family on developing speaking and listening. A huge thank you to Miss Flynn and Mrs Wilkinson for driving the Voice 21 project and to our staff for their support. It is wonderful to see how much the children’s confidence is growing when speaking in front of others which will stand our children in good stead in the future. For all of this week's news in detail, please click here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news *Fundraising Success* Big Lent Walk for CAFOD: Thank you to everyone who contributed to the Big Lent Walk. As a school family, we raised £214 and walked an impressive 2627 km collectively. Hop, Skip and Jump Event for East Lancs Hospice: We also raised £161 for the East Lancs Hospice through our Hop, Skip and Jump event. Your generosity and support are truly appreciated. *Upcoming Events* Tuesday 29th April: Rotakids and School council afternoon tea Bank Holiday: Please note that school will be closed on Monday, 5th May for the bank holiday. Thursday 8th May- Year 1 & 2 trip to Crocky Trail Red, White and Blue Day: Join us on Friday, 9th May for a Red, White and Blue Day to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Year 6 SATS: Year 6 SATS will take place the week commencing 12th May. Year 5 PGL Trip: The Year 5 PGL trip is scheduled for 12th-14th May. Year 3 Rock and River: Year 3 will have their Rock and River adventure on 15th May. All of the upcoming events can be found here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/events Thank you once again for your continued support and involvement in our school community. I wish you and your family a wonderful weekend and hopefully the sun continues to shine. Warm regards, Becky Ham
Friday Celebration Worship
*Celebration Worship* Today, we started our celebration worship by signing this week’s Makaton sign which was ‘How Are You?’ and we thanked everyone for their enormous generosity on the lead up to Easter. We walked 2627.6km and raised a wonderful £214 for the Big Lent Walk to help fight poverty globally and we also thanked our whole school for participating in the ‘Hop, Skip and Jump’ to raise money for East Lancs Hospice. The final amount raised will be confirmed shortly. We then reflected on our highlights in school this week. We have enjoyed learning about Earth Day- thank you Year 5 for your wonderful presentation of learning, Year 3 enjoyed a visit from author and quizmaster Jay Flynn, Reception have enjoyed a visit from the dentist and we have also enjoyed joining in with the Diocesan Year of Prayer. This week it was the 'robes of righteousness' which helped us to understand that God is always with us—surrounding us with His love, comfort, and protection. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Mikey, Alayna and Annabel in EYFS and KS1 and Harry, Carter, James and Brooke in KS2. Well done to these children for showing growth, maturity and resilience in their approach to learning by working extremely hard across the curriculum and always demonstrating our Barny’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready). Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 2 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week with 96.9% and 98.5% attendance and Whitehall Park as our value award winners this week with a record 720 points. River Darwen have won the half term award for receiving the most values points and they will have a non-uniform day and disco next Friday. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school award winners. Well done to Ava for achieving a sleepover, swimming and adventure badge at Squirrels, Callie for achieving a medal for showing strength and technique in her amazing vault, bar, floor and beam work in a recent gymnastics competition, Beau for achieving her Stage 3 swimming certificate, Harry for being the Blackburn Eagles ‘Star of the Week’, Fletcher for being awarded ‘Beaver of the Year for 2024/25’ for being an extremely kind and respectful beaver, Lilly for achieving a super effort award during her recent Easter holiday club and making a fantastic start to her performing arts lessons at Little Voices, Annabel for wonderful projection of her voice in her singing lessons, Lyla for achieving a stage 3 award in a recent gymnastics competition, Jack for being Blackburn Eagles ‘Player of the Match’ in his first game playing for them, James for achieving his Stage 6 swimming certificate and Isabella for achieving ‘Player of the Week ‘ for her wonderful goalkeeping in a recent game playing for Little Darreners. To end our worship, Mrs Govan reminded us about an upcoming Art Competition led by Spring Value Ramblers Club to celebrate their 130th anniversary. The deadline is in 3 weeks time. Please find further information on Class Dojo. We then had a singalong to ‘Oh When the Saints Go Marching In’ for St George's Day and had some beautiful prayers from Olivia, Archie and Cici. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend in the sunshine.
Reception Maths - Odd and Even
This week in Maths, we have been identifying numberblocks which are odd or even. We have been sorting numberblocks 1-10 into two teams based on whether they have even tops or an odd block. We noticed that the even blocks were made of doubles, so they had equal parts in each, but the odd blocks didn’t.
Reception Bird Feeders
As part of our learning on Migration, we have been making bird feeders using multigrain cereal and pipe cleaners. We are hoping our bird feeders will attract birds who have flown back to our country after their migration and give them plenty of food to keep them full up as Spring continues. We will hang them on the trees around school and hope to see many more birds visiting us.
Year 1 Art- Identifying Line and Shape
To start their new unit in art, Year 1 explored the work of artist L.S. Lowry. They explored some of his paintings and identified the lines and shapes that they could see. Following this, they moved on to looking at photographs that they took before the Easter holidays of local landmarks within Darwen and again identified the lines and shapes that they could see. From this, the children will be completing some observational drawings of these local landmarks, ensuring that they replicate the lines and shapes that they can see in their drawings.
Year 6 Class Worship
Today, year 6 took part in a class worship and discussed moments when they have felt genuinely surprised, shocked, puzzled, amazed and confused. These are emotions that Mary would have undoubtedly felt when she discovered the empty tomb and heard Jesus saying her name. We then heard from Bishop Phillip who spoke about how Jesus won victory over death and that means Christians can be friends with him forever.
Year 5 - Athletics
Year 5 took part in an exciting PE lesson focused on athletics, where they worked on developing their strength and teamwork skills. The session included practising the chest push and participating in relay races that encouraged speed, coordination and collaboration. The children showed great enthusiasm and sportsmanship throughout the lesson, cheering each other on and striving to improve their personal performances.
Year 1 RE- Exploring the Symbols of Baptism
Today in RE, Year 1 explored symbols of baptism. First of all, they explored a chatterbox of items which were revealed one by one e.g. a bible, a certificate, a cross, a candle and a christening robe. The children then had to think about what could connect all of the contents in the box. Once they had worked this out, Year 1 then explored the meaning of the Christian symbols of baptism. They learnt that the water symbolises cleansing, the robe symbolises new life, the candle symbolises the light of God, the certificate symbolises belonging, the oil symbolises the Holy Spirit and the cross symbolises protection.
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Thank you parents and carers!
Thank you to everyone who attended parents’ evening last night. We had 92% of our parents attend, which was brilliant, especially with it being the first week back after the Easter holidays. It was lovely to welcome you back into school again and we hope you enjoyed hearing how your child has progressed since the last parents’ evening in December. Thank you for your patience when waiting for appointments and for your ongoing support. If you weren’t able to attend last night, please contact class teachers via class dojo to arrange a 5 minute phone call. A quick reminder that parents and carers are always welcome to join us for our Family Celebration Worship on Friday mornings. Refreshments will be available from 8.55am and worship will start at 9.05am. We look forward to seeing you and thank you for your continued support.
Year 3- Class Worship- The Beginning of Hope: The Empty Tomb
During our class worship today, we explored the story of the empty tomb from the Bible . The empty tomb was a huge surprise that showed everyone that even though Jesus died, he was alive again, bringing hope and joy after sadness. Following this, the children reflected on moments in their own lives when they experienced surprise and shock. Some of their suggestions included the birth of a baby cousin, the unexpected school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Isaac found out he was going to Italy for a football tournament, Naomi, when she got locked in a toilet at a play centre, Ella-Grace was invited to a Manchester United trial and when Lottie was surprised with a special birthday party. We concluded worship by sending a prayer of joy and thankfulness for Jesus coming back to life, bringing hope and new beginnings to the world.
Year 4 God's Big Story - Class Worship
Year 4 Class Worship - Gods Big Story - The Empty Tomb Today in class worship we started off by discussing if we had ever had a special surprise. We looked at how we made sense of it, what emotions it evoked and how we felt. The children exchanged their experiences with each other and then shared these with the rest of the class. Next we shared the story - The Empty Tomb which came from the Salvation brick, at the very end of the gospels and told the story of Jesus dying on the cross and raising back to life again. Bishop Philip then shared his experiences with us and linked this to the shock that Mary experienced when Jesus died, was buried and then came to life again. If Jesus is alive then love overcame hatred. We can experience love, hope and joy. We can rejoice as Jesus is alive! Over Easter we as Christian’s made a declaration: Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. We then finished our worship by learning the song - Praise Ye the lord and a short prayer.