Friday Celebration Worship
We enjoyed a lovely Celebration Worship this week and it was amazing to hear about all the great things the children have achieved both in and out of school. Across school, we have started creating our Kindness Kites in classrooms as part of the 100 year celebration of Blackburn Diocese, encouraging children to recognise and celebrate acts of kindness. We have also launched several exciting clubs, including Let’s Go Sing, Foodie Friends Club, Doodle and Dance Club, and Cross Country Club. These have already been met with great enthusiasm. Mrs Wilkinson also set the children a challenge as part of the National year of reading to read at home in their favourite places and it has been wonderful to see children already sending in photographs of themselves enjoying their reading at home. Our Values Awards were presented to children who consistently demonstrate our school values. Lily received the award in Reception, Luna in Year 1, Millie in Year 2, Roman in Year 3, Ella-Grace in Year 4, Lilly in Year 5 and Charlie in Year 6. The Pen Licence Award was presented to Arabelle in Year 4 for her excellent work and attitude to learning. This week’s team results saw River Darwen take first place, followed by Whitehall Park in second place, India Mill in third place and Darwen Tower in fourth place. Well done to all teams for showing our values throughout the week. We celebrated a wide range of sporting achievements during worship. Callie was recognised for her excellent work on the vault in gymnastics. Max was congratulated for swimming five metres. Beau completed Stage 4 in swimming and also won a football trophy for showing good turns and listening skills. Ida and Layla both won rosettes in horse riding for their mounting and dismounting skills. Hollie completed Stage 3 in swimming, while Charlie completed Stage 6 and Carmen completed Stage 7. Phoebe was awarded a rosette for taking part in a dance competition. Maggie and Hendrix both won medals for gymnastics after completing Stage 2 and Hendrix also received Star of the Week for his super listening and effort. Olivia earned a badge at Rainbows for making a present for her leader. Peyton won medals for completing Stage 4 in gymnastics. Cassius was awarded a football trophy for good listening and scoring four goals. Eleanor received a certificate for water skills and earned her sleepover badge. Scarlett was awarded a trophy for being Netball Player of the Match. Living Streets walk to school badges for December were awarded and the winning class was Reception. Well done to everyone who took part. We also celebrated birthdays this week and would like to wish a happy birthday to Mrs Gardner and Neve. Well done to Year 2 and Year 3 for their amazing attendance this week. Please remember the upcoming NSPCC Workshop, the return of Harold the Giraffe, and Reception Stay and Play on Wednesday morning. We ended our Celebration Worship with thoughtful prayers led by Charlie G, Max and Lottie and then all of our award winners got to sing My Lighthouse at the front of the hall.
Year 4 Geography - Rainforest Layers
In our Geography lesson we have been looking at the layers of a rainforest. The children identified the four layers as the forest floor, the understory, the canopy and emergent layer at the very top. Using their enquiry skills they researched the climate, plant and animal life and height of the trees at each layer.
Art - Inspired by the Rainforest
As part of our new Art unit we have been looking at the rainforest and in this lesson we strayed to look at the beginning of a design process which will lead up to creating a piece of Batik artwork. We collected images, shapes and colours to match a theme and complete our very own mood boards.
Whole School Worship led by Rev Matt
Today our Celebration Worship was led Rev Matt and it focused on trusting God. We started with a challenge which was “. How green you are”. we started by singing it as a song. We sang it both loudly and quietly. As part of our challenge we hid Bishop Flippers and a child had to find him. If the person got close to the hiding place Rev Matt asked the children to sing loudly and if they moved away from the hiding place the children were asked to sing quietly.. Jenson hid Bishop Flippers and Mrs Wilkinson had the tough job of trying to find him but she succeeded with the help of our singers. Our Bible story followed which was the story of The Boy in the Temple which involves Jesus going missing in the temple but this reminds us that we can lean on God just as Jesus did when things become scary. It was scary for Mary and Jesus.”Whoever goes to the Lord for safety….can say to him, “You are my defender and protector. You are my God in you I trust.” We finished by reflecting on what makes us scared and how we can help others when they are scared too.
Maths - Informal Methods of Multiplication in Year 4
In our maths session today we looked at informal methods of multiplication. The children completed lots of practical work using their whiteboards and multiplication grids. Using the part while model, the children were able to break each calculation down and partition it into three sections. They all worked so hard in this and we will now move on to more formal methods in the next session.
Year 1 Science: Describing Materials
Year 1 have started their new topic all about materials. We looked at four common materials: plastic, wood, metal and fabric. The children knew lots of objects that are made from these materials. We took turns to feel these objects and then described them using words such as hard, soft, bendy, rough and smooth.
Cross Country Club
Cross country club focused on hill sprints this week and we completed these in Whitehall park. We hope that these boost our fitness by building explosive power, strength and endurance in order to help us keep up a good pace when the race season starts.
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Year 2 Art - Exploring texture through rubbings
In Art, Year 2 have been exploring the marks made on paper when making rubbings of objects with various textures.
Reception Rockpools
The Reception class had a wonderful time exploring rockpools in their outdoor play area. After learning about creatures like crabs, shrimps and prawns who live in rockpools, the children used their imaginations to turn the tray into a coastal habitat. They acted as scientists looking at sea creatures who live in this small habitat and asked lots of questions to understand more about it. This hands-on activity helped the children learn new vocabulary and understand how to care for nature and God's creatures.
Year 5 - PE
The children continued developing the fundamental actions of gymnastics: tuck, straddle, pike, star, front support, dish and arch. Then they developed these actions by adding rotations, balances and jumps using the gymnastics apparatus. The children had time to practice and develop their skills while encouraging each other.
Year 5 - Music
In this lesson, children were introduced to musical notation such as quavers, semi quavers and crotchets. We also studied time signatures and how they are used to count in music. The different time signatures we looked at were 4/4, 3/4 and 2/4.
Year 4 - Computing: Social Media
This half term in Computing, the Year 4 class have been presented with a hypothetical scenario in which all social media has been removed from the Internet. Their task is to design their own social media platform, and in this week’s lesson the children were creating a web of ideas under different headings. They were also practising using the functions they have learned so far in the iSecure app. Each session also presents an online safety task so that the children are constantly being made aware of potential cyber dangers and how to avoid them.