Mrs Ham's Weekly Message
Good afternoon parents and carers, we've had a wonderfully busy week at St Barnabas with the highlight being our Reception class Nativity. The children were superstars and we are so proud of them all. A huge thank you to our staff team for their hard work in ensuring the show was a success and to our wonderful parents for their support with costumes and learning lines and songs. Thank you so much to everyone who came to parents evening this week. We hope you're pleased with how well your child has settled into their new class and the progress they are making. If you weren't able to make it, please contact class teachers to arrange a phone call. I have attached a few reminder posters of the events coming up in the next week and they are here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/events Saturday 9th Dec: 1.00-2.00pm- Carol Service in Darwen Town Centre Tuesday 12th- Year 1 visiting Nightingales Farm Wednesday 13th AM- Christmas clothes, Christmas Jumper and Christmas Fair- 3.30-5.30pm. The children have been working hard in Design and Technology over the last few weeks to design and create products for the Christmas Fair. These can be purchased for £2.00 each on parent pay or cash on the night. Closing date for the Christmas Card competition. Entries will be displayed in Whitehall Park over the Christmas holidays and each class will visit in the last week of term. Thursday 13th AM- Year 3 visiting Nightingales Farm 1.30pm- Choir singing at Darwen Market- All welcome Sunday 17th Dec- 4.00-5.00pm- Church Carol Service. Choir singing (Dress in Christmas clothes) All welcome To see what your child has been learning this week, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news Wishing you all a fabulously festive weekend and thank you for your generous donations of bottles, chocolate, toys and decorations. We are so blessed to have such generous and supportive parents, Yours Sincerely, Mrs Ham
Year 3/4 Sportshall Athletics Club Final Session
Tonight saw the final Sportshall Athletics Club. The children have pushed themselves out of their comfort zones trying new events such as obstacle relay, five strides and vertical jump. Well done to everyone who attended and we look forward to the competition in the new year.
Friday 8th December- Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our worship by lighting our advent candles and reflecting on this week’s theme for advent which is peace. Mrs Ham asked us to reflect on how we can create peace both at home and in school. We had suggestions such as helping around the house, helping out with younger siblings, making our own bed, tidying up after ourselves and showing kindness to everyone. We then presented Leila, Alice, Chay, Elliott, Quinn, Mason, Harry and Oscar as our value award winners this week. Well done to these children who have been working incredibly hard and showing impeccable manners. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week. We then said a huge well done to four of our Year 4 boys who attended a Boccia competition. Unfortunately, they just missed out on getting to the final but they represented school amazingly - well done boys! We then said well done to Ella for achieving her puffin award at swimming which includes swimming 5m, James for becoming the captain of his football team, Tristen for being awarded the best newcomer at kickboxing, Leonora for swimming her first ever 100m and achieving several PBs in her swimming, Desmond for attending his first ever session with Darwen Centurions, Grace for achieving several badges at Brownies, Maggie for a badge at ar Rainbows for attending the ‘Magical Christmas Experience’ and achieving Stage 2 in her swimming, Annabel and Scarlett for also attending the ‘Magical Christmas Experience’ at Rainbows, Sofia for achieving a medal for her incredible dancing, Jacob for attending a magical Christmas experience at the North Pole, Matthew for achieving Student of the Year at Organised Chaos Kickboxing club, Jessica and Amelia for achieving lots of rosettes and certificates for demonstrating amazing talent in their horse riding and Ivy for demonstrating fantastic talent in her gymnastics talent. We ended our worship by saying the Grace and singing ‘We Three Kings’ and ‘Ding Dong.’
Year 4 Dance Self Evaluation
Following the completion of our dance unit in PE, today we watched our final piece and then completed a self- evaluation form. We marked ourselves against specific criteria using the red amber green system.
Year 2 - Maths
Year 2 have been working extremely hard with their maths work over the past couple of weeks. Today we moved onto subtraction across 10. This can be really tricky but using our number bonds to subtract definitely helped us with our new learning. We played a maths game where we started with 20 counters on our tens frames and slowly subtracted either 1, 2 or 3. We will continue to build on our subtracting skills in our upcoming lessons.
Year 2 - PSHE
This week during PSHE, we continued to look at how words and actions can be appropriate or inappropriate. Today we looked at how sometimes physical touch is nice and loving. Physical touch should either be from a friend or trusted adult and if it makes you feel uncomfortable then it is not appropriate. We thought of different occasions where we are touched in a nice way by special people in our lives.
Year 6 Debt Awareness
This week, year 6 had a visit from the debt awareness team and carried on with their learning from last year. This time, they discussed jobs and working life. They looked at reasons why people choose their occupation; the average income of various jobs and potential careers that they may like to pursue.
Year 6 DT
In DT, year 6 finally got round to completing their electronic loop game. They have produced some fantastic products with a Christmas theme and should be extremely proud of their work.
Year 6 DT- Christmas Loop Games
In DT, year 6 finally got round to completing their electronic loop game. They have produced some fantastic products with a Christmas theme and should be extremely proud of their work.
Erin’s Place Christmas Decorations
Our Reception class won a competition from Erin’s Place in Darwen where they have had the opportunity to paint a Christmas ornament which will then be baked in a special oven. The children have tried hard with their fine motor skills to paint the fine details on the ornaments and we can’t wait to see the final result.
Year 3- D.T- Christmas Pouch
This term for our design and technology unit, the year 3 Christmas Elves have been busy making Christmas themed pouches. Prior to making the pouch, the children have carefully planned their pouch and thought about their design in detail. They have learnt how to sew fabric together using a running stitch, designing the front of their pouch and decorated it by using fabric glue to stick on embellishments to give that wow factor. They have also made sure that the pouch is functional and aesthetic. They have also evaluated their finished products by answering a series of questions. We are super proud of the dedication and enthusiasm that the children have shown throughout the planning and making of these products. We can't wait to showcase our products at our school Christmas Fair.
Y4 English - The Diary of a Roman Soldier
Over the past few weeks, the children have been working hard on sentence stacking to develop their diary writing skills. We focused on the life of a Roman soldier and our success criteria included using personification, adverbs, fronted adverbials and inverted commas. They have now published these on the chrome books and we look forward to passing them on to another class to read and evaluate.