Friday Celebration Worship
Today we started our worship by lighting our very special candle for those in Israel and Gaza who have very much been in our thoughts this week. Mrs Ham reminded us that we will be focusing on remembrance next week. We will be thinking about all of the soldiers that have fought in the war past and present and all of those that have and are being affected by the war. The heads and deputies told us some of the things that they will be selling next week to support the Poppy Appeal. We then presented our value award winners with their certificates. Our winners this week were Callie, Mila, Alby, Carmen, Matthew, Seb, Layla and Sophie and we also said well done to Matthew, Layla and Will who gained their pen licenses. We then said a huge well done to our out of school achievers. Congratulations to Albie for achieving his 5m certificate in his swimming with no armbands, Annabel for getting Olivia at Rainbows this week for super tidying up and achieving super star status in her ballet and acro, Darcy for achieving stage 3 in her swimming, Daisy for achieving 2nd place in her gymnastics competition, Callie for achieving 10m in her swimming with no armbands, Cassidy for achieving 3 gold medals in her gymnastics vault, floor and all around routines and an additional overall gold medal, Iris for achieving 10m in her swimming and stage 1 in her gymnastics, Desmond for stage 4 and 10m in his swimming, Eliza for achieving girl of the game as goalkeeper in her football, Annabelle for entering in the 18+ category in orienteering and coming in first place, Alfie for scoring a hat trick in a recent football game, Bobby-Ray for achieving the brown and white belt in Karate, Finn for being a cricket superstar, Charlie for achieving the batter of the year in his cricket, Archie for achieving batter of the batter and fielder of the year in his cricket, Grace for achieving several medals and a trophy for her acro expertise and Elsie for achieving a certificate in her tutoring lessons. We said a well done to Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week with 407 points and Year 2 and Year 5 for being the amazing attendance award winners this week. Finally, we ended our worship with some lovely prayers for those in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza and a song about peace. Thank you to those who could attend our celebration worship this week and we wish you all an enjoyable weekend.
Poppy Appeal 2023
From Monday our Heads and Deputies will be selling Poppy Appeal merchandise at break times. The suggested donation for zip ties and reflectors is 50p, standard wristbands £1.00 and slap bands £1.50. Poppies will also be available to purchase for a small donation. Next week we will be focusing on Remembrance Day in our Worships and our Year 6 Heads and Deputies plus some of our WOW group members will be taking part in a special Remembrance Service in Darwen Cemetery. We will remember them.
Year 5 and 6 football
Another great night for our Year 5&6 school football team who maintained their unbeaten record in the Darwen schools league. They played another three matches against: St Joseph’s, Avondale and St James Lower Darwen. They won each match comfortably and showcased their amazing football talents. Huge congratulations to the team.
Year 5 - Maya Gods
This week Year 5 have been exploring what the Maya believed in? The children were exposed to a variety of gods that the Maya worshipped and the children created their own fact file on their favourite God. The children focussed especially on the human and animal characteristics of their chosen god and these gods were important to the Mayan civilisation.
Year 2 - Science
We have begun our science topic for this half-term which is looking at animals including humans. This week, we looked into how we know we are alive and how do we know when things are dead. We discussed our ideas of things we thought are alive such as farm animals and humans. We then went further to talk about how plants are alive because they grow and reproduce. This was very tricky but the children tried really hard to challenge their thinking. We then went outside to find things that are alive, dead and things that have never been alive. We then came back into class and created a list of things we had found or other ideas that were alive, dead or have never been alive.
Year 3- School Council Meeting
In our class meeting today, set up by the smart school councillors, the children discussed whether we should participate in 'No Pens Day Wednesday'. On this day, the children will not have pens and pencils; instead, we will focus on speaking and listening. Alice led the meeting, and Walter wrote down key notes from the meeting. Every group voted in favour of 'No Pens Day'.
Music with Junior Jam in Year 4 - Steel pans
This week we have started to learn how to use the steel pans in our Junior Jam music session. We looked at how to create various sounds and then evaluated each others examples.
Dance Warriors in Year 4
We began our new dance unit today in PE and linked this to our history topic based on the Romans. We watched different examples of choreography and then selected which piece of music we would like to perform to. The majority of the children chose ‘Warriors’ and then we worked both individually and in pairs to create exaggerated movements that a soldier makes.
Why did the Romans invade Britain?
Today we have started our new history unit on Roman Britain. We focused on why the Romans came to Britain. After watching a video, we added our ideas to a mind map. We found out that the Romans came for our natural resources including iron, wool, tin and gold. They invaded over 2000 years ago but we now know that after Julius Caesar failed, Emperor Claudius was successful.
Year 6 P.E.
This week, year 6 have been working hard on developing sequences in their P.E. lessons. They have looked at applying counter and counter tension balances, rolls, jumps and travels into their sequence and conclude it with a mirror image.
Year 4 Smart School Council
In today's Smart School Council session, we discussed if we should take part in National No Pens Day on Wednesday 29th November. The children looked at whether it would be a good idea to focus more on speaking and listening activities all day or not. It was a unanimous vote with all six groups voting to take part and suggesting great reasons to do so. We can’t wait to hear the whole school outcome!
Reception Rhyme Time
Our first Rhyme Time was a great success! Thank you to those grown ups who came along to join in the fun, Reception certainly enjoyed all of the songs, joining in with enthusiasm, what a lovely start to the day!