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Year 3- Class Worship- Is it our responsibility to protect local wildlife?
During our worship today, we learned about Birdwatch, a special event where people help scientists learn about birds. We talked about whether we have a duty to protect the animals around us. The Bible teaches us to appreciate all of God's amazing creations, and that every creature has a special place in God's plan. We then thanked God for the wonderful world He made and showed our gratitude to those who work hard to study and protect wildlife.
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Year 4 - RE: What is Prayer?
New year, new RE topic in Year 4. This half term we will be exploring prayer and what it means to different people of faith. We began our unit with a twist on the silent gallery. There were various questions posted around the classroom and the children had to walk around the room in silence and record their ideas. This activity gives a great baseline assessment of what the children already know and where we can take their learning. We will be using this tool again throughout the unit to help the children’s spiritual exploration.
Online Safety: Just Talk Kids
With 20 million users worldwide, JusTalk Kids is a hugely popular children's app - but what are the risks? This week’s guide and the latest episode of our #WakeUpWednesday podcast delve into the safety concerns of JusTalk Kids, and how to safeguard youngsters using the app. Download here >> https://ow.ly/nGtQ50UBtAb Listen here >> https://ow.ly/ic8a50UBtAe
Snowy start to the Spring term
We have had a snowy start to the Spring term at St Barnabas with a snow day at home yesterday and snow much fun with our friends today! All of the snow fun pictures from home and school can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/snowy-spring-2025-1
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Collective Worship- Epiphany
It was wonderful to welcome the children and staff back to school today after the Christmas holidays. We wished everyone a happy new year and welcomed Mrs Irshad, our new Year 5 and 6 teaching and welfare assistant to our school family. We got to light all of our special advent wreath candles of hope, peace, joy and love and the special white candle that symbolised Jesus, as we weren't in school on Christmas Day. We then learnt all about Epiphany and joined in with the rhyming Bible story 'one hump. two humps, lumpety lump'. which tells the story of the wise men visiting Herod and the baby Jesus. We discussed how Mary, Joseph and Jesus had to flee from Bethlehem as Herod planned to kill Jesus. Desmond told us that they were refugees. We then explored what the special gifts were that the wise men brought to baby Jesus and what they meant. Gold symbolised a King, Frankincense symbolised God and Myrrh symbolised sacrifice. Harry noticed that they were the words from our hymn 'We Three Kings' We reflected on how God has given us all special gifts and talents and we talked to our partner about our gifts and how we could share them with others. We shared some wonderful gifts such as huge smiles, hugs, football skills, art skills, our family and friends and the gift of kindness. We finished with a special Epiphany prayer along with the Year of Prayer putting on Holy clothes prayer and sang 'We Three Kings'. How will you share your gifts with others this week and show respect for other people's gifts?
School Open- Tuesday 7th January
We are looking forward to welcoming the children back to school this morning. The main road is clear but the side roads are slippery so please take extra time and care. We encourage you to walk if you can or park further away. Knowlesly Road outside of school hasn’t been gritted so please avoid this with cars. The rainbow path is clear so we advise you to walk up and then back down this rather than the pavement which is slippy. Please ensure your child arrives in suitable boots or wellies with their school shoes in a bag so their feet are warm in school and they can then play in the snow if it is safe to. Extra layers of clothing are advisable along with hats, scarves and gloves. Doors will open at 8.45am. Please take care and we will hopefully see you all soon.
School closed due to snow- Monday 6th January
Good morning parents and carers, Mr Fairbanks and I have assessed the snow situation. The roads around school are awful and the road near school hasn’t been gritted. It is still snowing now and not due to stop for several hours. We have taken the difficult decision to close, which those of you who have had children at St Barnabas for a while know, we haven’t taken lightly, as we always try to stay open. However as the children know, my number one job is to keep everyone safe and that includes the children, staff and parents. Several of our staff live far away and are unable to get into school safely and it isn’t safe for our children or parents to be travelling to school. The snow is drifting in places as we seem to have our own micro-climate up at St Barnabas! Please keep safe and I hope the children are able to enjoy the snow once it is safe to do so. Thank you in advance for your understanding and sorry for the inconvenience.
Year 6 and Choir - Carol Singing
Year 6 and the choir sang fantastically well in Darwen Market spreading Christmas joy to members of the public. What an amazing way to end the half term!
KS2 Christmas Church Service
This morning, we had a special Christmas Church Service led by Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 to celebrate Advent. Year 6 lit the first candle for hope and shared their hopes and dreams for the future. Leonora and Daisy shared their dream of being a teacher to inspire others in the same way that they have been inspired in their own education, Alice shared her dream of being a paediatric nurse to support children in their time of need and suffering, Matthew shared his hope of travelling the world and experiencing the awe and wonder it can offer, Oscar shared his desire to be a kind and respectful citizen as he grows into adolescence and adulthood and Jake shared the hope of being like his parents who love and care for him and inspire him every day to be kind and positive. Year 5 then showed their beautifully crafted origami doves, symbolising peace and hope. They then read their heartfelt prayers, expressing their wishes for peace. Year 4 lit the candle for joy and shared their wonderful metaphors for Jesus through artwork such as Jesus being a torch and a lighthouse. This symbolised the joy Jesus brings us. Finally, Year 3 told us about the final theme of Advent which was love. They spoke about how we are able to share love by being kind and supportive of one another and shared some examples of how Jesus showed love through the miracles that he performed. The candle for love will be lit this Sunday. To end our collective worship, Mrs Ham gave us a few moments to reflect on how we can spread hope, joy, peace and love this Christmas time. We had examples such as smiling, giving hugs and kisses, giving a high-five, making and giving someone a card, encouraging others to challenge and overcome things, letting others join in with our games and giving our friends and family the precious gift of time. She thanked all of the staff for their outstanding commitment to our school family, our parents for their fabulous support and our amazing children for being so well behaved and working so hard. We then heard from Rev Ben who shared a lovely Christmas blessing and we had the pleasure of watching our fabulous Christmas video which showcased all of the Christmas fun we have had over the last few weeks and it brought lots of joy and laughter to the whole congregation.
Year 1- Visit to Whitehall Park
Yesterday afternoon, Year 1 enjoyed exploring the ADVENTure Trail in the Rose Garden at Whitehall Park. We looked at all of the beautiful artwork that the very talented children across our school have produced and took part in a quiz. We answered questions which made us focus on various aspects of the Nativity Story. We then had a jolly sing along! To end our trip to Whitehall Park, we enjoyed a play on the park. So much fun was had by all and it was absolutely amazing to see all the children smiling and giggling away, taking turns, working as a team and making precious memories with each other.
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Christmas Lunch
We had a fabulous traditional Christmas lunch of roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots, sweetcorn, yorkshire pudding, stuffing and gravy following by a Christmas shortbread biscuit. It was lovely to pull crackers with our friends and sing along to our favourite Christmas songs. Thank you so much to Mrs Norton, Miss Beech and Miss Norton for the wonderful food and to all the staff who helped serve the children!
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Collective Worship- Love at Advent
This morning in our collective worship we walked in to the song 'Wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas' which is from one of Mrs Ham's favourite Christmas films, The Muppets Christmas Carol. We then signed and lit our trinity candles and then lit our advent candles of hope, peace and joy. We then learnt about the fourth candle, which represents love. We watched a special video called from God with love which told God's big story and how he loves us so much that he sent his special son, Jesus. We then reflected on how we can show love to others this Christmas and we had some wonderful ideas such as smiling, giving our time, hugs, food for the homeless, giving presents and showing gratitude for everything we have. We thought about all of the lovely ways we have shown love to others over the last week through singing in care homes, delivering Christmas cards to East Lancs Hospice and bringing joy to others with our Nativity and Christmas Cracker Concerts. We then said a special prayer thanking God for his most amazing gift of Jesus and sang some Christmas carols. Whilst we were singing, Mrs Ham gave every single child in our school family a special gift of a small wooden heart with love engraved on it to remind us that God loves us, she loves us, all the teachers love us and our friends and family love us. She explained that everytime we look at it we can remember how loved we are and it can encourage us to show love to others in all the fantastic ways we thought of earlier.