Collective Worship with Rev Ben and Rev Matt
In worship today, Rev Ben got us all thinking about being creative and our greatest and most generous creator - God. We enjoyed watching two teams of children compete to create the best animal from just sticky tape and newspaper. We also reflected on how we can be generous with our creations in school this week.
Year 4 - RE: Jesus Was a Jew
In Year 4, we started our RE with a little artefact exploring, learning about and experiencing the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah, and we ended with a big reveal: Jesus was Jewish! We couldn’t believe it! There were lots of ‘Mrs Ham shocked faces’ when we found out, but I think most of us would agree that the best part was eating apple pieces dipped in honey and wishing for a sweet new school year.
Year 4 - PE: Handball
What a glorious day for a game of handball! Today our fantastic 4s started learning some of the skills used in handball. We watched a clip from the Rio 2016 Olympic handball final and analysed players’ movements, before heading outside to practise some passing and dribbling skills. Our core value throughout this unit is DETERMINATION, so the children set themselves targets to achieve by the end of the lesson and every one of them made progress. How amazing!
First day in Year 3
Year 3 were super excited about reuniting with their friends and talking about what they did over the summer. The children couldn't wait to go out for a break in the KS2 yard and have fun on the trim trail. They also visited the school library to select books for their personal reading enjoyment in the classroom. Alongside this, we created our own classroom rules, building upon the four golden rules Mrs. Ham highlighted during this morning's worship. In the afternoon, the children went on a shape hunt around the school, identifying, drawing and labelling the different shapes that make up the objects they find in everyday objects. For example, a door shaped like a rectangle, a classroom window shaped like a square and the netball goal ring shaped like a circle.
Welcome back
It was an absolute pleasure to welcome your amazing children back to school today. It’s been lovely to see them playing with their friends in the sun. They’ve had a brilliant day and I’m so proud of the ‘wonderful walking’ and ‘legendary lining up’ I’ve seen around school. This morning in worship we went through our new behaviour routines and we expect to see all of our children following our four golden rules: Be ready, be kind, be safe and be respectful’. We have already had lots of children shining from the inside out so they have got themselves on our ‘time to shine’ recognition board. Well done everyone! We are so proud of our new Reception children as they all settled so well and we know they are going to be fantastic additions to our school family. We also welcomed Mr Norris, our new Year 2 teacher, Mrs Stanton, our new office administration assistant and Mrs Reynolds, our new Reception special support assistant into our school family. We are sure you will all make them feel welcome. As the weather is predicted to be hot all week, please ensure you apply suncream to your child before school. They may also bring their own named suncream to apply themselves and it would be great if they had a sun hat too please. For further information about our first day back at school, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news Don’t forget we also have a Facebook page and Twitter/ X that also has our latest news on.
Back with our friends
We have had great fun in the sun with our friends. It’s been great to catch up and reconnect after the Summer holidays.
Our First Day in Year 1
This morning, Year 1 did a treasure hunt in their classroom. They had to find out where all of the resources are kept so that they are able to get them out and put them back independently when they need them. They looked for things such as rulers, pencils, rubbers, whiteboards, whiteboard pens, whiteboard rubbers, tricky word mats, phonics mats, colouring pencils, construction straws, magnets and story books. Well done Year 1!
Reception: First day at school
We are so proud of our Ducklings on their first day at school. They have all been superstars. They have been making new friends, exploring our classroom and doing lots of super talking. What a super start to their school journey!
Legendary lining up
Today we showed Mrs Ham our legendary lining up after discussing our school rules this morning in Worship. We know that we need to line up sensibly and smartly to keep ourselves and others safe and to be ready to learn. We have also been showing our wonderful walking around school. Well done everyone!
First day back
We have had a fantastic first day back in school. Our teachers are so impressed with how well we have settled into our new classes and we have all been showing brilliant behaviour.
Monday Collective Worship-Welcome Back to School
This morning, we all met for our first collective worship of the academic year and it was lovely to all be back together again after the summer holidays. First, we reminded ourselves of our vision, our Christian values and our British values. Then, Mrs Ham then introduced our four golden rules. These are: To be ready, to be kind, to be safe and to be respectful. We then discussed what these key phrases meant. Be Ready: Jack said having a smart uniform, Miles said looking at the speaker, Ella-Grace said being at school on time, Alice said being prepared with the correct equipment and Sonny said being ready and following instructions if the fire alarm goes off. Be Kind- Freddie said helping each other, Daisy said supporting others such as charities and refugees, Alice said encourage others to join in your games, Wilson and David said look after the environment such as not littering and making bug houses, Renee said sharing your toys and equipment. Be Safe- Chay said always staying where an adult is, Molly said keeping safe with our equipment such as walking with scissors upside down, Charlie Rose said walking to places within school and Jack said following the instructions of the teacher. Be respectful- Bella said let adults through the door first, Dougie said show respect towards the environment including animals, Darcy said do not talk over the teacher. Mrs Ham reminded us that we need to line up smartly so she wanted to see 'legendary lining up' and 'wonderful walking' around school by walking sensibly, smartly, safely, silently and smiling at the same time. Mrs Ham then explained our new behaviour system. All children will start every lesson on green (ready to learn) with the aim of moving up to yellow (time to shine) throughout the day for showing good behaviour , demonstrating our Christian values and a showing positive attitude to learning. However, there will also be pink which means time to think. If a child is not demonstrating a positive attitude to learning or making the right choices then they will be given two warnings. If the behaviour still persists after these warnings then the child will move to pink and will be asked to reflect on their behaviour by filling in a pink reflection sheet during their break time. We hope that this time to reflect will allow a child to move forward positively and make better choices. We are all looking forward to another super year at St Barnabas and are aiming to achieve great things through learning and growing together in a love-filled Christian family!
Year 6 Leavers Service
Congratulations to our amazing Year 6 class for being such superstars over the last seven years. It has been a privilege to have you as part of our school family and we are so immensely proud of you all. We wish you all the luck in the world as you all go off on your new adventure to high school and we know that you will achieve great things and shine from the inside out. I really hope today has made you realise how precious you are and that you from here with confidence. We also said thank you to our wonderful volunteers who support our school family so brilliantly. Thank you Carol, Fran and Glenda. We also said a huge thank you to Rev Ben. This time last year our WOW group interviewed Rev Ben and we have loved having him as part of our school family over the last few months. We sadly said thank you, good luck and goodbye to Miss Horsfall and Miss Wilkins, who have both been covering maternity leaves this year. They have been amazing and have fit right into our school family. We also said thank you and goodbye to Mrs Kay who is leaving her welfare role at the same time as her son leaves Year 6. Thanks for being a star Mrs Kay! We then said thank you to Miss Bentham who was with us short term and has secured a permanent role in another school closer to her home. Thanks Miss Bentham! Lastly but certainly not least, we said thank you, goodbye and good luck to Miss Ashworth, who has recently moved to Yorkshire. She has been an absolute star and we wish her all the luck in the world in her new school. We are sure she won’t miss the long commute to St Barnabas but we know that St Barnabas will always have a special place in her heart. Thank you so much to our parents and carers, you have been wonderful and we couldn’t do what we do without your support. On behalf of all of the staff I would like to thank you for your support, kind words and gifts. Finally, I would like to thank your truly amazing children for their huge smiles, enthusiasm and positivity. They have worked their socks off all year and it has been another brilliant year. I consider myself so lucky to lead such a wonderful school with the best staff team in the world, the most amazingly supportive parents and the most charismatic, delightful children who brighten up our days. Wishing you all a fabulous Summer holiday and we look forward to welcoming you all back on Monday 4th September. Take care and God bless, Mrs Ham