Year 4 - P.E. Teamwork
On Tuesdays this half term, the Year 4s will be developing orienteering skills. This week was all about teamwork and trust. We played some games that required each group to work as a team in order to achieve a common goal. The hoop challenges involved passing the hoop round the circle without letting go of hands. The bench challenges involved the children swapping places with each other without stepping off the bench. All challenges required a clear plan, trust and support. The children were definitely demonstrating these qualities by the end of the lesson.
Year 4 - English: Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs
Our new English unit started with a bang on Monday. We watched a clip from the London New Year’s Eve firework display and noted down a variety of verbs, adjectives and adverbs to create our own word banks. Once we had these we used the words to create a fast poem to describe how fireworks move and create patterns in the sky. Some of the children were also chosen to read out their fabulous poetry to the class.
Year 2 - English
In English this week we have started to read our new book. It is called ‘THE KING OF SPACE!!!’ It is a very exciting book about a boy called Rex who has big plans to conquer the universe. Today we read the first half of our book and explored any new vocabulary we came across. One word we chose to focus on was conquer. We defined it, founds words with the same meaning, found words with the opposite meaning and wrote our own sentence using the word conquer. After that, it was the children’s turn to practice their reading. Now because The king of space is rather exciting, we tried hard to put lots of expression into our reading and sound like an evil child genius about to take over the universe. We have loved reading our book and are looking forward to create our own story about taking over the universe!!!
Year 6 - Debt Awareness
Year 6 had a visit from Debt Aware, this week. The focus of this session was gambling and borrowing. The children looked at how the government and families spend money; explored the ways in which people can borrow money and why; talked about the potential dangers of short-term (pay day) loans and thought about what to look for when deciding whether to borrow money. In addition to this, we thought about what gambling is, the different types of gambling and why people might gamble. We played a few games and watched the Grand National, placing bets with pretend money.
Reception: Looking after our grown ups
Today in our PSHE session, we discussed how our grown ups look after us. Mrs Wilkinson explained that they do lots of jobs for us and look after us all so well because they love us very much. Mrs Wilkinson said sometimes our grown ups can be a little sad or tired because of all of the jobs they have to do. We discussed how we have helped our grown ups before. Ralphi said he has helped his Mummy with the washing, Eleanor said she has helped her Mummy with the cooking and Fiia said she helped her Mummy tidy up when she was sick. We discussed how hugs can make us feel really happy. We all hugged each other and all of our faces were beaming! Mrs Wilkinson then taught the children how to give each other a back massage. The children really enjoyed it and said they would do it on their grown ups to help them relax and would give them lots of hugs too.
Spring 2- Week 1 Collective Worship- Life in all its fullness & Year of Prayer
This morning in Collective Worship our WOW (Worship our Way) group showed us the special way of praying this week as part of the Year of Prayer across Blackburn Diocese. This week we will be writing our fears and worries on a piece of paper and then fold it into a paper aeroplane. We can then have fun throwing it whilst saying a prayer to God to take our fears and worries away. Some children shared their fears such as heights, clowns, being alone and snakes. We then looked at the Year of Prayer for the whole school which was 'Where are you today?' . We looked at 10 doodled people around a tree:some looked happy, some sad, worried or confused . We then had to decide which one we were at the moment or we would like to be today. We reflected on how we can feel lots of different emotions in a day and then we said a special prayer to ask for God's understanding and support when we feel different emotions. Next we reflected on our school vision and how Jesus came to give us life in all its fullness and He also said He was the good shepherd and the gate. We discussed that when we are feel sad, we can take comfort in knowing that Jesus knows us, just like a shepherd knows his sheep and He is always with us. We thought about how developing our spirituality can also support us when we are feeling sad and we looked at the five ways of wellbeing such as taking notice of God's creations and different ways of connecting with Him, our family and friends. We finished by singing two of our favourite uplifting songs 'If I were a butterfly' and 'Sing a new song to the Lord'. We agreed that they helped us all to feel happy and also showed our gratitude to God for the wonderful world that he created.
Mad Science After School Club- Glow Show
Today in Mad Science After-School Club, our future scientists explored how we see light and how it interacts with different objects. They were amazed as they observed phosphorescence in action under UV light. They also discovered the fascinating secrets behind how real money is made and the special features used to prevent counterfeiting. The children were fully engaged and are now super keen to find out what exciting topic they will be exploring next week.
Reception: Muddy Monday
What a beautiful afternoon it was for our Reception class. The children enjoyed splashing in muddy puddles and loved the sunshine on their faces. The children are working hard to improve their walking stamina, we are slowly getting there and it is lovely to see how much progress they are making. The children enjoyed climbing today over the stile to get to the field. Some of the children were a little worried to do it but showed great perseverance and determination, well done!
Year 3- Art- Paper Weaving- Making baskets -
Over two lessons, Year 3 budding artists created their woven baskets, selecting colours from their mood boards, tie-dye T-shirts, and other sources of inspiration. They explored the work of Anni Albers, a key figure in the Bauhaus movement, which revolutionised modern weaving techniques. The children practised weaving using paper strips, developing an understanding of key terms such as warp and weft. Once the weaving was complete, the edges were folded to form the sides of the basket, with children adjusting the height to approximately 5cm or their preferred size. The corners were then creased and stapled for stability, and a leftover weft strip was used to attach a handle. They were all pleasantly surprised with how well they turned out.
Whole School Worship- How to make an enjoyable lunchtime?
Our whole school worship today began with the signing of the Trinity by the Heads and Deputies. Mrs. Araujo then led the worship, introducing our new behaviour focus: creating a calmer and more enjoyable lunchtime experience, while continuing to practice the good manners we have already learned. Mrs. Ham highlighted the importance of feeling safe at school, emphasizing that it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure a secure and supportive environment for all. To help improve lunchtimes, Mrs Araujo used a data logger to measure noise levels in the dining hall, which ranged from 79.5 to 80.5 decibels as loud as a truck! Many children noted that the high noise levels were overwhelming, made them want to cover their ears, and could prevent them from hearing important instructions in an emergency. During the worship, children worked with talk partners to discuss the question: If we use good table manners, how could this improve our lunchtimes? Through these discussions, they identified key areas for improvement, such as sitting properly at the table, using a knife and fork to eat, and avoiding walking while eating to reduce choking risks. The WOW group played a key role in visually demonstrating positive lunchtime behaviours. They were featured in photos and role-play scenarios, modelling both the correct and incorrect ways to behave in the dining hall. These demonstrations helped reinforce the importance of eating safely and respectfully. To support these changes, new posters have been placed around the school, reminding everyone to face the table while eating, lean over trays or lunchboxes to avoid spills, and wait until they have swallowed their food before getting up. These expectations will continue to be reinforced through modelling, praise, and reminders, ensuring that lunchtimes are a safe, calm, and enjoyable experience for everyone.
Year 1 Science- Floating and Sinking
Today in Science, Year one learnt about floating and sinking. They learnt that when something is floating, it can be described as buoyant and when something has gone beneath the surface of the water, it can be described as being submerged. Year 1 learnt that generally speaking lighter objects will float and heavier objects will sink. However, they also learnt for an item to float, it must contain trapped air. This was illustrated through the example of a submarine. When the submarine was filled with air, it floated on the water but when this air was replaced with water, the submarine sunk. We saw some examples of this in our own classroom too. When a glass bottle was empty and filled with air, it floated but when this air was replaced with water it sunk. Likewise, we experimented with some cotton wool which presented the same results. Year 1 also predicted and tested many other objects to see whether they would sink or float such as a feather, rock, paper clip, lolly stick and a metal spoon.
WOW Badge Design Winners
A huge well done to our seven WOW badge design winners! We had so many entries for the badges which made it very difficult to pick a winner from each class. Thank you to every child who created their designs and submitted them to the competition. We picked the top three from the age group winners which have been sent off to the national competition which closes this week so fingers crossed .