Geography- Year 5
In our Geography lesson this afternoon, the children used an atlas to locate the world's Seven Summits for each continent.
Mental Health and Wellbeing Support in School
Good morning parents and carers, please find attached the latest newsletter from the Mental Health Support Team. Mental health and wellbeing is given the highest priority in our school and is a big focus on our school improvement plan each year. We know that if children, staff or parents aren't emotionally well and happy then this can be a barrier to effective teaching and learning. In school both myself and Mrs Wilkinson are trained mental health first aiders who provide support and signpost support to children, parents and staff. We also have an Educational Mental Health Practitioner called Hazel Broadfield who works with us to provide families with support with mental health issues. We also have two trained ELSA's in school, Mrs Hegarty and Mrs Lyons, who provide emotional literacy support to specific children throughout school. Mrs Gardner, our PSHE lead also has a group of Wellbeing Warriors that help to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing and organise events. They are organising an Odd Socks day next Monday and have led a poster competition to launch Anti-bullying week. If you or your child are experiencing any issues linked to mental health and wellbeing, Mrs Wilkinson and I are always available to speak to on either informally on the yard or through arranging a meeting. Alternatively, there are also sections on our website where different services and groups linked to mental health and wellbeing are signposted. https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/key-information/safeguarding https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/parents/community-groups There are also services and groups signposted on the MHST newsletters. MHST run a Parent Support Group. It is an online group which is currently topic based. It is a space where information is shared with discussion between parents. Last group's topic was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where we explored what OCD is and how to support your child. There is no pressure to contribute or have your camera or microphone on, there is a chat function to contribute to the session. The next topic is Social Anxiety Wednesday 23rd November 2022 @ 6-7pm online via microsoft teams Please email [email protected] for a link to the meeting.
Reception- Cleaning Our Outdoor House
Today the reception children decided that our outdoor house in the yard needed to be cleaned. They used the brushes, pans and bowls to clean with. They worked as a team to decide which areas were dirty and needed to cleaned. This showed our Christian values of respect, friendship, trust and generosity.
Year 2 - RE - Judaism
The children investigated a variety of Jewish artifacts, explored the Jewish culture and began to compare their growing knowledge to other faiths and religions.
Monday Worship: Remembrance & Lilian Bader- One of the first black women in the Armed Forces
This week we are going to be thinking about Remembrance Day. Mrs Ham asked “why do we wear poppies?” James said that it is about the world war; Harriet said we raise money; Harlow said soldiers gave up their lives to fight for our country; Leonora said that when the war was over, poppies grew in a field; Kaylen said it is to remember those who passed away and Finn said the red of the poppy reminds us of blood. Mrs Ham lit a remembrance candle. Mrs Ham explained to the children what Remembrance Day is for which is this Friday. On Friday, we will be having a 2 minute silence to think about all of those people that died for us. Mrs Ham shared photographs of war memorials in Whitehall park and Bold Venture park. We watched a video together all about Remembrance Day. Mrs Ham then shared the story of Lilian Bader who died a few years ago, aged 97. Nobody would give her a job because of the colour of her skin. When the Second World War broke out, she was 21. Ladies were not allowed to fight in the war and only white men were allowed to fight. Lilian got a job making food for soldiers but after 7 weeks, she was told she had to leave her job as her Dad was not from Britain. Eventually, Lilian managed to get a job in the RAF and helped to fix the planes. Mrs Ham shared a video so that the children could learn more about her and the difference she made. During our reflection, we said a big thank you to everybody who sacrificed their lives in wars and conflict. We thought about our Christian values of service and peace. We finished our worship by singing a song of peace.
Reception: Muddy Monday
This week, Reception visited the war memorial at Whitehall park. We looked at the names of some of the soldiers and what the soldiers wore. The children took time to reflect and said thank you to the soldiers.
Year 6’s visit to our adopted war graves.
Year 6 today visited our school’s adopted war graves to give them a tidy up in preparation for a special service at Darwen Cemetery on Remembrance Day this Friday.
Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal
On Friday in Worship, our Heads and Deputies told the whole school about the poppy related items they will be selling at break times all this week, to raise money for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal. *Slap bands are £1.50 *Poppy reflector key rings are 50p *Poppy zip tags are 50p *Wrist bands are £1.00 *Poppies are for a minimum 10p donation If you would like your child to purchase any of the poppy items, please send cash in a named envelope or bag into school from tomorrow. Stocks are limited so will be on a first come first serve basis and children are only allowed to purchase one of each item, E.g. they are unable to buy three slap bands etc to make it fair and enable more children to purchase them.
Super Sports Stars!
Well done to our fantastic sports starts this week! We had our brilliant Boccia team and our winning football team. In celebration worship, children have the opportunity to bring in any certificates or achievements from outside of school, to talk about and celebrate on the golden podium! Today we had awards for swimming, saddlery skills, being a magician's assistant, jenjitsu, morris dancing and even a card from King Charles! What super stars!
Celebration Worship
This morning we had our whole school celebration worship. We celebrated all of the fantastic work that the children at St Barnabas had completed and announced our KS1 and KS2 attendance winners! Well done Year 2 and Year 5! Each class teacher presented the values award to a pupil in the class who had achieved the most values points this week. We also had some super sports achievements! Finally, Mrs Ham thanked all of the children who had entered the remembrance art competition and the heads and deputy’s spoke to the school about the remembrance shop and how we can support the poppy appeal this year.
Invitation to Celebration Worships
Good morning, a quick reminder that parents, carers and grandparents are always very welcome to attend our Celebration Worships on Fridays at 9.15am. Potential parents of children who are due to start school in September are very welcome too. Refreshments will be served from 8.55am too. Parents of children who have received the most values points each week will be invited to attend via class dojo but other parents, carers and grandparents are very welcome to attend to hear about the great things we have been learning, attendance winners and sports stars etc. If your child has an award from an out of school club, please send it into school so they can receive their award on the golden podium and our whole school family can show them how proud we are. We look forward to welcoming you into school. Yours Sincerely, Mrs Ham
Year 1- English Hunting for the Gruffalo
On Monday we went for a walk to Whitehall park to hunt for clues to introduce this term's story for English. We hunted high and low for clues of the story until we found the Gruffalo.