Year 1- Retelling the Story of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’
In English this week, Year 1 have been learning the story of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. Today, they retold the story with accompanying actions and loud, clear voices. We retold the repeated part as a whole class but each took one of the settings to retell as a group such as the long wavy grass, the deep cold river, the thick oozy mud, the big dark forest, the swirling whirling snowstorm and the narrow gloomy cave. We are very excited to start planning our very own version of this story next week with our own choice of settings.
Year 3- R.E- How did the arrival of Jesus change the world?
This afternoon in R.E, we explored the meaning of the word 'Emmanuel,' which means 'God with us.' We then listened to the lyrics of the song 'Emmanuel, God with Us' and created a list of what Christians believe about Jesus based on the song's message. We then engaged in a discussion about how Christians believe Jesus continues to make a significant impact on the world today. Some of the suggestions were, he provides us with hope, inspires individuals to live good lives and help others, and teaches us the importance of loving everyone. To further illustrate the concept of God's presence in our lives, we watched a captivating video of the traditional tale of Papa Pános, a heartwarming story that beautifully demonstrates how God is always with us.
Worship with Rev. Ben- God is always listening
Rev. Ben's worship began with an engaging activity exploring creative ways to get people's attention. The children enthusiastically shared their ideas, suggesting: making gestures, creating signs, standing up, dancing, doing something funny, shouting names and waving. Rev. Ben then transitioned to discussing how, in Jesus' day, people had various ways of trying to get God's attention. He explained that Jesus told his people that it was very simple to get God to listen. The children watched a short clip that highlighted some of the ways people believed they could gain God's attention. They concluded that God is always listening, no matter what and that Jesus taught there’s no need for special rituals to communicate with God. Instead, Jesus encouraged everyone to talk to God anytime, anywhere and to speak to God like a friend. Following this, the children engaged in a thoughtful discussion. They explored the question, "What did Jesus say we should do when we pray?" and shared their personal responses to the idea, "If you could ask God for one thing, what would it be?" This reflection helped deepen their understanding of prayer and the nature of their relationship with God.
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Year 4 Gymnastics - Mirroring and developing a sequence
In our first gymnastics session, we looked at the theme of meeting and partnering. We developed problem solving skills to try out new ideas with our partner and use different solutions to make a good gymnastic sequence. We then worked on our mirrored shapes, developing how to travel as part of a sequence. We travelled on our feet, hands and jumped. Finally we evaluated our peer performances using our success criteria for a mirrored balance.
Year 1- Exploring 2D Shapes
This week in Year 1, we have had great fun naming, identifying and making 2D shapes. We have explored circles, triangles, squares, rectangles, pentagons and hexagons. We even took our learning one step further and were able to identify the 2D shapes that form the faces of 3D shapes. We know that cubes have square faces, cuboids have rectangular faces and can also have square faces, cylinders and cones have circular faces, triangular prisms have triangular and rectangular faces and square based pyramids have a square face and triangular faces. Well done Year 1- super maths!
Year 1 RE- The Calling of the Disciples
This week in RE, Year 1 explored the story of ‘Jesus Calls the First Disciples’ through a sensory story. We listened to this story whilst exploring various objects such as figures for Jesus and the fishermen, water to represent the lake, a boat, fish and fishing nets. After we listened and explored the story as a whole class, the children acted out this story in smaller groups. After the story, we thought about why the fishermen including Simon might have wanted to be Jesus’ special friends. We said that we thought it might be because the men could put their trust in Jesus, because he was powerful and could perform miracles, because he was a good person and because he was also very forgiving.
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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.