Year 3- R.E-The Story of Moses and The Ten Commandments
In today’s R.E. lesson, the children began by discussing the relevance of the Ten Commandments in today’s world. They explored whether these ancient rules still apply and why they might be important in modern life. The children unanimously agreed that the Ten Commandments are still very relevant, as without them, society would face chaos and disorder. Following this discussion, the children listened to the story of Moses and the giving of the Ten Commandments. They reflected on how these commandments, which were received by Moses on Mount Sinai, continue to influence religious and moral beliefs today. The children explored how these commandments promote values such as respect, honesty, and responsibility, and how they shape the way people live their lives according to religious teachings.
Whole School Worship - V.E. Day & The Lord’s Prayer
Our worship began with an introduction to V.E. Day. Mrs Ham gave a short explanation about the Second World War and the celebrations that took place after Europe’s victory in 1945. There will be a number of worships and activities taking place across the week to commemorate 80 years since the end of World War II, including our Red, White and Blue day on Friday. Mrs Ham and Mrs Araujo then launched this week’s Year of Prayer activities. Our focus was then directed to The Lord’s Prayer. Mrs Ham spent some time explaining the first few lines to make sure everyone in our school family understands what they are praying about when they recite The Lord’s Prayer. We focused particularly on the word “hallowed” and that this means holy. We shared our ideas of how we can carry out God’s wishes and that we can all try to be like saints. The children had some extremely thoughtful ideas about welcoming people and why it is important to make others feel welcome. We finished by reciting The Lord’s Prayer once more and then singing one of our favourite worship songs, My Lighthouse.
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Barney's Best Bits- Summer 1 Week 2
Dear parents and carers, we've had an incredibly busy week of living life in all its fullness here at St Barnabas. I'm excited to share some of the great things we have achieved: *Rotakids and School Council Afternoon Tea: It was a wonderful celebration of our school family living life to the fullest. The children enjoyed chatting, laughing, and drinking hot chocolate together. Thank you to all of the staff who supported the event. *Bee Stinger High Fives Netball Competition: Our team won the heat and are through to the final – a fantastic achievement! Thanks to Mrs Gardner and Mrs Wilkinson for supporting. *Year 5 Peer Mediation Training: Our Year 5 students took part in an enriching peer mediation training session in association with Quakers and DACA, equipping them with valuable skills to assist their peers. *Year of Prayer: Our playground lines have been a wonderful reminder to follow the right path, as taught by Jesus. It's been heartwarming to see the children engaging with different ways to pray each week through our Diocesan Year of Prayer. *KS2 Square Root Day: Our Key Stage 2 children enthusiastically participated in Square Root Day, making learning both fun and educational. *Cross Country Competition: We witnessed a great team effort, with Emily winning gold and Carter securing silver in Year 4. A big congratulations to them all for their effort and determination on the hottest day of the year so far! Thank you to Mr Norris and Mrs Gardner for your support and to parents for transporting and supporting. *Choir: It's wonderful to see new members joining our choir, which now meets during Thursday lunchtime. *River Darwen House Team Disco: A fun and successful event enjoyed by all. A huge thanks to Mr Bloomfield for leading and to Miss Lohar for supporting. *Random Acts of Kindness: Our Year 4 children have been focusing on supporting our mental health through kindness so they delivered special kindness poems and sweet treats to local residents this afternoon. For all of this week's news from each class in detail, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news Reminders of Upcoming Events: Monday: Bank holiday. Tuesday: Year 1 will have a mock baptism at our church. Children are welcome to wear their party clothes. Wednesday: Year 4 mini-tennis competition Thursday: Year 1 & 2 are off to the Crocky Trail trip. Please ensure they arrive early at 8:30 am. DPSSA Netball League kicks off at Holy Trinity. Friday: We'll celebrate Red, White, and Blue Day for the VE Day 80th year commemoration. Children may come dressed in red, white and/or blue and donations to the Royal British Legion can be made on parent pay. For all of the upcoming events, please see our noticeboard on the yard or our website here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/events Thank you for your continued support, whether that is supporting your child with their reading and homework, transporting and supporting them at events, attending our celebration worships or ensuring that your child attends school regularly and on time. It truly makes a difference to our school family and ensures that St Barnabas continues to be such a brilliant place to work and learn. I wish you a wonderful May bank holiday weekend – may it be filled with sunshine and joy. Best wishes, Becky Ham
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by signing this week’s Makaton sign which was ‘please’ and thanked everyone for their enormous generosity in supporting Miss Kachwalla, Mr Bloomfield, Rota Kids and School Council with their Afternoon Tea. Thank you to Darwen Rotary Club for also attending and supporting this event. An impressive £256 was raised which will go directly towards supporting our school. We also reflected on some of our other highlights this week which have included exploring the Lord’s Prayer, the Ascension and Songs of Praise in collective worship, our Diocesan Year of Prayer focusing on following in Jesus’ path and putting our trust in Him to guide us down the right path, Year 5 have enjoyed another Peer Mediation session, Year 3,4,5 and 6 enjoyed celebrating Square Root Day and we have enjoyed a relaunch of Choir. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Zac, Inaiya and Elijah in EYFS and KS1 and Scarlett, Elliott, Isabelle and Ruby in KS2. Well done to these children for showing working hard to consistently demonstrate our Barney’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready) and producing an exceptional standard of work across the curriculum. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 1 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week with 97.9% and 99.2% attendance, Whitehall Park and India Mill as our joint value award winners this week, Our Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 children who took part in the DPSSA Cross Country at Witton Park last night for pushing themselves to their limits despite the heat, our Year 5/6 Bee Stinger Netball Squad who represented St Barnabas brilliantly on Tuesday evening and came away as heat winners and Year 2 for being the the ‘WOW (Walking to School)’ champions for the month of April. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school award winners. Well done to Ella for achieving her Stage 2 swimming certificate, Olivia for achieving her special ‘Healthy Minds’ badge and making her promise at Rainbows, Beau for being awarded Olivia at Rainbows for being extremely kind and helpful, Reggie for being the Little Darreners’ Player of the Week, Darcy, Sofia, Grace and Lana for being super Brownies and achieving a variety of badges including badges for World Earth Day, First Aid and Taking Action, Daisy for representing Brownies in the St George’s Day Parade, Olivia B, Ivy, Olivia R and Eliza for representing their football teams and winning the East Lancashire cup, Ava for being a super squirrel and completing all of her badges, Callie for being the Star of the Week at the Edstart Striking and Fielding Club and being a super consistent gymnast, Phoebe for being able to ride her bike without stabilisers, Isaac for representing his football team on a tour to Italy and achieving the team player award and special future champion cup award, Harry for successfully competing his grading and achieving his white belt in kickboxing, Lilly for being the pupil of the month at Little Voices for showing up to every lesson with a smile and being a superstar creator at the Youth Zone and Jack for achieving the star performance whilst playing football for Blackburn Eagles. To end our worship, Mrs Govan reminded us about the Art Competition led by Spring Value Ramblers Club to celebrate their 130th anniversary. The deadline is on the 21st May. Please find further information on Class Dojo. We then had a singalong to ‘Shine from the Inside Out’ and had some beautiful prayers from Marley and Hamza. We wish you all a lovely and restful May Bank holiday weekend in the sunshine.
River Darwen’s Team Winning Disco
Today, the River Darwen team celebrated their success with a special non-uniform day and disco after earning the highest number of Value points last half term. Their hard work, positive attitude and teamwork truly paid off – well done to everyone in River Darwen! A huge thank you to Mr Bloomfield for leading the disco and to Miss Lohar for her support!
Year 6 - Kooth
Year 6 took part in an online workshop with Heather from Kooth yesterday who explained about the anonymous online resource available to them. The children may want to use this platform as a way to manage stress or talk about things that they may find easier saying to someone who is completely neutral. Heather also explained that stress is completely normal and that actually it can be quite a powerful tool to motivate us.
Choir Lunchtime Club
We now run Choir on Thursday Lunchtimes in the Reception classroom and have gained lots of new recruits! We were very happy to have so many new children join us across different year groups to create a bigger and more powerful choir. We are hopeful this will continue so we can arrange a summer performance to show off our amazing vocals!
Year 1 Art- Observational Drawing
In their Art lesson this week, Year 1 took part in some observational drawings of local landmarks such as the Leisure Centre, India Mill, Darwen Market Hall, the Post Office and Darwen Library. In order to do this, Year 1 replicated the shapes and lines that they could see (and identified last lesson) using good control of their pencil. They started with the outline of the building before adding finer details such as the windows and doors.
Year 5 - Square Root Day
Today, Year 5 celebrated Square Root Day through an engaging LBQ (Learning by Questions) session, where pupils explored square roots, identified perfect squares, and practised estimating non-square roots. The activity helped deepen their understanding of inverse operations and built their confidence with this important mathematical concept.
Worship with Rev. Ben
Today’s worship with Rev. Ben began with a fun game where two teams raced to pass a shuttlecock around the hall and get it back to the start. This linked to the Bible story about Jesus giving us instructions to “pass it on”—just like in the game. The story focused on the Ascension—the moment when Jesus, after rising from the dead and spending time with his disciples, was taken up to heaven. Before he left, Jesus gave his disciples an important mission: to go out into the world, share his teachings, and spread the good news. He promised they would not be alone—God would send the Holy Spirit to be their helper. Even though the disciples felt unsure and a bit afraid, Jesus reassured them that he would always be with them. After the story, the children engaged in thoughtful discussions, exploring questions such as: What did Jesus ask the disciples to do? And How can you trust in Jesus’ promise to be with you, even when you don’t feel brave? Some children shared that they feel brave when they remember Jesus is with them in their hearts. Others said they can pass on kindness and love to friends and family, just like the disciples did. The worship reminded everyone that living like Jesus and sharing his message helps us experience life in all its fullness—a life filled with love, purpose and hope.
Square Root Day in Year 4
Square Root Day Today we took part in Square Root Day. Square Root Day is when both the day of the month and the month are the square root of the last two digits of the year. It's a milestone for lovers of numbers, logic, and patterns because 2025 is a perfect square year! Represented as 45245^2452 (since 45×45=202545 \times 45 = 202545×45=2025), this rare occurrence makes the year a special point of reflection and celebration for mathematics fans. The children took part in interactive games with Lottie and Nora then did some quick fire questions on square roots. We noticed that there is a pattern with the square numbers which read odd than an even, odd, even. So we can check if when we are multiplying numbers we have the correct answer. Patterns help us to predict what comes next. Following this the hosts did a Q and A and St Barnabas got a live question shout out and asked “ What inspired them to be a mathematician?” Another question asked by another school was “ Who invented the square root?” which turned out to be a school in Ancient Greece. The children loved sharing the session with other schools across the country and did so brilliantly!
Year 6 Junior Jam
Year 6 really enjoyed their sessions with Junior Jam this week. In French, the children learned the names of jobs in French and had to write sentences containing these job names. In computing, the children were tasked with designing a new banner for the Junior Jam website, using the Logo Founder app. We have moved on to learning how to play a glockenspiel in music, creating our own 8-beat phrases.