Online Safety: Violent Content Online
Violence, viral videos and vulnerability. Most kids aren’t looking for violent content online – but they’re still seeing it. This week’s #WakeUpWednesday guide explores the impact and offers advice for trusted adults. Download your FREE copy here >> https://ow.ly/KcKr50VVJxp
Reception- Muddy Monday
Today during our Muddy Monday session, we went minibeast exploring in Jack’s Key. The children used magnifying glasses and Petri dishes to take a closer look at the amazing minibeasts our local area has to offer. They were excited to discover a variety of tiny creatures, including worms, spiders, and woodlice, carefully observing their features and movements.
Reception- Muddy Monday
During our Muddy Monday session, the children also put up their shelter, using nearby trees to help anchor and support the structure. They worked together to stretch and secure the materials, thinking carefully about how to make it stable, while also looking for mini beasts.
Whole School Worship- Your Kingdom Come
During our whole school worship, we continued looking at the special Lord's Prayer that Jesus taught us. We began by imagining what our world might look like if we were in charge for a day. The children shared thoughtful and creative ideas, such as a world filled with kindness, fairness, and care for the environment. This engaging activity led naturally into our focus on the next part of the Lord’s Prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.” We took time to reflect on what God’s kingdom should look like—a place where love, kindness and peace are present in everything we do. Together, we discussed how we can each play a part in God’s kingdom through our actions and behaving the way He would want. We then turned our attention to the concept of heaven and how it connects to this line of the Lord's prayer. The children were encouraged to share with each other their thoughts on what heaven might be like. Their ideas were rich and varied, painting pictures of a world filled with happiness, joy and light. Jesus tells us through the Lord's prayer that God wants His Kingdom to be like heaven on earth so we reflected on how we could create heaven on earth in our school each day. We had some fantastic answers such as showing kindness, respect and generosity to each other. This worship helped deepen our understanding of the Lord’s Prayer and reminded us all of the role we can play in making our world a better place, starting with small, meaningful actions in our everyday lives.
Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our worship by collectively signing our new Makaton signs ‘yes’, ‘no,’ and ‘happy’ and congratulating our amazing Year 6 children for their incredible efforts in their SATs and the way that they have tackled them with nothing but smiles and positivity. We are so proud of you all! We also reflected on many of our other highlights this week which have included prayers for the world as part of our Diocesan Year of Prayer, Reception having a visit from Nightingale Farm, Year 3 visiting Rock & River, Year 5 enjoying their PGL residential, having our DACA students join our school on work experience and our Year 5/6 Netball Squad who represented St Barnabas brilliantly in the DPSSA Netball league last night and came away with three victories. Furthermore, we congratulated Ted in Year 4 for working hard to achieve his pen license, our Year 2 and Year 5 classes for being our attendance winners this week with 99.2% and 100% attendance and River Darwen as our value award winners this week with 226 points. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Minnie, Elsie and Harry in EYFS and KS1 and Alice in KS2. Well done to these children for working incredibly hard, pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and showing our Barny’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready). We also congratulated the whole of the Year 3 & 5 classes for being amazing on their trip to PGL and Rock & River. They were extremely courageous, encouraged each other every step of the way and represented our school amazingly. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 1 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park as our value award winners this week with 161 points. We then moved onto congratulating all of our out of school achievers. Well done to Luna for achieving her Stage 1 in swimming, Olivia, Annie and Thea for being incredibly kind and caring at Rainbows, Hollie for achieving her Stage 2 in swimming, Lyla for achieving a distinction in her recent ballet exam, Jack for being the Player of the Match and achieving the Captain’s Armband in a recent football game, Annabel for achieving an entry level award for her music performance at Rocksteady and being Star of the Week at dancing, Eliza and Darcy for their commitment to Brownies, Maggie for achieving a gold award in Rainbows alongside multiple other certificates and badges, Olivia for being the Player of the Match and achieving the Captain’s Armband in a recent football game, Haydn for incredible football and Poppy, Brooke and Laila for being the EFLA cup winners 2025. To end our worship, we collective listened to this week’s Year of Prayer, said the Grace and sang ‘Sing a New Song.’ Thank you to all of our school family who could attend celebration worship and we thank you for your ongoing support. We send an extended thank you to the rest of our school family. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend in the sunshine. The slides can be found on class dojo or here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/about-us/church-and-worship#tab-4370
Reception Farm Visit
Today, the Reception class had a special visitor – Farmer Steph! She brought a very cute, two-week-old lamb named Olly and two chicks for the children to see. Steph talked about what it's like to look after farm animals and the jobs she has to do. The children learned that pigs are surprisingly good at digging and help turn over the soil on the farm and their chickens each lay one egg every day! Thank you to Nightingale Farm for sharing their animals with us.
Reception PE
The Reception class had a great lesson playing collecting games! They worked in teams to find ‘animal food’ and put them in their ‘nests’ to see who could get her the most. This involved listening carefully to instructions and working together as a team, sharing and helping each other. We then played ‘farmyard tig’ where the animals had to escape the farmers, demonstrating their agility and pace.
Reception- Phonics-We’re going on a word hunt
This afternoon our Reception children went on a word hunt. Their challenge was to find words hidden around our playground. They took a clipboard and a pencil and they went hunting for the words. Once they found one they read it and wrote it on their clipboard, they could use the sound mats for reference. Once they had collected all the words they could find they chose one of the words to put into a sentence.
Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 Story Club with Miss Flynn and the Librarians
Today in Story Club, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 read ‘The Great Dog Bottom Swap’ with Miss Flynn and the librarians and then did a fabulous dog themed craft. They had great fun!
Reception- Year of Prayer- Class Worship
During our class worship we had a look at the word map and the children told us places they had visited and we marked it on the map and had a look at how far away it was from our country. The children then shared with us the places they would like to visit. We had a discussion about out favourite things in the world that God created and we then prayed for some of those things. We prayed for the trees, the sea, creatures, the sun and the grass.
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Reception: The Church as a Special Place
As part of our learning on special places, Reception class visited St Barnabas Church and met Rev Matt. Rev Matt asked us to explore the church to find things we wouldn't find at home. Reggie said he saw a cross, Harry said a microphone, Beau said the font, Cassius found some musical instruments and Will found a chalice. Rev Matt asked why is church special for people. Ava said we worship here and Thea said we worship Jesus here. Rev Matt shared the chalice and plate and explained that we have a special meal to remember Jesus known as communion or the Eucharist. Rev Matt explained that all churches look different and that is ok. We watched a video to explain why. For Christians, church is a place and a way to describe people who trust in Jesus. It is a place where people meet which makes it really special. Thank you so much Rev Matt for putting our learning into context, we really enjoyed our visit.
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Reception: Collective Worship
We started our Worship across the Diocese with a call and response. God gives us wisdom all the time, Amen. We listened to a story from the Old Testament. We explored where this was in the timeline of God's big story. Mark told the story of 'A Woman's Victory'. Bishop Jill explained the story. A usual person stepped up to stop the chaos that was happening in Israel. Men usually led everything but a woman called Deborah saw an opportunity to find courage to approach and question the leader of the Israeli army. Lots of women have stepped into roles usually led by men to change things for the better. God gives courage to those people to do better for the greater good. Bishop Jill was the first woman bishop in Lancaster. Jesus wants us to be ourselves and it is really important for us to have courage and not to count ourselves out of situations. God gave Deborah the victory to succeed. We discussed things that we need courage for. Evie said writing, Zac said to build a house in our construction area, Thea said to draw a turtle and Willow said she needs courage to carry things from one place to another. We prayed to God to be ourselves and to use the gifts and talents that God has given us. We ended our worship by singing 'My Lighthouse'.