Image of Year 1 DT: Food Tasting
10 Mar

Year 1 DT: Food Tasting

Today, we tried lots of different fruits, yoghurts and cereals. These will be potential ingredients in our healthy breakfast pots. To help us plan a good breakfast pot, we rated the different foods and described them with adjectives such as sweet, sour, rancid, juicy, crunchy and smooth. Next week, we will plan a breakfast pot for our partner based on their likes/dislikes.

Image of Whole School Worship - Sharing What We Have
10 Mar

Whole School Worship - Sharing What We Have

Our kindness kite focus for this week, ‘Shared what they had’, linked perfectly with today’s story, the Feeding of the 5000. Before sharing the story, Mrs Ham asked children to about times they have shared with others. These included smiles, toy and clothing donations and even car sharing. After watching the story, the children reflected on the benefits of sharing and how God provides for his people in abundance, just like how the small amount of food multiplied upon Jesus’s faithful request to God. In reflection, we considered what we could share with others throughout Lent and made pledges to do so. We brought our worship to a close by sharing our wonderful singing voices with one another, practising some Easter songs for our upcoming service.

Image of Year 1 History: Toy Detectives
9 Mar

Year 1 History: Toy Detectives

Year 1 became toy detectives in History today. The examined a range of toys and used clues such as the material and quality to help decide if it was old or modern. They compared similarities and differences of old and modern toys and loved playing with the toys too.

Image of Friday Celebration Worship
6 Mar

Friday Celebration Worship

It has been another very busy and exciting week here at St Barnabas. In Worship we have been taking time to reflect on both Lent and Ramadan, thinking about kindness, reflection and helping others. We have also had a fantastic week celebrating World Book Day, sharing our love of reading and enjoying all the brilliant costumes and book characters we saw in school. Our classes were also lucky enough to take part in the Pinocchio dance workshop and performance, which was fantastic to watch. There has been lots happening beyond the classroom too, including the River Darwen team disco and our wide range of clubs, such as Kids with Bricks club. Many of you have also been taking part in the Times Tables Rockstars competition and showing great enthusiasm for practising your times tables. We have now completed our Big Winter Wander and together we have raised £175 for WWF, which is an amazing achievement. Thank you to everyone who took part and supported this. Our RotaKids have also been showing kindness in action by collecting teddies for Darwen Asylum Refugee Enterprise and Darwen Rotary which will help support children less fortunate than us. We also had the World Book Day Dolly Peg Competition run by the Friends of St Barnabas and the judges were very impressed with the creativity and effort that went into the entries. The award for Best Book Character goes to Phoebe for Greg the Sausage Roll. The award for Most Creative goes to Ida for the Highway Rat. The award for Best Use of Materials goes to Molly for Molly and the Goldfish Fairy. The Judges’ Choice award goes to Alfie. The award for Most Imaginative goes to Alice for Stitch and the Outstanding Effort award goes to Elliot. Well done to everyone who took part and a huge thank you to our FOSB for organising the competition as well as contributing money to the Pinocchio workshops. A massive thank you to our parishioner Glenda for undertaking the difficult task of judging the competition. Our Values Awards where we recognise children who have been showing our school four Be's of being kind, respectful, safe and ready to learn. In Reception the award goes to Erina. In Year 1 it goes to Cassius. In Year 2 the award goes to Thomas. In Year 3 it goes to Albie. In Year 4 the awards go to Cassidy and Alfie. In Year 5 the award goes to Olivia and in Year 6 the award goes to Isabelle. Well done to all of you for showing our 4 Be's and Christian values so clearly in school. We also had some pen licences to award this week in Year 3. These go to Harry, Molly and Eddie. Well done for showing such neat and consistent handwriting across the curriculum, not just in English. We celebrated our team values totals for the week. In fourth place was Darwen Tower. In third place was Whitehall Park. In second place was River Darwen. And in first place this week was India Mill. Well done everyone! We also have lots of wonderful sports and out-of-school achievements to celebrate. Olivia, Eleanor and Annie have been awarded a certificate for celebrating 100 years of World Thinking Day at Rainbows. Alessia has been awarded her Level 1 for back bends in dance. Poppy has been awarded a teddy for really good dancing. Carmen and Renee have both been awarded their yellow belts in kickboxing. Albie has been awarded player of the week for good tackling. Martha has achieved her 20 metre swimming certificate. Haydn has been awarded a trophy for scoring seven goals in football. Olivia has also received a certificate for a fantastic backwards roll in gymnastics. Callie has been awarded a certificate for completing two years of JuJitsu. Maggie has received a Brownie doll and her promise badge. Annabel has been awarded star of the week in dance and swimmer of the month. Jack has been awarded a certificate for completing a silver swimming challenge and Piper-Jo has achieved her 50 metre swimming certificate. Well done to all of you for your hard work and dedication outside of school. A special well done also goes to our Cross Country team who showed fantastic determination when competing in rainy weather and muddy conditions. They ran over a mile, which is a brilliant achievement. We also held our inter-house competition for football and bench ball and the winning house was India Mill. Well done to everyone who took part. Our WOW group had some exciting news to share as well. Our school is now number one across all Blackburn and Darwen schools for walking to school last month. That is an incredible achievement. Year 4 are the overall winners for walking to school and badges will be given to all children who walked to school. Our attendance awards this week go to Year 2 and Year 3. Well done for coming to school every day and being ready to learn. Finally, just a reminder that Reception will soon be performing their Mother’s Day Service next Wednesday at 9.00am and there will also be the Mothering Sunday Service at St Barnabas Church where children are invited to come along and sing to their mums. To finish our worship we had lovely prayers from Olivia and Darcy and we sang the Butterfly song.

Image of Year 1 World Book Day Workshop
6 Mar

Year 1 World Book Day Workshop

Year 1 were fortunate enough to take part in an online workshop for World Book Day. The author of The Flower Thief, Alice Hemming, read her book to us. This book linked to our focus on Signs of Spring. Then, the illustrator, Nicola Slater, showed us step-by-step drawing on the squirrel and the bird from the story. The drawings made by Year 1 were fantastic! It was a lovely way to start our World Book Day celebrations.

Image of Year 1 World Book Day
5 Mar

Year 1 World Book Day

Year 1 looked amazing in their World Book Day costumes! We had so many princesses, Roald Dahl characters and lots of children in cozy pyjamas. We have lots of fun activities to look forward too.

Image of World Book Day Oracy Worship
5 Mar

World Book Day Oracy Worship

What a fantastic morning we had celebrating World Book Day! Children from Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 came together for a special Oracy Talk Assembly, where the hall was filled with the sound of meaningful discussion. Working in trios, the children were challenged to dive deep into their love of literature by sharing their favourite books and characters, providing thoughtful "whys" for their choices. The energy peaked during a fascinating debate on whether reading gives you a "superhero power." After some deep exploration, the children concluded that reading truly is a superpower; they decided it makes you incredibly clever and has the unique ability to expand your imagination beyond the classroom. Mrs. Wilkinson was immensely impressed by the level of maturity and respect on display. It was a "super" oracy worship, with children across the three year groups demonstrating excellent communication skills by taking turns and listening intently to one another. It was wonderful to see our youngest learners not only celebrating stories but also developing the confidence to articulate their ideas with such clarity and enthusiasm.

Image of Year 1 PSHE: Passing On The Praise
5 Mar

Year 1 PSHE: Passing On The Praise

In PSHE, we have thought about praise and how it makes us feel. Praise is different to compliments as it is based on our behaviour, work and effort. Year 1 said happy, excited, motivated, it makes us smile and feel proud of ourselves. We then made little notes of praise and passed them to each other.

Image of Year 1: Pinocchio Dance Workshop
4 Mar

Year 1: Pinocchio Dance Workshop

Year 1 absolutely loved their Pinocchio workshop delivered by West End in Schools. Their part of the story was Pinocchio becoming a donkey. We are so proud of all of the children for stepping out of their comfort zone and joining in. They all had so much fun and we loved watching the story come together.

Image of Year 1 DT: Cutting Skills
4 Mar

Year 1 DT: Cutting Skills

Year 1 practiced two types of cutting skills: claw hold and bridge hold. These techniques allow us to cut fruit or vegetables in a safe way. We learnt to hold the knife in our hand and place our index finger on top for control. We also had to pull the knife back and forth to cut. This will be useful when we make our healthy breakfast pots.

Image of Year 1 History: Sharing Our Living Memory Interviews
4 Mar

Year 1 History: Sharing Our Living Memory Interviews

At home, Year 1 have been interviewing their family members about toys they had when they were little. Together, we shared our interviews to discover toys that we have never seen or played with, as well as some toys which we still play with today. We noticed that our parent’s favourite toys were made from plastic, but any grandparent’s favourite toys were typically metal, wood or fabric. This helped us to understand more about toys from the past and the materials they were made from.

Image of Year 1 PE: Jumping In Gymnastics
4 Mar

Year 1 PE: Jumping In Gymnastics

Year 1 practiced their jumping skills in gymnastics today. They were able to jump from different heights and use a spring board to help them with jumping. They understood the importance of landing on your feet with knees slightly bent. It was brilliant to see them being brave when jumping from the higher obstacles. Well done Year 1!