Image of Forest school club
17 May

Forest school club

This week the children had a great time building dens which opened so much up for their imaginative play. The children created leaf tickets to enter the den. They gave each other different roles within the game. It was great to see the children all playing cooperatively together and using brilliant team work.

Image of Year 1 Art- Printing
16 May

Year 1 Art- Printing

This afternoon in art, Year 1 created a print of their chosen building in Darwen. They worked carefully to print the outline of their building and the smaller details such as the windows and doors. Year 1 made sure that they used the right amount of paint, placed their blocks down gently when printing and chose to print with shapes that represented the windows and doors of their buildings as well as the patterns that they could see on their buildings. Well done Year 1.

Image of Reception, Year 1 and Year 2- Story and Craft Club
15 May

Reception, Year 1 and Year 2- Story and Craft Club

Today in Story and Craft Club, our school librarian Matthew chose the story, ‘A SUPERPOWER LIKE MINE’ by Dr Ranj and Miss Flynn read it to some of the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children. The story was all about a little girl called Femi who discovers all the special powers that her, her friends, and the incredible people around her, bring out in one another every day. We had a great discussion about the superpowers that we all have such as being creative, imaginative, kind, caring, amazing at solving problems, loving, helpful and an extremely good friend and then the librarians helped the children to make their own superhero mask.

Image of Year 1 Geography- Ordnance Survey Map Symbols
15 May

Year 1 Geography- Ordnance Survey Map Symbols

In their geography lesson, Year 1 have been looking at what the Ordnance Survey Map symbols mean. They had to look for clues within the symbols to make accurate judgements. They found the toilet, post office, school, telephone box, place of worship and carpark easier to guess from the symbol than the road, train station, foot path and footbridge. Year 1 then looked at an ordnance survey map of our immediate local area (Whitehall) and circled the symbols that they could see.

Image of Year 1 PE- Bouncing and Catching a Ball
15 May

Year 1 PE- Bouncing and Catching a Ball

Today in their PE lesson, Year 1 focused on the fundamental skills of bouncing and catching a ball. When they were catching, Year 1 made sure that their eyes were focused on the ball, they moved their body into the path of ball and their hands moved to meet the ball. They practised their throwing skills using two different sized balls. When Year 1 were bouncing the ball, they made sure that they pushed the ball down and used their fingers and controlled the bounce with their wrist. They even managed to change the speed and height at which they bounced the ball. Well done year 1!

Image of Little Voices after school club
14 May

Little Voices after school club

Our Little Voices after school club had lots of fun playing games to develop their confidence and they then practised the song that they will be performing to their parents next week.

Image of Year 1- Road Safety Visit
13 May

Year 1- Road Safety Visit

This afternoon in Year 1, we had visit from Road Safety Officer Katie. We learnt the Green Cross Code which is to only Cross the road when we have stopped, looked, listened and thought. Katie then talked to us about how we should put this into practice when we are making decisions concerning our roads. Katie then spoke to us about the dangers of having our shoe laces undone, being on an electronic device and wearing headphones whilst crossing the road as well as running across a road and following a ball or other object that has rolled into the road. We discussed these in depth and decided that anything that would result in us being distracted, not being able to hear properly or potentially resulting in us falling and being stranded in the middle of the road would be incredibly dangerous and we should take precautions so that they don’t happen . Katie then shared one of the most common ways for people getting hurt whilst crossing the road. This is when people cross the road between two parked cars. We learnt that by doing this, you can’t see the oncoming traffic properly and the oncoming traffic can’t see you. Therefore, Katie told us that we must cross the road in a safe place where you have full visibility of the road and the oncoming traffic has clear visibility of you. Late at night, this would mean that you would also need to wear fluorescent and reflective clothes and/or accessories. Katie gave us lots of these- thank you! Throughout the lesson, we took to the crossing and practised some of these road safety skills that we had learnt. To end the lesson, Katie talked to us about the importance of a seat belt. She told us that the seatbelt should sit positioned between our shoulder bone and hip bone and then securely fastened. Katie also told us that we needed to be a certain height in order for this seatbelt to fulfil its job of keeping us safe. All of us were measured and we all discovered that we need a booster seat to ensure that we are the appropriate height for the seatbelt to do it’s job. Thank you to Katie for a very informative session.

Image of Year 1- Performance Poetry
13 May

Year 1- Performance Poetry

Today, Year 1 recited and performed the poem ‘Oh Dear’ by Michael Rosen. They have been working on their performance skills and today they did brilliantly at putting these into practice during their performance. They worked hard to project their voice, speak clearly and with expression and use the appropriate facial expressions. Well done Year 1!

Image of Mrs Ham's Weekly Highlights
10 May

Mrs Ham's Weekly Highlights

Good afternoon parents and carers, we hope that you all had a lovely bank holiday weekend. We have had another short but busy week of living life in all its fullness at St Barnabas. The highlights have been: *Reception class farm animal visitors from Nightingales Farm * Year 1's mock Baptism and party at our church with Rev Ben * Two more brilliant wins for our netball team * Our WOW group leading our KS2 class worships * Continuing learning how to play the keyboard in Junior Jam * A glorious golden time outside in the sun this afternoon Coming up next week: *Our Year 6 children are very much looking forward to their free breakfasts as we have the KS2 SATs. We know that they will try their very best and make us all proud. We also know that our children have been blessed with skills and qualities that SATs don't test. *Our Year 5 class are very excited as they are going on their three day PGL residential to Winmarleigh with Mr Bloomfield, Miss Kachwalla and Rev Ben. We are sure that they will make some amazing memories. *Years 1 and 3 have road safety officer workshops. *Year 2 have a visit from the fire service. *The Year 3/4 mini tennis competition. * Years 4, 5 and 6 have a PSHE RSE session from Coram Life Education *Our netball team have more matches. As the weather is warming up, please ensure that your child has a water bottle in school each day and that they put on all day sunscreen before coming to school. Sunhats would be brilliant too for playtimes and lunchtimes. Thank you for your continued support to our school family. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend in the sunshine with your loved ones, Mrs Ham

Image of Glorious Golden Time
10 May

Glorious Golden Time

This afternoon our children have enjoyed a glorious golden time outside. We are so lucky to have such large grounds to explore and play in. We have had some children playing sports on the MUGA, some on the outdoor gym and trim trails, some building and playing in the sand, some getting creative and some playing Jag Tag. The children work their socks off in class each week, follow our Four B's and complete their reading and homework to earn their golden time each Friday. What a fantastic afternoon!

Image of Friday Celebration Worship
10 May

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and talking about how we have lived life in all its fullness this week. We kickstarted the week on Tuesday with Rev Ben and his worship about the ascension and we’ve enjoyed a variety of lunch time and after school clubs such as Cricket, Little Voices, Mad Science, Choir, Netball and Story and Craft. We also congratulated our wonderful Year 5/6 netball team for performing amazingly on Wednesday night in the DPSSA Netball League and winning both of their matches. As it stands, they are unbeaten and look forward to competing against St Peter’s next week. We then presented Millie, Molly, Cassidy, Nevaeh, Seb, Daisy and Lucy as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for always their amazing attitude to learning and consistently demonstrating the 4Bs and our Christian Values. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park as the overall value award winners this week with 143 points. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to sisters Lydia and Naomi for getting Olivia at Rainbows for being superstars, Callie for being awarded Bruno Bear at Stagecoach for being a super brave performer, Cici for being this week’s Little Voices after school club superstar, Archie for achieving a certificate for the level of bravery that he showed whilst getting his bloods taken at the hospital, Lyla for achieving highly commended in her Musical Theatre exam, Bluebelle for achieving a fabulous 25m in her swimming, Evie for being awarded with a trophy for her wonderful gymnastics, Olivia for achieving her Stage 5 at swimming, Bindi and Elsie for swimming an amazing 50m, Jenson for being able to swim a phenomenal 800m and his Bronze swimming award, Nevaeh for achieving level 4 in her gymnastics, Tristen for gaining his orange belt in kickboxing and we congratulated Lucy for winning the East Lancs Final whilst playing for her football team Lammack. To end our worship, we had some beautiful prayers from Darcy, Oscar and Harry who prayed for people who are less fortunate and those in countries that are currently faced with war and uncertainty. We then sang, ‘Sing a New Song to the Lord.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely (and hopefully sunny) weekend!

Image of Year 1 RE- Mock Baptism with Rev. Ben
9 May

Year 1 RE- Mock Baptism with Rev. Ben

On Tuesday afternoon, Year 1 wore their celebration clothes and went to St Barnabas Church. We learnt all about Baptism and welcoming babies, teenagers and adults into Christianity. Year 1 named their baby Snowflake and Rev. Ben showed them what it would be like if Snowflake was baptised. We learnt that baptism is like a badge that people wear to show they belong to the church. We also learnt about why water is used as part of a baptism and we witnessed Rev.Ben pour water over baby Snowflake’s head which came from the font. Snowflake received a baptism candle and a Bible. We then came back to school for a baptism party. The children enjoyed a dance, a cup of juice and a biscuit. Thank you Rev.Ben for creating a memorable experience for our children.