Mrs Ham’s Weekly Message
Good evening parents and carers, well what a busy week it has been at St Barnabas and we sure have been living life in all its fullness! The highlights have been: *The Year 6 London trip *Odd Socks day for Down Syndrome Awareness Day *Year 5 class releasing the trout they have grown into River Darwen *Reception class visits from a firefighter and two dentists *Year 1 Victorian history walk *Inter-house dodgeball led by our Sports Leaders today Each class has been busy creating wonderful Easter artwork and a selection of it will be displayed in the Rose Garden in Whitehall Park. Each class will have the opportunity to visit it and it will be there over the Easter holidays if you would like to visit it as a family. For all of this week’s news from each class, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news On Sunday everyone is welcome to Rev Ben’s Palm Sunday service at 11.00am and our choir will be singing. Any of our school children can also join in too. Next week we will be celebrating Holy Week in school and everyone is welcome to our Easter Church Service on Thursday morning at 9.15am. We break up early for the Easter holidays on Thursday at 2.00pm. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend with your loved ones and I hope our Year 6 children rest and recharge after a busy couple of days in London, Mrs Ham
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by thanking our whole school family for wearing odd socks yesterday for World Down Syndrome Awareness Day and all of our children who have contributed to our Big Lent Walk this week including Year 6 who have walked all over London and Year 1 who walked 3 and a half miles around Darwen on their local history walk. We then presented Fletcher, Maggie, Ella-Grace, Isabelle, Edward, Brooke and as the value award winners this week. Well done to those children for consistently demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning and demonstrating all of the 4Bs. Then Mr Prescott presented all of Year 6 as value award winners this week for representing the school amazingly well in London. Mr Prescott said that they all got along amazingly well, were incredibly well mannered and showed a genuine interest in all of the places they visited and things that they got to see. Well done Year 6. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 6 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, River Darwen who are our overall value award winners this week and our amazing swimming gala team made up of children from Year 3,4,5 and 6 for coming 3rd place overall and also achieving lots of individual placings. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Holly for achieving both her Stage 3 and 4 swimming certificates, Callie for being awarded the special teddy at stage coach for amazing singing, dancing and acting, Ella-Grace for being being successful in getting into the Man United Girls Football Team, Grace for receiving a letter from the King regarding her letter about the closing down of Waddow Hall, Maggie for showing wonderful commitment to Rainbows by attending for two years, Lola for showing generosity and raising money for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital by completing 50k in March, Annabel for completing her promise at Rainbows, Betsy for achieving a gold medal for ‘throwing herself into the deep end’ in her acro dancing, Scarlett for showing wonderful commitment to Rainbows by attending for two years, Marley for showing wonderful commitment to Rainbows by attending for one year, Arabelle for working hard to achieve her Stage 4 at swimming, Vienna for being awarded her water safety certificate, Harriet for achieving her Stage 4 in swimming, Thomas for being awarded his Level 1 First Aid certificate, being a super chef and a brilliant builder, Annabelle for achieving her Blue Peter Badge for reading and taking part in an orienteering competition, Leonora for completing seven swimming events in a 50m pool last weekend. To end of our celebration worship, we heard from Rev Ben who reminded us all about the Palm Sunday Church Service this weekend where our school choir will be singing and an Easter egg hunt that the church have organised on Good Friday. Mrs Wilkinson also reminded us about the Scholastic Book Fair which is running tonight, Monday and Tuesday after school. We also sang along to ‘Gospel Medley.’ We thank all those who attended celebration worship and we wish the the rest of our school family a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support too.
Year 1 Class Worship- World Down Syndrome Day
In class worship this morning, Year 1 watched a video to learn and understand more about Down syndrome and then listened to the story ‘This is ME!’ This story helped us to understand that we are all different and have many different interests and qualities that make us all unique. To end our worship, we had some lovely prayers from Annabel and Elijah about showing kindness to each other and appreciating all of our differences that make us unique.
Well-being Club
For our final session, we walked to Jack Keys and enjoyed a nature walk! It was lots of fun and it was lovely to enjoy the outdoors with everyone.
Year 1 RE Artwork
This afternoon, Year 1 created their artwork for the Rose Garden at Whitehall Park. Their artwork was based on the resurrection of Jesus. The hands on their artwork represent Jesus rising from the dead and the butterflies, flowers, dragonflies and bunny rabbits represent new life.
Rev Ben’s Worship: Palm Sunday
Today, Rev Ben read the story of Palm Sunday and talked about the joy of the crowd when Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. He contrasted this with the anger of the crowd when they were led to believe that Jesus lied about who he was. Determination and perseverance were two key qualities demonstrated by Jesus during that time and Rev Ben asked everyone to reflect on when they will need to show these qualities this week.
Year 1- Local History Walk
In their history lessons, Year 1 have been learning about the positive impact that Queen Victoria had on Britain during her reign. They learnt that Queen Victoria and her husband, Albert, supported Britain in becoming more developed. During her reign, trams and trains being developed meant that people and goods could move around the country and machinery that could be powered by coal and water could produce materials such as cotton, paper and metals very quickly that could then be shipped to other countries to support Britain becoming wealthier. Today, Year 1 went on a walk around Darwen to see the impact that Queen Victoria’s reign had on their hometown. They saw many factories that have now been repurposed but were once cotton or paper mills such as Radford Mill on Bolton Road, Hilton’s Old Paper Mill which is now Kenleys and Brittania Mills. They also saw several sights were cotton factories used to be that are now housing estates such as the site where Bowling Green Mill used to stand and where Waterfield Mill used to be. From visiting so many locations where cotton and paper mills used to be, it helped year 1 to understand just how much of a part Darwen used to play in producing cotton especially. They also learnt that this cotton used to get shipped over to India to make Britain wealthier and this is why Ghandi visited Darwen. As well as this, Year 1 also saw the original tramway track which was built and in operation during Queen Victoria’s reign and the concrete capping on Clough Street which tells us that there was a coal mine in his area which would have been used to generate the power for both the trams, trains and machinery. Year 1 walked over 3 miles during our local area history lesson which is a great contribution to our ‘Big Lent Walk’ challenge too- well done Year 1.
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Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our celebration worship by thanking our whole school family for dressing in red to support Comic Relief. We then thought about how we’ve lived life in all its fullness this week with the help of our amazing after school clubs, a wonderful worship with Rev Matt about Jesus being kind towards Zacchaeus and by celebrating British Science Week. Mrs Ham also updated us all on our Big Lent Walk progress. Up to now, we have collectively walked 1239km and raised £215. We believe that we can continue to better this and achieve 2000km and raise even more money. We then presented Summer, Eli, Lyla, Ivy, Ruby, Hamza and Charlie as the value award winners this week. Well done to those children for consistently demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning and our 4Bs. We also congratulated Reception and Year 3 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, the KS2 girls who took part in the Girls Football tournament last Friday with Mr Bloomfield to celebrate International Women’s Day and River Darwen who are our overall value award winners this week. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Olivia for achieving her white belt at kickboxing, Sofia for achieving her 8th birthday badge at Rainbows, Carter for achieving his stage 2 at swimming, Annabel for achieving swimmer of the month, Vienna for being awarded an amazing 50m at swimming, Elsie for her incredible swimming and Renee for achieving her Stage 1 swimming. To end our worship, we had some lovely prayers from Olivia, Olivia, Finn and Mrs Ham who prayed for those who have died , are in the midst of conflict and a prayer to encourage us to be both kind and forgiving during this time of Lent. We also sang along to ‘Sing Hosanna.’ We thank all those who attended celebration worship and we wish the the rest of our school family a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support too.
Spring attendance update
Good afternoon parents and carers, please see the images for the latest attendance update for the Spring term. In the Autumn term we achieved an award for being in the top 25% of schools nationally for attendance and we are really close to our school target and government target of 96%. With your help we can ensure that your child achieves the best possible outcomes in life by coming to school every day and on time. We are looking forward to presenting Amazing Attendance certificates to all of the children who are at our 96% target and above at our Easter Service in church on Thursday 28th March at 9.15am. For further information about attendance, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/academy-life/attendance
Well-being Club
This week the children worked together to make playdough. They decided to colour the playdough purple and used a variety of different coloured glitters. The children decided on an orange scent for their playdough. They enjoyed playing with it after and made tacos, wraps, houses, pizzas and lots of other creative objects!
WOW Ambassador Training
In our very first WOW Ambassador meeting today, we met to discuss the children’s role and how they will promote this walk to school initiative throughout school. We also completed training on how to access the travel tracker and monitor each class on a weekly basis. The children can’t wait for the launch of this exciting new walking to school initiative next week!
Easter Singing Worship
We had a wonderful morning singing our favourite Easter hymns and songs. To finish we practised the Spring Chicken song in hope that we get a visit from the Spring Chicken at the end of term.