Darwen Library- Summer Reading Challenge 2022
This morning, Angela who works at Darwen library visited school to invite us all to participate in ‘The Summer Reading Challenge 2022.’ The challenge is free of charge and involves children reading 6 library books between 1st July and 30th September, including picture books and audio books. There are various prizes awarded for each book that is read and returned, and those who complete the challenge will receive a certificate and a medal. If your child completes the challenge, we would love for them to be bring these into school so that we can present them during whole school celebration worship. Anglea told us that there is something for everyone at the library. However, if there is a specific book that the children are looking for but they don’t have it, it’s her promise that they will get it for them on request. If your child does not yet have a library card, the library can quickly and easily enrol them as a library member for free and no ID is required. Children without library cards may still join the Summer Reading Challenge, please enquire at Darwen Library about this. We hope that as many of our children as possible will take on the challenge. Happy reading!
Year 1 - Refugee Week
In Year 1, we watched an animation called ‘Make them Feel at Home.’ This video told a story about a young refugee named Santa and a toy dinosaur named Dino and their difficult journey to find safety in the UK. The video helped us to understand how difficult and nerve-racking it must be for refugees having to leave their home and move to a new place that is unfamiliar to them. We reflected on this video and thought about ways in which we can help to make refugees feel at home, and we also thought of some beautiful prayers.
EYFS & KS1 Sports Day
Our Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes showed lots of courage this morning in our Sports Day. They were just like St Barnabas- the Encourager too as they cheered each other on and supported each other.
Monday Worship
Today we learned that we are going to be sharing a vicar with St Paul’s Primary School. We found out all about Saint Paul. Saint Paul was not a very nice man and as a result, he was blind for 3 days. After this time, he spent the rest of his life finding out about God and telling everybody about Jesus. St Paul found Saint Barnabas, the encourager. He encouraged people to like Saint Paul and they went out together to spread the word of God. Saint Paul changed and became a better person. Everybody can change and can do the right thing. Leonora said “we can forgive them”, Ella-Grace said “we can include them” and Jack said “we could share with them”. At our school, we are all encouragers. This week it is national sports week and the theme is belonging. We can all encourage each other and we can all help each other to feel a part of our school family. By doing this we can live out our vision by learning and growing together in a love-filled Christian family. Mason said “we can support each other”, Aisha said “we can give them a thumbs up” and Grace said “we can cheer and encourage everybody”. This week we are going to think about how we can build each other up and how we can be like Saint Barnabas the encourager. We finished our worship by singing ‘Build up’.
Friday Celebration Worship
This week in celebration worship, we heard from our class teachers about how we have been living life in all its fullness. We also congratulated our Year 1 children on completing their phonics screening check and our Year 4 children on completing their times table check with nothing other than courage and determination. We then celebrated all things sports. We celebrated a huge variety of out of school individual award successes. Well to done to Lennox, Albert, Lola, Sofia and Charlie for their swimming successes, Jack for trying new foods at Butterflies after school club, Eliza for her duathlon and football, Elliott for his football, Isaac for his biking, Harry for his goal keeping and Mathew for playing football against various academies. We also celebrated the success that we’ve been having with our sports achievements in school and there has been a lot! Well done to our High 5s netball team who will be representing BwD borough in the Lancashire School Games in July, Our DPSSA netball silver medalists after their success last night at DVHS, our DPSSA cross country team who have recently completed three very gruelling courses over the past few months and were presented with both individual and group medals as well as coming 2nd overall as a team, our Year 3/4 Quad kids team who came 3rd place out of 14 schools, our Year 6 orienteering team who came 5th out of 14 schools and our gifted and talented netball players who took part in a session at BRFC on Monday. Wow, Team B are unstoppable! Finally, we needed our worship with some lovely prayers and a sing along.
Year 1 Science
Today in science, Year 1 measured their hand spans and the length of their feet. They worked in groups to construct a bar chart so that they could easily compare the measurements. In some groups, it was true that people with the longest feet had the biggest hand spans and people with the smallest hand spans had the shortest feet but in other groups it wasn’t. Therefore, we decided that it is only sometimes true. We are going to continue our pattern seeking in science next week by exploring questions such as do people with the longest feet jump the furthest? And can people with the biggest hand spans hold the most sweets? We are excited to continue our investigations.
Year 1 Platinum Jubilee Afternoon Tea
Year 1 really enjoyed their Platinum Jubilee afternoon lunch today.
Year 1 Geography- Creating a Messy Map
Year 1 have been looking at the immediate local area in their geography lessons. They have collaboratively worked together to create a messy map to represent this. They have included our school, Everest Pharmacy, The Tramway Cafe, The bowling green, Whitehall Park, The Park Pub, St Barnabas Church, the local shop, the post office, the graveyard, the hairdressers, bungalows, terraced houses, detached houses, semi-detached houses and Jack’s Key Clough with its reservoir and footbridge.
Celebration Worship
This morning we had lots to celebrate in our Worship. Year 4 and 5 received their certificates for their courage and commitment at PGL. We had plenty of sports stars with our high fives netball team storming through to the finals next week and we had plenty of personal achievements with super swimmers in the infants, cycling awards, gymnastics, Morris dancing and athletics. We also announced the 6 winners of the Darwen Rotary Club competition for the Queen’s Jubilee - a big well done to Alice, Summer, Ella, Wilson, Isaac and Eva for their entries and a big well done to everyone who entered. We will keep you updated with any further developments in the competition and the date for when the winning entries will be displayed in Darwen.
The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Celebration Day
On Friday 27th May we will be having a special day to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Children may come to school dressed in red, white and/ or blue or they may want to wear a queen, princess, king or prince clothing. Please do not go out and buy anything new though. In the morning we will have a special 'Royal Variety Performance' with 20 talented acts. The Mayor and Mayoress of Blackburn with Darwen will be attending and parents are welcome to come and watch too. At lunchtime we will be having a Royal Variety Afternoon Tea and weather permitting we will have a picnic outside. Each child will receive a special commemorative Platinum Jubilee Coin from our Trust and a special Jubilee book. What a great way to end such a brilliant term and to show our thanks to her Majesty the Queen for her service to our country over the last 70 years!
Community Groups
We have lots of different community groups and activities for children and/or adults that meet either in our school or in our local community. Please see our community groups page for further information. https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/parents/community-groups We are always looking for different opportunities for our children to be involved in a variety of activities out of school and we love hearing about their achievements in our weekly Friday Celebration Worship. If you run a community group or club and you would like us to promote it, please send any flyers to [email protected] and we will add them to our website.