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Whole-School Worship - Guide Dogs
As it is National Pet Month, Mrs Ham invited some special visitors from the guide dogs charity into our collective worship. They came to tell us all about how guide dogs are selected, how they are trained and how they support blind people in their daily lives. Keith asked us to put our hands over our eyes in order to imagine what it must be like to be blind. Haydn said you might not see things on the floor so might trip up and Cici said you wouldn't be able to see where you were going. We were also introduced us to Willow, a working guide dog, and he showed us how to spot a guide dog by their harness. He also showed us how to spot if a blind person is in need of help. The children asked some great questions about blindness and about the charity. They were especially shocked to learn that each guide dog costs around £55,000! Two of our children have already sponsored a guide dog puppy and hopefully more families might choose to do the same. We ended our worship talking about Earth Day and how we can look after God’s creations. We all agreed that everyday should be Earth Day and we finished by singing 'I can make a difference in this world of ours'.
Earth Day- EYFS and Key Stage 1 Lunchtime
The children enjoyed celebrating Earth day this lunchtime as a reminder to look after our planet by making their own Earth creation using collage materials.
Mrs Ham's Weekly message
Good afternoon parents and carers, it has been another wonderful week at St Barnabas! It was brilliant to hear in Celebration Worship about how each class has lived life in all its fullness and about all the great things that have been achieved this week both in and out of school. Please click here to read all about it: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news/2024-04-19-friday-celebration-worship Thank you to everyone for your support for autism awareness today by dressing in blue. A special thanks to Finn for being courageous by telling us all about his big brother Declan, who has autism and to our Harvey who loved showing us his special blue autism awareness t-shirt and how he loves to blow out our worship candles. This week we found out that 30 new children will be joining our school family in September and we can't wait to welcome them. Next Friday we are looking forward to our Hop, Skip and Jump in support of East Lancs Hospice. Donations can be made via parent pay. For all of this week's news, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news Thank you for your wonderful support and in particular with our walk to school initiative, which saw lots of children being awarded with their first WOW badge this morning. I would like to wish you all a fabulous weekend and I hope the weather is kinder to us next week. Take care and God bless, Mrs Ham
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by talking about why we are all wearing blue today which is for Autism Awareness Day at St Barnabas as part of Autism Awareness Month. Finn very bravely stood up in front of the whole school and told us a little bit about his brother Declan who has Autism. He told us that Declan doesn’t like walking in the rain as he doesn’t like the sensation and he told us that he doesn’t like very loud noises and will therefore sometimes wear his ear defenders. Despite this, Finn said that Declan leads an amazing life and it’s wonderful having a brother with Autism. Harvey, who has autism, also came to the front to show everyone his t-shirt which spread awareness for Autism and he loved blowing the worship candles out. We heard a little about how Harvey loves to sing rhymes and songs just like many of us. We then thought about how we’ve lived life in all its fullness this week with our wonderful worships led by both Mrs Ham and Rev Matt and all of our wonderful after school clubs including Little Voices, Mad Science Club, Forest schools and Cricket and Rounders Club. We then presented Hollie, Lydia, Frankie, Iris, Oliver, Olivia, Talia, Charlie, Betsy and Jake as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for consistently demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning, always showing kindness and respect to their teachers and friends and working incredibly hard across the curriculum. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, Jack and Sofia for receiving their pen licenses, Darwen Tower as the overall value award winners this week with an amazing 611 points, the children that completed the big plastic count for being super eco warriors, all of the children who have achieved their badge as part of the WOW initiative which involves walking to school or from school at least once a week and we said a special well done to Year 5 who have won the schools walk to school challenge by completing the most walks or park and strides so far. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Lenny for achieving his starfish swimming badge, Ella-Grace for achieving a trophy for coming first in her recent 3x3 football tournament, Sonny, Charlie, Leo and Desmond for winning the cup in their recent football tournament, Iris for being a wonderful gymnast and swimming several lengths to raise awareness for diabetes, Sofia for achieving her level 4 in gymnastics, making her promise at Brownies, being part of Brownies for two years and achieving an award at musical theatre, Betsy for being awarded a medal for amazing ballet, Isaac for being awarded a merit in his swimming, Lyla for achieving her Stage 4 certificate at swimming, Eliza for achieving several rosettes in her horse riding, Alexis for making her Brownie promise and achieving 100m in her swimming, Alice and Grace for achieving their Brownie Promise badge, Annabelle for gaining her silver certificate for demonstrating several skills at swimming, Lydia and Ella for achieving their Level 1 at swimming, Leonora for achieving her 100m freestyle and 100m backstroke in her swimming, Harry and Eli for being awarded their 100m certificate at swimming, Archie for getting Man of the Match during his semi-final football match, Eden for attending Brownies for a year and achieving her Brownie Eid badge, Mila for achieving her badge for visiting the Fire Station at Rainbows, Marley for getting Olivia doll at Rainbows for being kind, Thomas for getting his 15m swimming certificate, Callie for achieving Stage 4 in her swimming and Cassidy for making her Brownie Promise and being awarded her badge. Wow, what a busy week of celebrations that we had! Rev Ben then led us in prayer and to end our celebration worship, we thanked all those who attended and we wish the the rest of our school family a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support too.
WOW Badge and Class Winners for March 2024
A huge well done to all 120 of our WOW badge winners for March 2024. What a super effort everyone has made. We have all tried really hard to either walk or park and stride once a week in the month of March which was a little taster session as we did it over the 2 weeks! A big congratulations to Year 5 as they have the most badge winners. We look forward to seeing who has earned a badge for April in a couple of weeks.
Year 2 - Maths
For the last 4 weeks, we have been learning our 2 , 5 and 10 times tables. Within this, we have learnt how to times numbers by 2 , 5 and 10. We have also been learning about doubling, halving and dividing. This week we have been focusing on dividing by 5. We used counters to make an array. From these arrays we have been able to split the total amount up into 5 groups. Then we can see how many is in each group and work out the answer. Maths in year 2 has been quite tricky lately but the children have tried so hard and have acquired new maths skills as a result.
Forest school club
In forest school we have been discussing the birds coming back from migration and what we could do to help them. We decided to make bird feeders using pipe cleaners and cereal. We then went on a walk around school to decide which trees were the best to hang the bird feeders in.
Little Voices After School Club
What a super first session with Little Voices! Our little superstars played several games that helped to develop their confidence and they learnt and performed an amazing song! Well done everyone! There are still places available if you would like your child to take part for the next five weeks on Tuesday evenings. CONTACT HAYLIE: Email: [email protected] Mobile: 07717 711715
Year 2 - PE
This week in PE, we practised our catching skills. Sometimes when there are lots of distractions in games it can become difficult to focus on the catch. We practised catching with different partners and with different distractions. In our game, we remembered if the ball came our way to not panic, get ready and catch the ball.
Mad Science After School Club- Optical Illusion
The Science after-school club got off to an exciting start as the young scientists dove into optics, reflection, and sight! They had a blast learning about light and vision, even using mirrors to draw pictures and understand how things reflect.
Year 2 English
As we continue to explore our new book Winter’s Child, we gathered a range of vocabulary. We used vocabulary from the book and our own vocabulary to describe the different settings in the book. Once we had created our bank of vocabulary, we then put them into sentences. We tried very hard to make sure every sentence had capital letters and full stops. The setting descriptions that we wrote are amazing. They are full of expanded noun phrases and similes to really help the reader imagine the setting.
Rev Matt’s Worship: The Resurrection
Rev Matt came in to lead our worship today and tell us about the biggest surprise in the Bible: the resurrection. Rev Matt began with a mystery box game in which children had to feel an object in a box and guess what it was. He talked about how, even though we may worry about what’s coming, the surprise can often be the best thing. This is how the women felt when they visited Jesus’s tomb after his death. They were worried when they noticed Jesus was missing and the ground began to shake, but were overjoyed when Jesus appeared and spoke to them.