First week message from Mrs Ham
Good afternoon parents and carers, we have had a fantastic first week back at St Barnabas. We have loved seeing the children looking so smart in their school uniforms and they have been learning lots in their new classrooms. We started the week with a special celebration of our school being 50 years old and sadly ended the week celebrating the life of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We had a lovely worship this morning where we sang the National Anthem together for the last time for the Queen and for the first time for the new King Charles III. Thank you to everyone who joined us this morning. In the coming days we will be creating a community prayer space, similar to the Pray for Ukraine prayer area where our school family can leave their thoughts and prayers for Her Majesty the Queen and her family. There is likely to be a bank holiday on the day of the funeral so school will be closed on that day. I will let you know as soon as I find out the date. For further information about what your child has been learning this week and about our special worship this morning, please see our news section on our website. https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news or our individual class pages. https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/classes-curriculum/class-pages On Monday we will be sending you further information about the curriculum that your child will be taught this half term and meet the teacher videos. For all upcoming events, please see the following page. https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/events We wish you all a wonderful weekend with your loved ones. Take care and God bless the Queen, Mrs Ham
Year 2 are the Amazing Attendance winners in EYFS & KS1 this week!
Well done Year 2 for achieving the Amazing Attendance Award this week in KS1 with 99.63%! We are so proud of you! They are looking forward to their fun session on the MUGA with Miss Baxendale as their reward.
Celebration Worship- Celebrating the life of Queen Elizabeth II
This morning in worship, we celebrated the life of our longest service monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. We held a special two minutes silence and looked at some photographs of Queen Elizabeth II throughout her reign as Queen. We watched a special edition of Newsround that told us all about the Queen's life. We also looked at a lovely picture of several rainbows that were sent by God yesterday on the day of her death. We recognised this as a sign of her now being at peace with her late husband Phillip in heaven. We thought about the Christian value of service and how our Queen has served our country and the commonwealth for over seven decades which included her carrying out her state and national duties well into her 90s. We discussed how we can take inspiration from Queen Elizabeth II as she lived life in all its fullness just as our school vision encourages all of us at St Barnabas to do so. We then sang the national anthem. The first verse we honoured Queen Elizabeth II in heaven by singing ‘Queen’ and for the second verse, we sang it with ‘King’ to commemorate the new King, King Charles III. We ended our worship with some beautiful prayers from Sofia, Mason, Harlow and Seb who prayed for Queen Elizabeth II in heaven, King Charles III and the people of Ukraine. We also joined the choir in singing the song ‘Sing’ which was created by Gary Barlow to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
Year 2 - Celebrating 50 years of St Barnabas
Year 2 exploring the wonderful and 50 year anniversary of St Barnabas. We went down to the old school and discussed the differences between the two schools and we enjoyed celebrating the history of St Barnabas.
Year 2 Class Worship- Inclusivity
Year 2 focused on inclusivity in their class worship this morning. They looked at the new range of Barbie and Ken dolls that are now available to buy in shops. This included the first Ken doll with vitiligo, and a Barbie doll with a prosthetic limb and another with a wheelchair. They also look at the new Barbie doll that Strictly Come Dancing star Rose Ayling-Ellis has also unveiled with a hearing aid. Year 2 talked about how this is wonderful and helps children from different backgrounds and with different disabilities feel included. They ended the worship by singing ‘We Can Make a Difference’ and by saying some beautiful prayers.
Celebration Worship- Fridays at 9.15am
Dear Parents and Carers, you are very welcome to join us for our Celebration Worship each Friday at 9.15am. Refreshments will be served in the hall from 8.45am. This week class teachers will be sharing how well the children have settled into their new classes. From next Friday we will be presenting awards to the child who receives the most Values Points in each class and there will also be class attendance awards. Parents will be contacted on the Wednesday evening and invited to Celebration Worship on Friday. Please send in any awards from home such as sporting clubs, library challenges etc and we will present them to the children and they can stand on the golden podium whilst our school family shows them how proud we are of them. Please note that the Reception class will not be joining us this Friday or next Friday as they are being settled into big school.
Loving Library time!
Today is National Read a Book Day! We have loved choosing our first reading book of the year from our updated library. We have used the ‘recommended reads’ and ‘new to the library’ displays, that our amazing librarians created, to help us to choose an exciting new book. We can’t wait to read them! We also learnt lots of library skills such as how to put the books back with the spine facing out and in alphabetical order.
Collective Worship- Our Values
This morning in worship, we started our worship by reading our school vision, ‘Achieving things through learning and growing together in a love-filled Christian family’ and ‘That they shall have life, life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). We discussed what this meant and Eva and Harlow said that it means enjoying your life and making the most of it, Mason said it means trying hard and striving to do your best and Jake said it means being the best person that you can be and looking out for others. Mrs Ham then reminded us that in order to achieve our school vision and to make St Barnabas a special environment to grow and learn, we must follow our School Christian Values of courage, friendship, service, forgiveness, generosity, respect and encouragement and the British Values of Democracy, Rule of Law, Tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs, Mutual Respect and Individual Liberty. We learnt how each finger on our hand refers to each individual British Value. Mrs Ham then explained that all members of our St Barnabas staff will be looking out for our children demonstrating these Christian Values and British Values and rewarding this behaviour. Please click to read more.....
First day fun!
What a super first day back in school! It’s been lovely to see the children’s huge smiles when meeting back up with their classmates! They have all settled brilliantly into their new classes and we are so proud of them.
Our First Whole School Worship- Celebrating 50 Years of St Barnabas
This morning, Years 1-6 gathered together for our first whole school worship of the new academic year and it was wonderful to have all of our children back together again looking smart in their school uniforms. Mrs Ham told us all that our current school building was 50 years old yesterday and this week we will be taking part in some activities to celebrate this. Please click to read more.....
Welcome back to school
Good morning parents and carers, we hope you and your child/ren have had a wonderful Summer holiday and have made some lovely memories together. Please click to read the rest.
Summer reading challenge
Don’t forget to sign your child up to the 2022 #SummerReadingChallenge at one of our local Darwen or Blackburn libraries. The challenge is FREE. If you send in your certificate in September, we will present it to your child in Celebration Worship. #welovetoread #summerfun