Celebration Worship and End of Year Awards
Wow, what a celebration worship! We started off by saying a huge well done to The RotaKids for their fundraising efforts this year. Together with Miss Kachwalla and Mrs Lyons, they have raised an amazing £939.00. With this money, they have bought playground equipment for KS1 and KS2, board games for wet playtimes and donated money to Macmillan Cancer support, Christian Aid and East Lancs Hospice. We then had heard from our Reception to Year 5 teachers who presented their end of year awards for progress, star of the year and pupils’ pupil. A huge well done to all of these children, you have certainly worked extremely hard this year and deserve all the success that you have achieved. A special well done to Sophie in Year 4 for being awarded the Sharon Kay cup for Kindness. What an achievement! We then celebrated and said well done to our children who have achieved success out of school this week. We congratulated Freddie for winning a football tournament, Lyla-Grace who will be starting reception next year for her super tap dancing, Isaac for success at beavers, Lola who received a letter from the queen to say thank you for her jubilee celebration card, Lola, Scarlett, Penelope and Carmen for their swimming success, Eliza for her football and cricket success, Grace for her dance success, Archie for players’ player for football and his darts success and Amelia for her gymnastics success. We also said a huge well done to children who have achieved awards in school. We congratulated our Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 children who attended Witton athletics on Monday evening for wonderful sportsmanship, encouragement and coming 1st place, our Year 3 swimmers for their efforts this year during their swimming lessons and the Year 6 children said a very special thank you to Mrs Gardner for all of her time, continued effort and sports coaching during their time at St Barnabas. They brought her close to tears. Finally, we ended our worship with some beautiful prayers and a blessing from Lillian.
Year 2 Spelling
This week in spelling, the children are focusing on words with the ee sound spelt ey. First, we watched a video, introducing our spelling rule for the week. We then looked at some words with this rule, like donkey, money and key. Finally, we completed the ‘Spelling Zone’ and ‘Dots and Dashes’ activity in our spelling books! We will carry on learning about this rule, ready for our spelling quiz on Friday!
Year 2 St Barnabas Church Visit
Year 2 have had a lovely afternoon visiting Lillian and Glenda at St Barnabas Church! Lillian spoke to the children about the different things that happen in a Church and the different things that you will find in a Church, like the altar, font and lectern. We then created our own crosses and created our own class family of people. The children also managed to have a quick play on the organ!
Monday worship: Hope
Today in our sunny outdoor Monday worship, we looked at the word ‘hope’. Mrs Ham read out a bible passage about hope. During these next few weeks, we will be thinking about our Year 6 and we hope they will continue to shine when they move to high school. We discussed our hopes. Lyla said that she hopes she can go in her paddling pool, Harry hopes that everyone has a roof over their heads, Dominic said he hopes that COVID stops and Aidan hopes to be a doctor. Mrs Ham shared a piece of artwork by Banksy that says ‘there is always hope’. Some children agreed with this but some children didn’t. Ella said “things don’t always go your way”. Instead of just saying ‘I hope’, we could do something to make things happen. We could also ask God for help if we ever think there is no hope. We ended our worship by singing ‘we need hope’.
Friday Celebration Worship
This morning in celebration worship, we heard from our Infant and Junior teachers about how all of our wonderful children have been living life in all its fullness and preparing to move up to their new year groups in September. We also heard about the amazing time that our Reception and Year 2 children had on their trip to Blackpool Tower and Blackpool Zoo and our Year 6 children on their recent trip to London. Well done to these year groups for making the most of the experiences and representing St Barnabas amazingly well. We heard from some of the children in Year 6 who shared their London highlights. Dominic enjoyed the absolutely incredible acting during the Matilda performance, Noah enjoyed the boat cruise and learning about all of the famous landmarks and Sienna enjoyed singing the national anthem outside Buckingham Palace. We then congratulated many of our children for their sporting achievements. In the infants, we celebrated James, Lottie and Grace with certificates for their swimming success, Martha for being the star of the week at gymnastics, Alice for super listening and concentration at Rainbows and Eliza for taking part in the Bolton Iron Kids 1K run last weekend and gaining 9th place. In the Juniors, we celebrated Ted on for his sports success at Turton young farmers and our Year 6 Bee Stinger Netball Team who represented Blackburn with Darwen at Lancashire School Games on Tuesday. Mrs Gardner commented that the team embraced the experience and had a blast. Finally, we ended with some beautiful prayers from Mason, Seb and Lily and a blessing from Lillian. Also, just a reminder that it is our St Barnabas Summer Fair. FOSB have been working incredibly hard to make this a success and they look forward to welcoming you all tomorrow for a fun filled day on the school field.
Year 2 Blackpool Trip!
Year 2 had a fantastic day at Blackpool on Tuesday! Our class topic this term is ‘Beside the Seaside’ so the aim of the trip was for the children to experience a day at the seaside and think about the activities that we do now at the seaside and comparing this to the Victorian’s. We played on the beach, listened to a talk about beach safety, went to the the top of Blackpool Tower and walked along The North Pier! The children showed so much respect to the general public and represented St Barnabas brilliantly! Well done Year 2!
Year 2 R.E: Jacob's Dream
This term in R.E, we have been exploring The Church and why it is a special place for Christians. We starting by thinking about our own special places and how we feel, when we are in our special place. This week, we looked at how holy and special places are represented in The Bible, with the story of Jacob's Dream. We read the story together and discussed the key messages, such as how in Jacob's Dream, he found his special place, talking to God and dreaming about heaven. The children then created their own artwork, representing Jacob's special place.
Monday Worship: The Lord’s Prayer
Today we discussed where the Lord’s Prayer came from. It is a special prayer that Jesus taught his disciples. We discussed how we will hear this throughout our lives. To start our worship, we said the Lord’s Prayer altogether. We then discussed what this prayer meant in more detail. We discussed what having the best Daddy in the world would be like. David said “funny”, Mathew said “helpful”, Dominic said “cool”, Jacob said “playful”, Kaylen said “someone who listens” and Elsie said “brave”. Mrs Ham continued and said someone who is strong, patient, gentle and dependable. Everyone in the whole world has a special Dad in heaven. God is there to support you, help you and will always listen to you. Today we watched a video called ‘The Prodigal son’. We learnt that one son spent the money on nice clothes, a holiday, parties and nice food. After he has spent all of his money, he had to go back to his dad. He felt miserable, full of regret and embarrassed. Instead of his Dad punishing him, he welcomed him back with open arms. His Dad forgave him for his actions. Mrs Ham explained that in the Lord’s Prayer, we ask for forgiveness when we do things wrong. God will always forgive us as long as we ask for forgiveness and learn from our mistakes. We reflected today on how sometimes we use God’s name inappropriately. We need to think carefully about how we use those words as they are very special and very holy. We then watched a video of the parable of the mustard seed. We discussed what we think about heaven. Grace said “dreamy”, Lily said “calm”, David said “fluffy clouds”, Ella said “peaceful” and Seb said “comfortable”. The mustard seed grew into a big bush and all of the birds were welcome to come to it. This is just like heaven where everybody is welcome. Small things can make a huge difference. This links with our kindness tree, small acts of kindness can make a huge difference and our school can reflect heaven on earth. This week we will focus on how we can live life in all its fullness just like God would want us to. We ended our worship by singing ‘The Mustard Seed’.
Celebration Worship
This morning in celebration worship, we heard from our EYFS, KS1 and KS2 teachers about how we have been living life in all its fullness. All of our teachers mentioned how all of the children showed wonderful resilience and encouragement at our sports day last week. We then celebrated some sports achievements that have been happening in school. On Tuesday, we had three of our Year 5 children take part in a gymnastics competition at St Bedes and on Thursday, we had some boys attend the Year 4 Football Festival at Green Lane. Both teams represented school amazing well and showed true St Barnabas spirit. Then we celebrated some out of school sports awards. In the infants, we awarded Lyla in with a certificate for swimming 15m without armbands, Elliott for player of the week at football, Alexis for super listening at Rainbows, Eliza for achieving brilliance in her horse grooming, Annabelle for improving her speed in cycling and Eden for attending the Jubilee Sports Day in the Lake District. In the the Juniors, we celebrated Archie, Ross and Charlie for their footballing abilities . They played at a tournament in Blackburn and got to the finals for Mill Hill Juniors. They didn’t come first but they got the fair play award which is absolutely amazing- Well done boys! We also congratulated Manni for achieving a yellow belt in jiu jitsu. Finally, Lillian ended our worship. She asked us what we were thankful for and we said thank you for our teachers and school staff, our houses, our amazing world, our school, our trees, everyone that is alive, churches, our families, our food and drink, our toys and teddies. We also said a beautiful blessing, ‘May God bless you and keep you.’
Year 2 Transition Afternoon
Today Year 2 had the chance to go into the Year 3 Classroom and onto the key stage 2 yard. We had so much fun, creating our ‘all about me’ work, ready for our new displays in September. Year 2 had lots of brilliant questions and showed great listening. Well done Year 2!
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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!