Year 4 - Year of Prayer: Following Lines
The Year 4s are loving this week's prayer theme. We have been thinking about walking the right path and remembering what Jesus taught us. They followed the line markings on the KS2 playground and thought about how we can walk the right path in our daily lives. I think their favourite part was jumping at the end and shouting, "Amen!"
Year 4 - Science: Creating Sound
In Year 4 this week, we began our new science topic, Sound. We learned about 3 main steps to creating sound: the source vibrates, which vibrates the air particles around it to create sound waves, and then these waves are received, for example, by a human ear. The children were put into groups to create presentations about what they had learned.
Whole School Celebration-Living Life to the Full- Afternoon Tea
The afternoon tea, organised by the Smart School Council and RotaKids, was a wonderful celebration of our school family living life to the fullest. There was a lovely selection of cakes and biscuits, some homemade by the RotaKids the day before and some bought in. The children enjoyed chatting, laughing, and drinking hot chocolate together. We're thrilled to share that the event raised an impressive £256, which will go directly towards supporting our school. A huge thank you to everyone who supported the event and to all the staff who helped make it happen. A special thank you to our friends from Darwen Rotary who came along to support too. We look forward to hosting many more in the future!
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Collective Worship- Songs of Praise
As part of our focus on prayer this half term, we further explored how one way we can pray is through song. We had a joyous start to the morning singing some of our favourite songs of praise and different classes were chosen to model the singing and actions at the front. We are super proud of our Reception class for showing their Build Up song as they showed lots of courage singing in front of the whole school family. We sang Waymaker, Shine from the inside out, Build up one another, Life in all its fullness and Jesus strong and kind. Most of our favourite worship songs can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/about-us/church-and-worship#tab-5832
Whole School Worship - Exploring Prayer
Today’s worship marked the beginning of an exploration of prayer: what it is, why people pray, how, when and where they pray, and why it is an important part of faith. We started by reciting the Lord’s Prayer and signing parts using the Makaton symbols we already knew. Jesus told his disciples this prayer twice when they asked him how to pray. We watched a short video explaining that prayer is simply talking to God and that there are no specific rules when communicating with God. We also learned that he is never too busy to listen to us. The children spent time recapping some of the ways they have prayed including through the Diocesan Year of Prayer, and thinking about what they might want to tell God. We then had some quiet time to say our own prayers to God. Some children said thank you for God’s wonderful creations, some said sorry for making wrong choices, some were thankful for their family and friends and some were grateful for their homes and food. We finished by singing our special Lord’s Prayer song with our Makaton actions.
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Barney's Best Bits- Summer 1 Week 1
Dear parents and carers, I hope you all had a restful Easter break. This past week has been short but incredibly busy, and I wanted to take a moment to welcome you back and share some highlights from our week of living life in all its fullness here at St Barnabas. First, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the parents and carers who attended the parents' evening on Wednesday. We had an impressive turnout, with 92% of you attending. Your involvement is invaluable to your children's education and growth. I would also like to welcome the 30 children and their families into our school family that have gained a place at St Barnabas this coming September. We will be in contact soon with details about our transition. You are very welcome to attend our stay and play sessions over the next three Wednesdays from 9.00am. *Weekly Highlights* St George's Day Celebration: We started our St George's Day celebrations and they will continue into next week as St George’s Day has been moved to Monday 28th April by the Church of England, due to it falling during Easter Week. Reception Class Dentist Visit: Our Reception class had an informative visit from a dentist, teaching them about dental hygiene and care. Year 5 Earth Day Worship: Year 5 presented a wonderful worship on Earth Day, focusing on how we can care for our planet and God's creations. They also prayed a special Earth Day prayer written by Pope Francis, who sadly passed away this week. Year 3 Author Visit: Year 3 had the pleasure of an inspiring visit from author Jay Flynn, which greatly enhanced their understanding and writing of biographies. Voice 21 Visit. In school we have been working over the last year on developing oracy across school. We had a visitor from the Voice 21 project yesterday and she was so proud of the progress that we have made as a school family on developing speaking and listening. A huge thank you to Miss Flynn and Mrs Wilkinson for driving the Voice 21 project and to our staff for their support. It is wonderful to see how much the children’s confidence is growing when speaking in front of others which will stand our children in good stead in the future. For all of this week's news in detail, please click here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news *Fundraising Success* Big Lent Walk for CAFOD: Thank you to everyone who contributed to the Big Lent Walk. As a school family, we raised £214 and walked an impressive 2627 km collectively. Hop, Skip and Jump Event for East Lancs Hospice: We also raised £161 for the East Lancs Hospice through our Hop, Skip and Jump event. Your generosity and support are truly appreciated. *Upcoming Events* Tuesday 29th April: Rotakids and School council afternoon tea Bank Holiday: Please note that school will be closed on Monday, 5th May for the bank holiday. Thursday 8th May- Year 1 & 2 trip to Crocky Trail Red, White and Blue Day: Join us on Friday, 9th May for a Red, White and Blue Day to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Year 6 SATS: Year 6 SATS will take place the week commencing 12th May. Year 5 PGL Trip: The Year 5 PGL trip is scheduled for 12th-14th May. Year 3 Rock and River: Year 3 will have their Rock and River adventure on 15th May. All of the upcoming events can be found here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/events Thank you once again for your continued support and involvement in our school community. I wish you and your family a wonderful weekend and hopefully the sun continues to shine. Warm regards, Becky Ham
Friday Celebration Worship
*Celebration Worship* Today, we started our celebration worship by signing this week’s Makaton sign which was ‘How Are You?’ and we thanked everyone for their enormous generosity on the lead up to Easter. We walked 2627.6km and raised a wonderful £214 for the Big Lent Walk to help fight poverty globally and we also thanked our whole school for participating in the ‘Hop, Skip and Jump’ to raise money for East Lancs Hospice. The final amount raised will be confirmed shortly. We then reflected on our highlights in school this week. We have enjoyed learning about Earth Day- thank you Year 5 for your wonderful presentation of learning, Year 3 enjoyed a visit from author and quizmaster Jay Flynn, Reception have enjoyed a visit from the dentist and we have also enjoyed joining in with the Diocesan Year of Prayer. This week it was the 'robes of righteousness' which helped us to understand that God is always with us—surrounding us with His love, comfort, and protection. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Mikey, Alayna and Annabel in EYFS and KS1 and Harry, Carter, James and Brooke in KS2. Well done to these children for showing growth, maturity and resilience in their approach to learning by working extremely hard across the curriculum and always demonstrating our Barny’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready). Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 2 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week with 96.9% and 98.5% attendance and Whitehall Park as our value award winners this week with a record 720 points. River Darwen have won the half term award for receiving the most values points and they will have a non-uniform day and disco next Friday. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school award winners. Well done to Ava for achieving a sleepover, swimming and adventure badge at Squirrels, Callie for achieving a medal for showing strength and technique in her amazing vault, bar, floor and beam work in a recent gymnastics competition, Beau for achieving her Stage 3 swimming certificate, Harry for being the Blackburn Eagles ‘Star of the Week’, Fletcher for being awarded ‘Beaver of the Year for 2024/25’ for being an extremely kind and respectful beaver, Lilly for achieving a super effort award during her recent Easter holiday club and making a fantastic start to her performing arts lessons at Little Voices, Annabel for wonderful projection of her voice in her singing lessons, Lyla for achieving a stage 3 award in a recent gymnastics competition, Jack for being Blackburn Eagles ‘Player of the Match’ in his first game playing for them, James for achieving his Stage 6 swimming certificate and Isabella for achieving ‘Player of the Week ‘ for her wonderful goalkeeping in a recent game playing for Little Darreners. To end our worship, Mrs Govan reminded us about an upcoming Art Competition led by Spring Value Ramblers Club to celebrate their 130th anniversary. The deadline is in 3 weeks time. Please find further information on Class Dojo. We then had a singalong to ‘Oh When the Saints Go Marching In’ for St George's Day and had some beautiful prayers from Olivia, Archie and Cici. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend in the sunshine.
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Thank you parents and carers!
Thank you to everyone who attended parents’ evening last night. We had 92% of our parents attend, which was brilliant, especially with it being the first week back after the Easter holidays. It was lovely to welcome you back into school again and we hope you enjoyed hearing how your child has progressed since the last parents’ evening in December. Thank you for your patience when waiting for appointments and for your ongoing support. If you weren’t able to attend last night, please contact class teachers via class dojo to arrange a 5 minute phone call. A quick reminder that parents and carers are always welcome to join us for our Family Celebration Worship on Friday mornings. Refreshments will be available from 8.55am and worship will start at 9.05am. We look forward to seeing you and thank you for your continued support.
Year 4 God's Big Story - Class Worship
Year 4 Class Worship - Gods Big Story - The Empty Tomb Today in class worship we started off by discussing if we had ever had a special surprise. We looked at how we made sense of it, what emotions it evoked and how we felt. The children exchanged their experiences with each other and then shared these with the rest of the class. Next we shared the story - The Empty Tomb which came from the Salvation brick, at the very end of the gospels and told the story of Jesus dying on the cross and raising back to life again. Bishop Philip then shared his experiences with us and linked this to the shock that Mary experienced when Jesus died, was buried and then came to life again. If Jesus is alive then love overcame hatred. We can experience love, hope and joy. We can rejoice as Jesus is alive! Over Easter we as Christian’s made a declaration: Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. We then finished our worship by learning the song - Praise Ye the lord and a short prayer.
Year 4- Why did the Vikings come to Britain?
Today we started our new history unit - Vikings in Britain. We looked at reasons as to why the vikings invaded Britain, sequenced key events and then created a timeline. We worked in groups to mark the beginning and end of the Viking period from 793AD to 1066AD and then we worked and sorted through all of the events to ensure that they were in chronological order. Towards the end of the lesson, the children presented what they had found and shared key information about where the Vikings had come from, how they got to Britain and how things changed for the Anglo Saxons when they arrived.
Year 4 - English: Recapping Our Residential
Our first English lesson of the summer term was an “experience” session. We began by looking through some of the pictures from our trip to the Anderton Centre. We shared our memories and our favourite parts of the trip. We then worked in groups to write down these fond memories about 6 main areas: preparation, facilities, team games, archery, climbing and paddle boarding. All of this is in preparation for creating persuasive leaflets about visiting the Anderton Centre.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Why Social Action?
As our Linking School project continues, the Year 4s have been considering things in their relationships, the school, the local area, the environment and the wider world that they care about. In today’s session, we listened to the Starfish Story and talked about how small, kind actions can have a big impact on others. We looked at the world around us and decided on some actions we could take to improve it. After sharing our ideas, we voted and decided that we would like to go on a class litter pick, and write to residents of a local care home. We will be carrying out our actions over the Summer Term.