Year 4 - Linking Schools: Zoom Meeting
What an exciting day on Monday! The Year 4s had the opportunity of linking live via Zoom with their linking class from St Matthew’s in Blackburn. The children showed St Matthew’s some of the Makaton signs they’d been learning and asked their new friends some curiosity questions they’d prepared, before answering questions from the link class. We then finished our session playing a couple of games together. It was a great first meeting and we can’t wait to meet our new friends in the summer term.
Year 4 - Great Big Live Assembly
In Year 4, we took part in the Great Big Live Assembly for Children’s Mental Health Week. We heard stories from various children about how they try to look after their mental health and things that can affect their mental well-being. The children said their key takeaways were that there are children around the world getting only one meal a day, that these children have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, and also that it is important for us to address and share our worries so that they don’t get out of control.
Year 4 - RE with Rev Ben: Prayer
One of the key experiences in the current Year 4 RE unit is to learn from a Christian visitor about what Christians believe and how this is revealed in the way they pray. Rev Ben loves coming into school to explore faith with the children, and the children, in return, always offer their own insights. This lesson offered a fantastic opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas, and we fully encourage respectful discussion of different worldviews in RE. The children loved exploring Christian belief through song, liturgy and 5 finger prayers. Thank you, Rev Ben.
Foodie Friends club- Cupcakes
Today, in Foodie Club, the bakers worked in small groups to make cupcakes. They carefully weighed the butter, flour and sugar, whisked the eggs, and followed the recipe closely to ensure a smooth and well-blended mixture. They particularly enjoyed licking the spoon and the mixing bowl.
Children's Mental Health Week Launch Worship & YOP- Talents
This morning Mrs Ham launched our Children's Mental Health Week theme of 'Know yourself, Grow Yourself'. We started by looking at our school vision that says 'Achieving great things through learning and growing together'. We thought about what the growing together means and we had some super suggestions such as growing emotionally and mentally, getting better at things and not giving up when we find things hard. We then looked at our emotions and how they control our brain, just like in the film Inside Out. We thought about the times when our brain tells us that we aren't good at things and we had some great examples such as in acro when doing cartwheels, in maths or art and when we do things for the first time. We thought of ways to challenge our brains and help ourselves grow by doing things that we enjoy such as listening to music, taking part in sports or other hobbies, showing courage to try new things etc. We then focused on our Year of Prayer for this week which is thanking God for our talents. We shared our talents and thought about ways we could express our talents this week and especially on our dress to express day on Friday. We reflected on how we should shine from the inside out and always respect each other's God given talents and the way we like to express ourselves. We discussed that if we laugh at the way someone likes to express themselves then that might hurt their feelings and they will feel sad and won't want to express themselves that way again. We said a lovely prayer thanking God for our talents and how we promise to share them with others and respect others' talents. We finished with singing one of our favourite songs 'Shine from the inside out' which reminds us that God knows us, loves us and fills us with talents that we need show to everyone we meet.
Year 3/4 Sportshall Athletics Club
In our second week of Year 3/4 Sportshall Athletics Club, we practiced a variety of events which included standing long jump, obstacle relay, under and over relay and javelin. The children worked super hard to develop their skills, agility and speed.
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship thanking our whole school for coming to school in non-uniform to raise funds for food, shelter and first aid supplies for those in America who are being affected by the LA wildfires. Thank you to our Rotakids for organising the non-uniform day to help make a difference . We then reflected on a busy week in school. This week, we held in our thoughts all the Jews who suffered in the holocaust and thought about how we can show love, kindness and generosity to our neighbours and again we have enjoyed some wonderful dance and gymnastics sessions led by Rothwell Arts and some amazing extra-curricular clubs such as Foodie Friends, Craft Club, Basketball and Multi-Sports Club led by Edstart. We then congratulated Haydn, Eve and Eddie in EYFS and KS1 and Jack, Leo, Luca and Leonora in KS2 for pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and trying new things, demonstrating hard work and perseverance in their learning and showing all of our Barny’s 4Bs (being ready, respectful, kind and safe). Furthermore, we congratulated Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, India Mill as our overall value award winners this week with 431 points, our Sportshall Athletics squad for winning their heat on Tuesday evening and getting through to the finals and our new Science Ambassadors (Noah in Year 6, Matthew in Year 5, James in Year 4 and Naomi and Cassidy in Year 3) for their fantastic applications. A huge well done to these children- we know that you will be amazing in your new role! We then congratulated our out of school sports award winners. Well done Ava for being awarded two gold trophies in her dance, Reggie for demonstrating fantastic football skills, Alice, Olivia and Daisy for their ‘Inspiring Women’ creation that won them a trophy at Brownies, Luna for winning ‘The Tiny Ballet Dancer of the Year’ award, Archie for achieving listening and follow the instructions at swimming, Lilly for achieving a special award in dance, Darcy for being a super gymnast, Lyla for working hard to master the aerial (a cartwheel with no hands), Grace for achieving two medals for song & dance and her own choreography, Annabel for achieving Star of the Week at Musical Theatre, Scarlett for being a super defender at netball and achieving the gold award and Beau for achieving Stage 5 in her swimming. To end our worship, Mrs Ham reminded us that it’s Dress to Express next Friday 7th February for Children’s Mental Health Week and we had some beautiful prayers from Vienna and Ralphi who prayed for those less fortunate than ourselves, including those who don’t have food and drink at their disposal as we do and those are in the midst of war, conflict and natural disasters. We then sang ‘Sing a New Song’ and thanked those who could attend celebration worship. We thank the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely weekend.
Year 4- Creating Gymnastic Sequences
In our gymnastics lesson today, we were creating a sequence of gymnastic actions including matched shapes and mirrored shapes with a partner using apparatus. They also incorporated changes of level and direction. We also peer evaluated to identify the strengths of a performance and areas for improvements. The children provided constructive feedback against the given success criteria which was great to listen to. The children are working really hard to develop their oracy skills and provide comments that are both positive and helpful for their peers.
Year 4- Creating Patterns in Art - Fabric of Nature
In art, we have been exploring using a textile technique to develop patterns. Our success criteria included: to discuss the work and patterns created by William Morris, creating a pattern using a drawing and developing a pattern using inspiration taken from research. The children used their artwork from the previous lesson - One picture, four views and using tracing paper they traced their drawings, picking out main shapes. They then transferred their traced shapes and patterns into a piece of paper in preparation for the next stage which involves Batik artwork. We can’t wait to see the final result in a few weeks.
Worship with Rev. Matt
This morning’s worship with Rev. Matt focused on the theme of perseverance. It began with a challenge where the children had to work together to keep an inflatable in the air without letting it touch the ground. As the game went on, they quickly realised that success required teamwork, determination and persistence. Following the challenge, Rev. Matt introduced a parable from the Bible—the story of the unjust judge. He explained how the woman in the story kept returning to the judge, refusing to give up until she received justice. This demonstrated the power of persistence, showing that when we truly believe in something, we must keep trying and not lose heart. Rev. Matt linked this to prayer, reminding the children that when we speak to God, we should be just as persistent. The children then took a moment for reflection, considering the question: What is something you could pray for this week? They were encouraged to think about personal challenges, hopes for others or things happening in the world that they could bring to God in prayer. To conclude, Rev. Matt left the children with a powerful message: when we knock on God’s door through prayer, He will answer. This message reinforced the importance of faith, patience and perseverance in our relationship with God.
Join our PTFA
Friends of St Barnabas (FOSB) are always looking for volunteers. We would love for you to join us to help fundraise for our wonderful school. If you would like to volunteer, please contact us via email: [email protected] Thank you in advance for helping.
The W.O.W. Group: Year 4 Class Worship
Thank you to the W.O.W. group today for leading our class worships across school. The theme was online content. Our worship leads began by introducing the topic and the news story linked to the topic. They played a couple of games of ‘Follow me’ and that we have the choice not to do something that makes us feel uncomfortable. They talked about the Christian value of courage and how we can show courage in the way we protect ourselves when viewing content online. The Bible link was from St Paul’s teachings, that we should seek out what is true, pure and trustworthy. In reflection, the Year 4s were in agreement that strict rules should be in place for children accessing content online.