Latest Newsletter
Good afternoon parents and carers, we have had a super busy week back at St Barnabas. Please see our newsletter for a round up of last half term and photos of our teaching teams for September here. A huge thank you to our FOSB for the wonderful Father’s Day Breakfast on Tuesday and to all of the Dads and Grandads who came along. Thanks also to the Dads and Grandads who came along to the special Reception class Father’s Day Celebration this afternoon. It was lovely to see you all and the children loved telling you why they love you and enjoyed playing with you in their outdoor area. We wish all of our Dads and Grandads in our school family a lovely Father’s Day on Sunday! We have had a very busy week of sports with our Year 3/4 quad kids team coming 2nd out of 17 schools, our year 5/6 cricket team just missing out on the final and our netball team came 2nd in the Darwen netball league. Well done to you all and a huge thank you to Mrs Gardner and Mr Bloomfield for supporting the children and thanks to parents who supported. Next week we are looking forward to our Sports Day on Friday morning. You are very welcome to come along to show your support and encourage your child. Reception class and Year 2 had great fun at Blackpool Zoo on Tuesday. For all of the photos, please click here. For all the class news from this week, please click here. For all the upcoming events, click here. Thank you so much for your generous bottle donations for our FOSB Summer Fayre. We really appreciate your support. Wishing you all a fabulous weekend and thank you for your continued support, Mrs Ham
Friday Celebration Worship
Wow! What a busy first week back into our final half term of this academic year. Our theme this week has been encouragement and Mrs Ham asked us to reflect on how we have encouraged each other this week, and how we will continue to focus on this as we enjoy the last few weeks of the school year and support each other as we transition into our new year groups and up to high school for our Year 6 class. We had lots of out of school stars to celebrate this week. Well done to Ella-Grace, Ivy, Leo, Olivia, Sonny, Charlie and Jack and Desmond for their wonderful football skills, Jake, Will, Bobby and Austin for coming runners up in a football tournament in St Anne’s, Manni and Bobby for their attendance and skill at a recent football tournament, Matthew for his recent success in the Premier League writing competition, Harry for his swimming and cricket success, Lyla for her musical theatre singing performance, Isaac for his piano playing, Iris and Leonora for being fabulous gymnasts, Finn and Ruby for running the race for life and Ruby for also completing the couch to 5k, Grace for performing on the main stage at Darwen Music Live, Mila for showing kindness at Rainbows and Mason for his sensational kickboxing. We also celebrated lots of success in school. As always, we heard from our teachers who presented their Value Award Winners. Well done to Eve, Isabella, Miley, Euan, Ruby, Charlie, Katie and Elsa. We also said a huge well done to our group of our Year 4 children who attended a Quad Kids competition and came second place out of 17, our Year 5/6 cricket team for excellent participation and sportsmanship on Wednesday, our Year 5/6 Netball team who came 2nd place out of all the schools in BwD, Reception class and Year 6 for the best attendance this week, India Mill for being the award winners this week and to Lola, Jake, Esme, Harry, Mathew, Daisy, Freddie and Bobby for gaining their pen licenses. We ended our worship with some lovely singing and dancing to ‘Build Up.’ What wonderful way to end the week!
QUAD kids Athletics at Witton Athletics Track BwD Schools
On Tuesday we went down to Witton Athletics track to take part in the BwD schools quad kids event. The children were exceptionally well behaved, especially in the heat and represented school brilliantly. One of our squad members even managed to throw the vortex further than any other school and 17 took part on the day. We have just received confirmation that we have been awarded with silver medal place - a great result! Well done to our Quad kids Squad!
Smart School Council in Year 4
In our Smart School Council session we discussed the things that we would miss the most from this academic year. The children had to select from 1- the teachers 2- the person they sit next to 3- a certain topic 4- nothing( bring on the next year). We had a unanimous decision - the children will miss their teachers the most next year!
Using analogue and digital time in Year 4
In maths this morning, we have been looking at both analogue and digital times. We then moved on to converting time using the 24 hour clock. We found it quite challenging but learnt a new trick to convert time quickly.
Year 4 - Linking Schools Preparations
What an exciting time in Year 4 as we prepare to welcome our Linking Schools class! On Tuesday, Kestrel Class from St Matthew’s in Blackburn are due to visit us at St Barnabas for a day of team building and collaborative learning. We have been making name tags, banners, local area maps and preparing a few conversation starters and topics in order to help our visitors feel at ease in our amazing school.
Whole School Worship: Encouragement
This morning in worship, we started with an encouragement song with the lyrics 'we all need encouragement, like the air that we breath'. Mrs Ham explained that yesterday was St Barnabas day and he was known as a great encourager. She then reminded us of how we have a special connection with St Paul's in Hoddlesden as we share our vicar, Rev Ben with and how St Barnabas and St Paul had a special connection in the Bible too. We then learnt about how St Paul became a follower of Jesus with the encouragement of his friend, St Barnabas. We then discussed how we can all show courage like St Paul and encourage each other like St Barnabas in the many upcoming events such as sports day, transition days, end of year assessments and productions. We are looking forward to learning more about St Barnabas and St Paul from Rev Ben in his worships over the next few weeks.
Year 4 - Using Years, Months, Weeks and Days
In Year 4, we have kicked off our Time unit comparing years, months, weeks and days. We used our hands to help us to remember how many days are in each month. I wonder if the class can explain this trick at home. Or maybe they can remember the rhyme: 30 days has September....
Celebration Worship
This week during celebration worship we discussed and reflected over the week of Pentecost. The children enjoyed listening to what each class has been doing over the week and celebrated their achievements and successes during the week. We also had a visit from one of our Cidari Trustees, Jo Venn and it was lovely to show her the great things we have been achieving. A huge well done to all of our values award winners, you are a credit to yourselves and our St Barnabas family.
Sports Stars
A huge congratulations to all of our sports stars this week. Many children participate in a variety of sports and events outside of school. A massive well done to our school's netball team who won the high 5’s netball final this week and our cross country team who worked extremely hard and showed huge amounts of determination to complete the course. Other sporting achievements included, gymnastics, dancing, performing arts, skiing and many more.
Year 4 History - How did the Vikings Travel? Investigating Longships
In our history lesson today we have learnt all about methods of travel and in particular the use of longships. We looked at the key functions of the boats, labelling a diagram and then adding further details from researching. In the next part of the lesson we will be designing and making our very own longships which we are super excited about.
Year 4 - Recreating Church
After writing an extensive list of what all churches “need”, the children realised that actually very little was needed once we headed up to Whitehall Park to have our outdoor worship. We created a cross from fallen twigs, found a tree stump for a lectern and spent time marvelling at God’s creations all around us. We had some bible readings about Pentecost and the beginnings of the church and some lovely impromptu prayers. A very peaceful morning.