Collective Worship- Launching Our 30 Day Kindness Matters Challenge
This morning, Mrs Ham started our worship by lighting a special candle to remember Her Majesty who sadly died on Thursday after serving our country for 70 years and to think about and pray for our new King Prince Charles III. We also started off our worship by singing the song ‘Kindness’ by Fischy Music to start off our theme of Kindness. Mrs Ham told us that to kickstart our new academic year, we will be taking part in the Kindness 30 day challenge just as we did last year. We discussed why being kind is so important because it can make people feel loved. It is also contagious and can create a ripple effect. We listened to John the Kindness Coach who introduced the 30 day challenge to us and day one of the challenge which is, ‘Don’t say mean words or perform mean gestures to others.’ We then watched a video and talked about the acts of kindness that we could see. Ella-Grace said she saw the man sharing his money so that the little girl could go to school, Harry said he helped the plants to grow by watering them, Carter said he fed the hungry dog and Seb said that he helped the lady with her very heavy cart. Mrs Ham asked us what the effect of this man’s kindness was and we said that people felt loved, valued and special and this is exactly why we should all be kind. We then listened to a story called ‘Kindness Grows’ which shared a special message about friendship and looked at our new display in the library which supports the message that we are all one huge family and need to love and support one another through kindness. Finally, Mrs Ham asked us to reflect on what we can do this week and every week moving forward to create that ripple effect of kindness to make our school an amazing place to be and we sang ‘Rich in Kindness.’ It was also lovely to have Lillian back in worship with us to give us all a blessing.
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
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.
Every picture tells a story- Art- Year 5
This afternoon, the children learnt about the famous street artist Banksy. Banksy is known for his anti-authoritarian art, often done in public places such as the seaside, house walls, and buildings and every picture that he creates has a story to tell. In pairs and in small groups the children looked at the 'Clacton pigeon mural', bearing in mind the absence of 'British Values' in the mural. The famous picture has been considered inappropriate and offensive so the children altered the image to a scene that is more welcoming using dry media.
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.
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.....
Learning about the Bible and other holy books- Year 5
This afternoon, the children in Year 5 have been learning about the Bible and other holy books and faiths. We have explored, Sikhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism. The children had the opportunity to try on clothes that are worn by other religions during prayer time. We learnt that the Jews have a special Seder plate. The plate symbolises modern liberation struggles. We also found that prayer beads (string of prayer beads) are used by numerous religions.
.JPG)
Celebrating 50 Years of St Barnabas- Year 5
Celebrating 50 years of St Barnabas. During worship this morning, Mrs Ham showed us old pictures about what our school looked like 50 years ago. We compared prices of food, fuel, cars and houses from then and now too. In the afternoon in our classes we looked at old newspaper articles, log books and registers. One of the books had a lock which children were very inquisitive about. We also went for a local walk to look at buildings that used to be St Barnabas. The children were super excited to find out about the nursery they had attended used to be St Barnabas.
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