Year 5 - Kindness Kites
2026 is the centenary year for the Blackburn Diocese, which includes the churches and schools in the local area. To celebrate this, everyone at St Barnabas has been thinking about kindness and the different forms that it can take. Previously the children have considered the power of saying something kind, listening and sharing while giving examples from their own lives. This week, we completed our ‘making peace’ kite and over the next two weeks we will start thinking about generosity.
Year 5 - French
To start the new French unit of describing people, the children reviewed the verb ‘to have’ and learned how to describe eye and hair colour. We developed our written and spoken French vocabulary and put particular focus on how to construct sentences with the correct word order.
Year 5 Art - Depth, Emotion and Movement
Today Year 5 have completed a series of art lessons with a focus on Drawing: Depth, Emotion and Movement. The children looked into expressive and gestural lines. The children worked really hard on trying to communicate their emotions through memory pictures. The next step of the process will involve transferring these designs onto tracing paper and then finally polystyrene tiles using ink and a roller. We can’t wait to see their final pieces.
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Year 5 Smart School Council Big Debate
Today we took part in our Smart School Council Big Debate. We were asked if Tik Tok should be banned for everyone in the UK. We had six groups, four voted no and two groups voted yes. The main reasons discussed were that it should be banned as it’s a Temu version of YouTube and it’s full of inappropriate content and toxic people. On the other hand some thought it shouldn’t be banned as they think it allows people to connect to others, have fun and interact, it can also be really useful to find out relevant information. Most of the children did highlight though that it should have an age restriction of 16 years old and above. We had some wonderful points that were shared that showcased our oracy skills in Year 5.
Whole School Worship - The Value of Kindness
Today, our whole school worship was focussed on the value of kindness and our Kindness Kite of God rewards kindness. We talk about kindness frequently at St Barnabas, especially as it is one of our 4 Be’s. As we came into worship, a video was playing that showed how kind acts affect the recipient, prompting them to pay the kindness forward so that it spreads. The children spotted some acts of kindness in the video and linked these to the charitable activities we have taken part in as a school family recently. Mrs Ham read some motivational quotes and we all acted out sprinkling a glitter trail of kindness and throwing around kindness like confetti. She then showed us the story of The Good Samaritan and explained that showing kindness isn’t something we reserve just for our friends and family; it’s for everyone. Quotes from the Bible about kindness were read brilliantly by Matthew, Darcy and Charlie from this week's Kindness Kite. We then spent some time reflecting on how we will show kindness this week and beyond, and we finished by singing one of our favourite songs, Rich in Kindness.
Mad Science After School Club- Exploring the Chemistry of Curiosity: pH Levels
We had a fantastic start to our Science club today, delivered by the Mad Scientist, Jo. Our future scientists focused on the power of pH levels, learning how to identify acids and bases using professional liquid indicators and pH paper. The children put on their safety glasses and learned the vital importance of protecting themselves while conducting experiments. From observing the chemical reactions used to clean oxidised coins to testing the acidity of common household liquids. It was inspiring to see the children’s curiosity come to life as they realised that science isn’t just found in a textbook, it is happening in their kitchen cupboards and the world around them.
Year 5 - Whitehall Park
To celebrate the end of term, after church we visited the rose garden at Whitehall Park to see the beautiful Easter crosses made by the children of St Barnabas. The crosses will be up for the Easter weekend for anyone who wants to inspect the work of our resident artists. As the weather was so nice, we stopped off at the playground and spent our break time on the swings and slides.
Year 5 - Easter Hop Skip Jump
Wearing our Easter crowns, we hopped, skipped and jumped around the playground for 1km to raise money for East Lancs Hospice. Luckily the weather was perfect so it was a great chance for some exercise. East Lancs Hospice is an organisation dear to our hearts, providing essential care and dignity for people in Darwen and Blackburn. Please donate any money you can either through our parent pay or directly through their website.
*Spring Amazing Attendance Awards *
*Spring Amazing Attendance Awards * A huge congratulations to all of the children who achieved an amazing attendance certificate today for having over 96% attendance throughout the Autumn and Spring terms! We are so proud of you!
Whole School Worship - God’s Green Earth
As we approach the end of Lent, Mrs Ham led a special worship to celebrate all the efforts our school community has made to give back by looking after our local area and beyond. We couldn’t believe just how much we’ve all achieved in 2026 so far. Some key actions include: Reception class earning the Ruby Robin Award through building bug hotels, spotting birds and taking part in a wildlife quiz; our collective Big Winter Wander to raise money for the World Fund For Nature; our whole-school tree planting day on Jack’s Key; the WOW group planting two community orchards on school grounds; Mr Fairbanks building bird boxes and placing them around school; the Rota Kids collecting pre-loved teddies and coats for charity; the WOW group creating posters about the community poo bag dispenser located outside school, and putting them up all around the local area; and some of our children and parents choosing to go litter picking to help keep our streets clean. We have much more planned for the future, so keep a lookout for our next initiative. We ended our worship with prayers of thanks for God’s creations and singing one of our favourite Fischy Music songs: Make A Difference. Key Stage 2 stayed behind to hear the winners of the March TT Rockstars battle. A huge well done to the winning classes, Years 3 and 6, and to our class champions: Charlie, Charlie, Isabella and Isabelle.
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Heroes of Troy
We are so proud of our drama club for their fantastic production of ‘Heroes of Troy’. We loved seeing you all shine on stage and it was amazing to see how much your confidence has grown over the last ten weeks. A huge thank you to Miss Woods and Mr Mealor for their support and direction. Also a massive thank you to all of the parents and carers who came to support. All of the photos are available here and the recording will be shared soon. https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/heroes-of-troy-drama-club-production
Year 5 - Chocolate Bingo
Jade from Tesco's community champions visited Year 5 today to play a game of stand up bingo. Every child received a ticket and sat down with a bag of sweets when their number was called. The last person standing was Layla, who won an Easter egg. Thank you so much to the Tesco for coming today.