Rev Matt’s Worship: Perseverance
Rev Matt’s worship began with a balloon challenge this morning. The aim was for the children to persevere and keep the balloon up in the air for as long as possible. All three contenders did extremely well. He then shared the story of the man through the roof, in which the sick man’s friends had persevered in seeking help for him. After bringing their friend to Jesus they discovered the house was overcrowded, but they refused to give up. Instead they made a hole in the roof and lowered him in so that Jesus might heal him. We spent time reflecting on how we could help our friends, and those in need.
Year 3- Collective Worship- Should we learn sign language at school?
Today in Year 3's class worship, we explored different ways of communicating, including prayer to connect with God and the importance of British Sign Language. The children feel learning sign language at school is vital to support the deaf community, break down barriers, and promote understanding between different communities. They also discussed the importance of respect and celebrate difference. We ended our worship by thanking God for creating each of us uniquely different.
The W.O.W. Group - Messy Church: Faith in Action
The W.O.W. Group have done a fantastic job in planning some exciting lunchtime Messy Church sessions. The first one was for KS2 children and the theme was “Faith in Action”. Participants had to think of someone who is their hero and make them into a superhero. They also listened to the story of Samson and his strength, and they were treated to a drink and a biscuit whilst they worked on their superheroes. The W.O.W. Group are looking forward to the second KS2 session next week.
Rev Ben’s Worship- Jesus chooses his disciples
This morning in Collective Worship, Rev Ben started with a fun game where we had to guess the superpowers that our wonderful volunteers, Walter, Lottie, Isabella, Charlie-Rose and Matthew acted out. We guessed the superpowers of speed, strength, sports, invisibility and flight. We then followed on from Jesus' 40 days in the desert and we watched a story from the Bible that showed what happened next. We watched as Jesus chose his followers, called his disciples. They didn't have superpowers and were very ordinary and often made mistakes, just like us. Rev Ben told us that the best followers of Jesus don’t have super-powers and God works today through ordinary people who love Jesus and admit it when they get things wrong. He then told us about Ash Wednesday and how that is a time to ask God for forgiveness for the things we have done wrong. Wilson, our Head Boy, volunteered to have an ash cross put on his head. We then reflected on what we can do when we get things wrong and how God will always forgive us. We finished by singing My Lighthouse and My God's the King of me. Thank you Rev Ben for another wonderful worship.
Reception: Muddy Monday
Our Reception class really enjoyed our Muddy Monday session at Whitehall park. We looked at some habitats for different minibeasts that we found and also enjoyed creating dens and continued to take risks climbing trees. They walked 3.84km and enjoyed contributing to the Big Lent Walk!
Whole-School Worship: Understanding Lent
In worship today, Mrs Ham explained that Lent is a time in the Christian calendar in which we observe Jesus’ time in the wilderness and prepare for Easter. We discussed what we could do to observe Lent. Some of the children’s suggestions included giving up sweets, chocolate, crisps, time on devices, or giving back by helping at home or making an extra effort to show kindness to others. We also learned more about THE BIG LENT WALK and how each member of our school family can contribute by walking a few kilometres over the Lenten period and raising money that will go towards ending global hunger. More information is available on Class Dojo.
The Big Lent Walk
During Lent, our school are currently fundraising for CAFOD. We are taking part in the big Lent walk where we are collectively trying to walk 200km. Please help us to raise as much money as possible by sponsoring our whole school family. If you have been on a walk, please either sponsor and leave a message with how many km you have walked or send me a message and I can update our page. We will also be walking during the school day in our classes to achieve our target so any sponsorship will be greatly appreciated. Your sponsorship can change lives. Every £1 raised through the Big Lent Walk will help fight poverty globally in countries like Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. This year, CAFOD’s Lent Appeal is helping fishing communities feed their families in Liberia, and SCIAF’s Wee Box Appeal is focused on women and girls in Rwanda facing gender-based violence. Also in Ethiopia, CAFOD and SCIAF are working together to respond to the devastating food crisis there. Years of drought caused by the climate crisis means families are no longer able to cope, but your support means we are working with people right now, providing them with water, emergency food and healthcare. With your hard work and sponsorship this Lent, we can change families’ lives for good and tell poverty to take a hike. Please access our page here where you can sponsor your child: https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-big-lent-walk Thank you for your kindness, Mrs Wilkinson
Dress to Express 2024
What a fantastic day we’ve had celebrating Dress to Express! It was lovely to get together as a whole school to raise awareness for Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Every single member of our school family certainly dressed to express themselves and made themselves heard as we all have a voice. Well done to all of the children that spoke about why they had chosen their outfits and how it allowed them to express themselves.
Year 4 - RE: What is God Like?
In RE, we’ve been looking at psalms this week in Year 4. We looked for the symbolism used to describe God and talked about what it reveals about Christian belief.
Rev Matt’s Worship - Temptation
Today in whole-school worship, Rev Matt talked about temptation and how the devil tried to tempt Jesus in the desert. We thought about what tempts us and what we might do if we wanted to celebrate Lent.
Year 3- R.E- How did/does Jesus change lives?
This afternoon in R.E. Year 3 listened to "The Calling of Levi". After the story, we made two lists: one about what mattered to Levi (Matthew) before Jesus called him, and another about what became important after Jesus called him. We talked about why his priorities changed after meeting Jesus. Meeting Jesus made Levi think differently about what's important in life, like his beliefs and values. Jesus' teachings and being around him made Levi rethink what matters most and make good changes in his life. Levi became a better person after meeting Jesus because he used to do a job collecting taxes, which was important for money. But when he met Jesus, he decided to follow Him and be a friend. So, what became important to Levi was being friends with Jesus and learning from Him, instead of just collecting money. It shows how meeting someone special can change what's important to us.
Year 6 PSHE
In PSHE, year 6 focused on the qualities of good friends. We started by discovering that it is okay for friends to have different views and interests. We did this by presenting a series of statements and noticed that there were so many differences within our year 6 class: some agreed and some disagreed with the statements. We ended the lesson with the children explaining what they felt were the most important qualities of friendship. Not only did they have to list the quality, but justify why it is important.