Reception- Year of Prayer
For this week's year of prayer the children each took a wooden spoon and wrote on a word which reflects what the children would like to pray for. We then put all the spoons in a jar in the reflection area and the children can then choose a spoon to quietly pray for the word written on it.
Year 1 Collective Worship- VE Day 80th Anniversary
Today in class worship, Year 1 were introduced to VE Day and explored its meaning. They learnt that it means ‘Victory in Europe Day’ and how tomorrow (8th May) will mark this by celebrating 80 years since the end of World War II. Year 1 understood the significance and joy that this would have brought to everyone in Europe. They looked at pictures of people having street parties, dancing and singing and understood that this would have been a time of great relief and happiness where people could live more peacefully and not have to fear for their own lives or the lives of their friends and family. Year 1 are looking forward marking the occasion on Friday by wearing the colours of the Union Jack.
Whole School Worship - V.E. Day & The Lord’s Prayer
Our worship began with an introduction to V.E. Day. Mrs Ham gave a short explanation about the Second World War and the celebrations that took place after Europe’s victory in 1945. There will be a number of worships and activities taking place across the week to commemorate 80 years since the end of World War II, including our Red, White and Blue day on Friday. Mrs Ham and Mrs Araujo then launched this week’s Year of Prayer activities. Our focus was then directed to The Lord’s Prayer. Mrs Ham spent some time explaining the first few lines to make sure everyone in our school family understands what they are praying about when they recite The Lord’s Prayer. We focused particularly on the word “hallowed” and that this means holy. We shared our ideas of how we can carry out God’s wishes and that we can all try to be like saints. The children had some extremely thoughtful ideas about welcoming people and why it is important to make others feel welcome. We finished by reciting The Lord’s Prayer once more and then singing one of our favourite worship songs, My Lighthouse.
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by signing this week’s Makaton sign which was ‘please’ and thanked everyone for their enormous generosity in supporting Miss Kachwalla, Mr Bloomfield, Rota Kids and School Council with their Afternoon Tea. Thank you to Darwen Rotary Club for also attending and supporting this event. An impressive £256 was raised which will go directly towards supporting our school. We also reflected on some of our other highlights this week which have included exploring the Lord’s Prayer, the Ascension and Songs of Praise in collective worship, our Diocesan Year of Prayer focusing on following in Jesus’ path and putting our trust in Him to guide us down the right path, Year 5 have enjoyed another Peer Mediation session, Year 3,4,5 and 6 enjoyed celebrating Square Root Day and we have enjoyed a relaunch of Choir. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Zac, Inaiya and Elijah in EYFS and KS1 and Scarlett, Elliott, Isabelle and Ruby in KS2. Well done to these children for showing working hard to consistently demonstrate our Barney’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready) and producing an exceptional standard of work across the curriculum. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 1 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week with 97.9% and 99.2% attendance, Whitehall Park and India Mill as our joint value award winners this week, Our Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 children who took part in the DPSSA Cross Country at Witton Park last night for pushing themselves to their limits despite the heat, our Year 5/6 Bee Stinger Netball Squad who represented St Barnabas brilliantly on Tuesday evening and came away as heat winners and Year 2 for being the the ‘WOW (Walking to School)’ champions for the month of April. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school award winners. Well done to Ella for achieving her Stage 2 swimming certificate, Olivia for achieving her special ‘Healthy Minds’ badge and making her promise at Rainbows, Beau for being awarded Olivia at Rainbows for being extremely kind and helpful, Reggie for being the Little Darreners’ Player of the Week, Darcy, Sofia, Grace and Lana for being super Brownies and achieving a variety of badges including badges for World Earth Day, First Aid and Taking Action, Daisy for representing Brownies in the St George’s Day Parade, Olivia B, Ivy, Olivia R and Eliza for representing their football teams and winning the East Lancashire cup, Ava for being a super squirrel and completing all of her badges, Callie for being the Star of the Week at the Edstart Striking and Fielding Club and being a super consistent gymnast, Phoebe for being able to ride her bike without stabilisers, Isaac for representing his football team on a tour to Italy and achieving the team player award and special future champion cup award, Harry for successfully competing his grading and achieving his white belt in kickboxing, Lilly for being the pupil of the month at Little Voices for showing up to every lesson with a smile and being a superstar creator at the Youth Zone and Jack for achieving the star performance whilst playing football for Blackburn Eagles. To end our worship, Mrs Govan reminded us about the Art Competition led by Spring Value Ramblers Club to celebrate their 130th anniversary. The deadline is on the 21st May. Please find further information on Class Dojo. We then had a singalong to ‘Shine from the Inside Out’ and had some beautiful prayers from Marley and Hamza. We wish you all a lovely and restful May Bank holiday weekend in the sunshine.
Worship with Rev. Ben
Today’s worship with Rev. Ben began with a fun game where two teams raced to pass a shuttlecock around the hall and get it back to the start. This linked to the Bible story about Jesus giving us instructions to “pass it on”—just like in the game. The story focused on the Ascension—the moment when Jesus, after rising from the dead and spending time with his disciples, was taken up to heaven. Before he left, Jesus gave his disciples an important mission: to go out into the world, share his teachings, and spread the good news. He promised they would not be alone—God would send the Holy Spirit to be their helper. Even though the disciples felt unsure and a bit afraid, Jesus reassured them that he would always be with them. After the story, the children engaged in thoughtful discussions, exploring questions such as: What did Jesus ask the disciples to do? And How can you trust in Jesus’ promise to be with you, even when you don’t feel brave? Some children shared that they feel brave when they remember Jesus is with them in their hearts. Others said they can pass on kindness and love to friends and family, just like the disciples did. The worship reminded everyone that living like Jesus and sharing his message helps us experience life in all its fullness—a life filled with love, purpose and hope.
Year 6 - Year of Prayer
Continuing our Year of Prayer activities, year 6 took part in a reflective walk along the markings on the school yard. We had to follow the lines, reflecting or praying, remembering that we can trust Jesus and ask him to help us to follow the right path.
Year 3:Year of Prayer- Where Lines Led to Prayer
The children drew chalk lines and followed them on an adventure. It was a lovely reminder, as part of our year of prayer, that just like following those lines, we can trust Jesus to guide us on the right path through prayer.
Year 4 - Class Worship in the Spirituality Garden
We took advantage of the beautiful sunshine and gathered for our class worship in the Spirituality Garden today. This half term, our collective worship theme is the Lord’s Prayer, so we drew some symbols to help us remember and understand it. We then used the symbols to help us recite the prayer. We finished by retelling some of our favourite stories from the Bible.
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Collective Worship- Songs of Praise
As part of our focus on prayer this half term, we further explored how one way we can pray is through song. We had a joyous start to the morning singing some of our favourite songs of praise and different classes were chosen to model the singing and actions at the front. We are super proud of our Reception class for showing their Build Up song as they showed lots of courage singing in front of the whole school family. We sang Waymaker, Shine from the inside out, Build up one another, Life in all its fullness and Jesus strong and kind. Most of our favourite worship songs can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/about-us/church-and-worship#tab-5832
Whole School Worship - Exploring Prayer
Today’s worship marked the beginning of an exploration of prayer: what it is, why people pray, how, when and where they pray, and why it is an important part of faith. We started by reciting the Lord’s Prayer and signing parts using the Makaton symbols we already knew. Jesus told his disciples this prayer twice when they asked him how to pray. We watched a short video explaining that prayer is simply talking to God and that there are no specific rules when communicating with God. We also learned that he is never too busy to listen to us. The children spent time recapping some of the ways they have prayed including through the Diocesan Year of Prayer, and thinking about what they might want to tell God. We then had some quiet time to say our own prayers to God. Some children said thank you for God’s wonderful creations, some said sorry for making wrong choices, some were thankful for their family and friends and some were grateful for their homes and food. We finished by singing our special Lord’s Prayer song with our Makaton actions.
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Year 3- Year 0f Prayer-Seeds of New Beginnings
As part of our Year of Prayer across the Diocese, the children each planted cress seeds to represent new beginnings. They also wrote heartfelt prayers, giving thanks to God for the many signs of new life around us, from newborn lambs and blooming flowers to the start of a new school term and the joy of new friendships.
Friday Celebration Worship
*Celebration Worship* Today, we started our celebration worship by signing this week’s Makaton sign which was ‘How Are You?’ and we thanked everyone for their enormous generosity on the lead up to Easter. We walked 2627.6km and raised a wonderful £214 for the Big Lent Walk to help fight poverty globally and we also thanked our whole school for participating in the ‘Hop, Skip and Jump’ to raise money for East Lancs Hospice. The final amount raised will be confirmed shortly. We then reflected on our highlights in school this week. We have enjoyed learning about Earth Day- thank you Year 5 for your wonderful presentation of learning, Year 3 enjoyed a visit from author and quizmaster Jay Flynn, Reception have enjoyed a visit from the dentist and we have also enjoyed joining in with the Diocesan Year of Prayer. This week it was the 'robes of righteousness' which helped us to understand that God is always with us—surrounding us with His love, comfort, and protection. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Mikey, Alayna and Annabel in EYFS and KS1 and Harry, Carter, James and Brooke in KS2. Well done to these children for showing growth, maturity and resilience in their approach to learning by working extremely hard across the curriculum and always demonstrating our Barny’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready). Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 2 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week with 96.9% and 98.5% attendance and Whitehall Park as our value award winners this week with a record 720 points. River Darwen have won the half term award for receiving the most values points and they will have a non-uniform day and disco next Friday. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school award winners. Well done to Ava for achieving a sleepover, swimming and adventure badge at Squirrels, Callie for achieving a medal for showing strength and technique in her amazing vault, bar, floor and beam work in a recent gymnastics competition, Beau for achieving her Stage 3 swimming certificate, Harry for being the Blackburn Eagles ‘Star of the Week’, Fletcher for being awarded ‘Beaver of the Year for 2024/25’ for being an extremely kind and respectful beaver, Lilly for achieving a super effort award during her recent Easter holiday club and making a fantastic start to her performing arts lessons at Little Voices, Annabel for wonderful projection of her voice in her singing lessons, Lyla for achieving a stage 3 award in a recent gymnastics competition, Jack for being Blackburn Eagles ‘Player of the Match’ in his first game playing for them, James for achieving his Stage 6 swimming certificate and Isabella for achieving ‘Player of the Week ‘ for her wonderful goalkeeping in a recent game playing for Little Darreners. To end our worship, Mrs Govan reminded us about an upcoming Art Competition led by Spring Value Ramblers Club to celebrate their 130th anniversary. The deadline is in 3 weeks time. Please find further information on Class Dojo. We then had a singalong to ‘Oh When the Saints Go Marching In’ for St George's Day and had some beautiful prayers from Olivia, Archie and Cici. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend in the sunshine.