Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our first celebration worship of this academic year by signing the trinity and talking about our extremely busy couple of weeks in school, especially focusing on our Barny’s 4Bs (being ready, being safe, being kind and being respectful) and our school values. We then presented Thomas and Fletcher in Years 1 and 2 and Alfie, Eliza, Ella and Leonora in KS2 with certificates for being our value award winners this week. Well done to these children for starting the academic with an amazingly positive attitude, demonstrating fantastic behaviour for learning and consistently displaying our school values. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Harry for completing the Summer Reading challenge and being awarded a huge trophy for demonstrating kindness at SportsCool Summer club, Albie, Samuel, Renee, Carmen, Olivia and James for completing the Summer Reading challenge, Grace for being awarded the lyrical and jazz winner of the week, 3rd place for song and dance and a silver medal for her acro, Sofia for achieving Star of the Week at gymnastics club, Maggie for being a super Rainbow and working exceptionally hard to achieve all of her badges and Marley for achieving all of her badges at Rainbows and moving up to Brownies. We also congratulated Reception, Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and India Mill as the value award winners this week with 427 points. Finally, we had some lovely prayers of thankfulness and appreciation from Leonora, James and Lennox and we sang ‘Shine.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.
Rev Matt 's Worship - Moses
Collective Worship - 12.09.24 During this week's worship session with Rev. Matt, the children engaged in a meaningful and reflective activity. Rev. Matt began by reading a Bible story. The tale centered on a baby boy placed in a basket and gently set adrift along a riverbank. This story unfolds against a backdrop of great hardship for the Hebrew people, who were oppressed under the rule of the Egyptians. The Egyptian king, fearing that the Hebrew people might rise against them, had decreed that all Hebrew infants be killed. Amidst this dire situation, a courageous act of compassion emerged. The baby, destined for death, was discovered by none other than the Egyptian king’s daughter. Moved by the child’s innocence, she decided to save him and raise him as her own, naming him Moses. Under the watchful eyes of God, the baby was spared and later grew up to become the leader who would free his people from their suffering. Following the story, the children participated in a thoughtful discussion. They paired up and pondered a question: What are some ways they can show respect to their teachers, friends, or family members? The children shared numerous ideas, reflecting their understanding of Christian values. They suggested acts such as actively listening, showing kindness, and embodying respect in their interactions. Their responses demonstrated the importance of treating others as they themselves would wish to be treated, a principle at the heart of our Christian Value of Respect. Through this worship session, the children not only learned about a significant biblical figure but also explored the practical application of respect and kindness in their own lives.
Our new Heads and Deputies
Introducing our new Heads and Deputies! We are so proud of our new Head and Deputy Head boys and girls as they have made a great start to the school year already with a meeting with Mrs Ham planning out how they can support our school family , they have been involved in our worships and today they counted up all of our values points across school. On Friday they will be announcing the winning house teams in our Celebration Worship and they have lots of exciting things planned for our school in the coming months. Well done Harry, Hamza, Daisy and Rosie!
Whole School Worship: Paralympic Values
We began our Monday worship with a race this week, except the race wasn’t very fair. One person was running the race, one was hopping and one was blindfolded. We discussed why this wasn’t a fair race and then we watched some athletes’ performances from the Paralympics. We were amazed to see people with no arms playing the piano, flying aeroplanes, brushing their teeth and driving cars etc and then we reflected on how we can learn from the Paralympians and have a 'yes, I can' attitude. We learned about the Olympic and Paralympic values and how some of the values are the same or similar to our Christian Values., We discussed how we can do anything with hard work, determination and self-belief and read in the Bible that with God, all things are possible.
Year 6 - Picture News Worship
Year 6 took part in a virtual worship which followed on nicely from our class worship. It focused on the clean up and the importance of community in the aftermath of this summer’s riots, that took place up and down the country. We discussed how we can all come together, no matter what our background, and work towards a common goal.
Rev Ben’s Worship- Trust
Rev Ben welcomed us back to school by reflecting on our school holiday and what we were most looking forward to this school year. He then told us the Bible story about Abraham going on a journey but he didn't know where he was going but he put his trust in God. Rev Ben said that our life can be a wonderful journey if we put our trust in God and remember that he is always with us. We then discussed with our partners how we can make the most of this year and live life in all its fullness. We finished with a lovely back to school blessing and sang a special back to school song.
Class Worship- How can communities help each other in times of difficulty?
During our class worship, Year 3 looked at a story about the summer when riots occurred in England and Northern Ireland, causing damage to cars and buildings. We defined the term 'communities' and discussed the importance of everyone feeling welcome and safe within their community. The children reflected on their differences and similarities, recognising that our school community is special because it is made up of so many different individuals with unique interests. We discussed our British value of mutual respect and tolerance, considering how our words and actions can impact others. We then sang ' When I needed a neighbour' and ended the worship by thanking God for our school community.
Whole School Worship: Jesus the Good Shepherd
We were all so happy to have everyone back for our first day of the school year. In our first worship we recapped and celebrated all of the amazing ways we live out our school vision and what Jesus meant when he said we should have life in all its fullness. We heard about His teaching of the sheep and the gate and learned that He wished for all of us to use Him as our gate to God; that we can have a good life if we follow His word. We then recapped our 4 B's school rules and our Christian Values. Our teachers will be looking for our children to demonstrate these in order to gain values points each day and get on our 'time to shine' board. We reflected on what we are looking forward to this year and how we will achieve great things and live life in all its fullness.
Year 3- First Day in Year 3
Year 3 had a wonderful first day back at school and were full of excitement about joining the juniors! We began the day by writing prayers for the new academic year, with children expressing their hopes for sharing love and kindness, supporting their families, and fostering a caring school community. We also built upon our school’s 4 B’s — Being Kind, Being Respectful, Being Safe, and Being Ready — with thoughtful ideas from the children, such as walking safely around the school and avoiding swinging on chairs. They practised lining up in alphabetical order with great enthusiasm and did an excellent job! In the afternoon, we explored our science unit on Light, where the children explored and compared natural and artificial light sources. It was a fantastic start to the year!
Staff Team Holy Communion Service
What a wonderful way to start a new school year with a special service of Holy Communion for our staff team this morning. Thank you so much Rev Ben for leading the Eucharist today and for saying special prayers for our new school year. We also enjoyed listening to the Bible reading of John 10 and reflected on our role in looking after and protecting our children and enabling them to achieve great things and live life in all its fullness.
Year 6 Leavers Service
This morning we said a special goodbye and good luck to our Year 6 children. It has been a fantastic seven years with them and they should be so proud of all the great things they have achieved. The following memories video shows how much they have lived life in all its fullness throughout their journey at St Barnabas. We wish them all the luck in the world at their new high schools and hope they will continue to shine from the inside out. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bjd1YKm-gFs&feature=youtu.be All the photos from today can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/year-6-leavers-service-2 We also said a goodbye and thank you to Miss Baxendale. Her new school are so lucky to have her as she is a star! Thank you so much Miss Baxendale for your hard work and dedication to our school family over the last seven years. Thank you parents and carers for all of your wonderful support. Thank you also for your lovely words, cards and gifts. It has been a pleasure to have all of your amazing children in our school family and we hope they all have a well deserved rest. Wishing you all a fabulous Summer holiday and fingers crossed the weather stays like this. Many thanks, Mrs Ham
Whole School Awards Ceremony
This morning, we had a special award ceremony to celebrate a fantastic 2023-2024 academic year here at St Barnabas. First of all, we said a huge well done to Harvey and Miss Reynolds. We thank Mrs Reynolds for the amazing support that she has given to Harvey and the rest of our school family this year and we celebrate all of the wonderful things that Harvey has achieved. We wish him lots of luck at his new school. We then moved on to our Progress Award, Star of the Year and Children’s Champion winners in Years Reception-5. We congratulated Olly in Reception, Eli in Year One, Martha in Year 2, Alfie in Year 3, Elsie in Year 4 and Betsy in Year 5 with the Progress award, Elsie in Reception, James in Year 1, Naomi in Year 2, Alice in Year 3, Declan in Year 4 and Matthew in Year 5 as the Stars of the Year and Edward in Reception, Evie in Year 1, Alfie in Year 2, Daisy in Year 3, Annabelle in Year 4 and Harry in Year 5 as the Children’s Champion. Well done to all of these children for their incredible effort this year. Mrs Gardener and Mrs Ham also presented two of our Year 4 children with special awards. We said a massive congratulations to Annabelle who won our Protecting the Planet award. This is an award that Rev David left after retiring a couple of years ago. It goes to Annabelle for her fantastic commitment to preserving the planet. They also presented the Sharon Kay Cup for Kindness to Bella for her kind, caring, loving and empathetic nature. Mrs Ham, our current Heads and Deputies and Sports Leaders then presented Harry as our new Head Boy, Hamza as our new Deputy Head Boy, Daisy as our new Head Girl and Rosie as our new Deputy Head Girl for next academic year and Matthew, Freddie, Austin, Ezmae, Brooke and Poppy as our new Sports Leaders for next academic year. Well done to all of these children for their very successful applications-we are sure that you’ll all do a fantastic job in your new roles! Mrs Ham then presented all the children in school who have achieved 96% attendance across this academic year- a huge well done to these children for their commitment to learning. Finally, the Rotakids then presented Darcy and James as the sweet jar winners. Thank you to all of our children who guessed the number of the sweets in the jars to raise money for East Lancs Hospice and well done to Darcy and James for guessing correctly. We are so proud of our whole school family for their hard work and dedication, they really have achieved great things and lived life in all its fullness.