Whole School Singing Worship - Monday
We started our week with a new kite to think about, God’s Vast Love. We agreed that God is with us all of the time, even if we are on holiday, or at another house or even if we are not making the right choices, God is always with us and will show love and forgiveness. We then celebrated through song, some of our favourites and also practiced some new songs together which is always very exciting.
Whole School- Safer Internet Day 2026-Centered on the responsible use of AI.
To mark Safer Internet Day 2026, Mrs Araujo led a special Worship centered on the responsible use of AI. The session started with the Heads and Deputy Heads signing the Trinity. The children then watched a short video and discussed how AI can assist us in our daily lives. Through a fun identification game, pupils practised spotting AI-generated images and learned that because AI can make mistakes, its results are not always true or accurate. This helped our children understand the importance of being cautious and informed digital citizens.
Friday Celebration Worship
Today’s Celebration Worship was a joyful opportunity to recognise the many achievements, values and successes across our school family. We began by celebrating our learning and enrichment activities, including our focus on numbers and regular participation in Times Table Rock Stars, where children have shown great enthusiasm and determination through battles. We also reflected on our fundraising efforts for the NSPCC, showing our commitment to caring for and protecting others. A special mention was given to the WOW group for leading Messy Church, which was a fantastic example of teamwork, creativity and faith in action. Our values awards were proudly presented to Bowen in Reception, Ava in Year 1, Cici in Year 2, Heidi in Year 3, Martha in Year 4, Ivy in Year 5 and Edward in Year 6, each recognised for living out our school values in their everyday actions. The Pen License awards were given to Mila in Year 3 and Chloe in Year 4 for their excellent efforts in handwriting in all subjects. We also celebrated our team value points results. Darwen Tower finished in fourth place, Whitehall Park in third, River Darwen in second and India Mill in first place. The overall winning team across the half term was River Darwen, well done to everyone for showing perseverance, teamwork and respect. There were many sporting and extracurricular achievements to celebrate. Bo took part in a BMX bike race with 24 competitors and finished an impressive 14th overall and he was the youngest. Chester was awarded a medal for his excellent swimming, while Maggie earned badges at Brownies for completing a range of activities, including finger painting. Jack received a certificate for completing an 800m swim and Grace was celebrated for being given the role of Young Cosette in Les Misérables and for getting through to the next round of West End Calling auditions. Thea was awarded a certificate for excellent listening in gymnastics, Marnie May achieved a certificate for swimming 50 metres and Mollie earned a medal for diving in swimming. Eleanor was recognised for her commitment to hobbies at Rainbows, particularly swimming and piano and Cassius received a trophy for his strong goal scoring in football. We also celebrated our gymnastics team, who performed exceptionally well on the vault and demonstrated excellent body management in a competition against other schools. They showed great courage and respect and achieved a fantastic fourth place. Attendance was also celebrated, with Year 1 and Year 6 being recognised for their efforts. We finished with some important reminders for the coming weeks. The Big Winter Wander is underway and we are encouraging everyone to get outside and enjoy walking together. Please remember to send in photos of your adventures. Next Thursday, we will be helping to create a micro forest on Jacks Key by planting trees, so children will need to bring their wellies. A big thank you to Miss Kachwala for organising a visit from professional bakers who will be making pancakes for everyone. We also reminded children about Dress to Express next week and that there are still places available for Lego Club next half term. We ended our worship with a thoughtful prayer, beautifully led by Ella and Mason. A wonderful celebration of effort, achievement and community spirit, well done everyone!
.png)
Whole School Worship with Rev Ben
Today's Collective Worship with Rev Ben started with a guessing game where half of a celebrity's face was covered and the children had to guess who it was. The last celebrity was Mrs Ham and we learnt that working out who people are is important, but not always easy! Our Bible story today told us something important about Jesus. Jesus could make sick people well. Jesus wanted to help the man in the story and he told him that his sins were forgiven but the man was lame. Jesus said this to show how he can help people with what’s wrong on the outside and the inside.
The W.O.W. Group - Messy Church
Our fantastic W.O.W. Group have been busy planning and this week was our first messy church of the year. The theme was “promises” and the session began with a reading of the Parable of the Two Sons. The attendees compared the two sons in the story - the one that promised to do a job for his father but never did it, and the one who originally grumbled but then decided to help - and agreed that promises don’t mean anything if they are not kept. The W.O.W. Group then led an activity in which participants decorated promise jars and wrote down a promise that they vow to keep. They then drew messy church to a close with a prayer asking God to help us to keep our promises.
Year 4 - Class Worship: Jesus Helps People
Continuing the 100 years of Blackburn Diocese, our class worship this week focussed on how Jesus helped people and the importance of taking the time to listen. The children took part in a short quiz, learned about books, chapters and verses in the Bible, and they acted out the story of Martha. They learned about how Jesus taught people to avoid distracting themselves with unimportant tasks and take the time to listen to God’s word. The children then shared times when they have truly felt listened to and we added some examples to our second kindness kite.
Year 3-Our Class Worship on Jesus and the 'Listened Really Well' Kite.
In our Class Worship today, we explored the theme "Jesus Helps People, and Jesus Listens," reflecting on how Jesus showed compassion by healing Bartimaeus, feeding the hungry crowd with five loaves and two fish, and ensuring his mother was cared for by the disciple John. We also introduced our next display kite, "Listened really well," by sharing the story of Mary and Martha. We learned that while Martha was busy and "grumpy" with chores, Mary chose to sit still and listen carefully to Jesus' teachings. Jesus explained that Mary had "chosen well," and we practised sitting still ourselves to understand why being a good listener is so important. To encourage this behaviour, we will now be adding to our kite display whenever children show their best listening skills in and out of the classroom. We concluded with a prayer, asking for a caring attitude and the strength to help those who feel forgotten.
Year 1 Class Worship: National Storytelling Week
As it is National Storytelling Week, we were fortunate enough to join a Class Worship led by Annemarie Anang, the author of I Am Nefertiti. We loved joining in with the story and creating sounds and music. Then, we created some “I Am” poems which focused on our good qualities and being proud of our name. For example: “I am kind. I am smart. I am helpful. I am (name).” They also designed their backgrounds and shared them with each other.
Friday Celebration Worship
This week’s Celebration Worship was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the many achievements, experiences and values shown across our school community. We began by celebrating some exciting learning opportunities, including an inspiring author visit and our worships which encouraged our children to think deeply about fairness and injustice through discussions around the Holocaust and what it means to be treated unfairly. We also celebrated the success of our clubs, with Foodie Club, Drama Club, and Doodle and Dance providing fantastic opportunities for creativity, confidence and teamwork. Alongside this, pupils were praised for taking part in the January Reading Challenge, sharing their favourite books and enjoying reading in their favourite places. We then celebrated our values awards, recognising pupils who have demonstrated our school values in their everyday actions. Ronan was awarded the Reception value award, while Albie received the Year 1 values award, Elsie the Year 2 award, Charlie G the Year 3 award, Bindi the Year 4 award, Peyton the Year 5 award and Matthew the Year 6 award. These children were recognised for being excellent role models to others, always following our 4B’s and working hard. Team values were also celebrated, with Whitehall Park coming in fourth place, Darwen Tower in third place, India Mill in second place and River Darwen taking first place. Well done to all teams for showing cooperation, respect and determination. We were incredibly proud to celebrate a wide range of sporting and extracurricular achievements. Ava was awarded a medal and trophy for achieving second place in acro dancing, while Alice received a medal for coming first in a cheerleading competition. Zachary was awarded a Rocksteady certificate for his drumming, and Thea received a certificate for her hard work on the bars in gymnastics. Charlie G was awarded a trophy for martial arts, with Isabelle also receiving a trophy for being a winter champion in martial arts. Lyla was awarded medals for acro, Erin received a cheerleading certificate for Cheerleader of the Week and Phoebe was awarded both a trophy and certificate at a dancing competition. Mason received a certificate for jumping into the water with his coach, Chester was awarded Squirrel of the Week, and Jack received swimming certificates for swimming a metre butterfly, 25m front crawl, back crawl and breaststroke. We also celebrated Lilly and Sophia, who attended a red-carpet event for their acting school, with Lilly proudly featured on screen as Annie. Attendance was celebrated, with Year 3 achieving an outstanding 100% attendance, and well done also to Year 2 for their continued efforts. We shared some important reminders, including National Storytelling Week, where parents and grandparents are invited to come into school to read in classes. Thank you to those who volunteered! Reception Stay and Play next Wednesday and Dress to Express will take place on the 13th of February. We also reminded pupils that Kids with Bricks Club will be running in Spring 2 and Summer 1. We ended our Celebration Worship with thoughtful prayers led by Charlie and Ava, bringing the whole school together to reflect on gratitude, kindness and our shared values. It was a joyful celebration of achievement, effort and community spirit.
Whole School Worship with Rev Ben
Our Whole School Celebration Worship was led by Rev Ben this morning. We looked at the Bible story which focused on Jesus calling His team to see what super powers he needed to help him. Christian’s believe that Jesus is the number one King of the Universe,but His team were pretty ordinary. Although the team continued to make mistakes, Jesus still loved and cared for them. This helps Christians to have courage to overcome fear. As always, we started with a challenge and needed seven volunteers who were good at acting. We were thinking about superheroes and the children had to mime a super power whilst the other children had to guess what it was. Callie, Mason, Matthew, Desmond, Sofia, Eleanor and Harry all did a treat job and it was very entertaining! We then discussed the Bible story and what sort of people Jesus chose and what difference it makes to know that God can still use people who don’t have super powers to help him.
Year 3- Class Worship-Respect in Action
In our Class Worship today, we explored the theme of "Respect in Action" by looking at recent news from the Football Association (FA). We discussed the FA’s review of behaviour in the sport, which aims to ensure matches are safe, fair, and enjoyable for everyone, players, referees, and fans alike. Linking this to our Christian value of Respect, we focused on The Golden Rule: treating others the way we wish to be treated. We looked at Matthew 7:12, which tells us that treating others with kindness sums up the Law and the Prophets. We debated big questions, such as whether respect must be earned or if everyone deserves it just for being human, and how we can remain respectful even when others are not. We concluded with a prayer, thanking God for making every person unique and asking for the wisdom to treat everyone with the kindness we wish to receive ourselves.
Whole School Worship - How can we be peacemakers?
On Monday, during our whole school worship we came together to think about peace, how the bible tells us to show peace and also how we can learn from the past to ensure we create a world of peace and not war. Olivia and Desmond beautifully read our Peacemaker Bible readings from this week's kindness kite whilst we made doves, a symbol of peace, from our hands being linked together. We thought about world Holocaust Memorial Day, which is today, and reflected on how during that time peace and forgiveness were not shown and how cruel and unfair that was. We prayed for all those who lost their lives during the Holocaust and also asked God to help us to be courageous peacemakers when we see cruelty and also to love our neighbours and treat everyone with kindness and respect. We lit a special candle of peace for all those who cruelly lost their lives during the Holocaust and were shocked to learn that if we held a moment of silence for each person then we would have to be silent for 11 and a half years. We then sang a song about living without division but together, 'As One'.