Whole School Worship: Happy new year!
It was lovely to have everyone together for our first worship of 2023. Happy new year to everyone! We took a few moments as we lit our advent wreath to think about Jesus and how he came to bring hope, peace, joy and love to the world and how he wanted us live life in all its fullness. A few of our children shared their new year resolutions. Alice said she wants to eat more healthily, Tristen’s is to always have a smile on his face, Sadie is to not talk back to her parents and Kaylen’s is to go outside more. Mrs Ham shared hers which is to be happy. Mrs Ham reminded us all of the kindness coach, John Magee. She introduced us all to the happy tank. We watched a video from John who explained what the happy tank was. One of the elements is to take some time to rest. During this time, we need to focus on our breathing which can help us to find peace. We all focussed together on our breathing for 2 minutes. Beau said that it made her feel calm and Jacob said it made him feel happy. Mrs Ham shared with everybody a happy calendar that we will follow throughout January. We watched a clip from ‘The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse’. At the beginning the fox was very angry but by the end he was happy. He filled up his happy tank by the boy, the mole and the horse showing him kindness. This year we need to really focus on how we can be kind to others and to ourselves. Through that, we also need to think about how we can find happiness and spread it to others. We all said a new year prayer together and ended our worship with the song ‘Shine from the inside out’.
Christmas Service at St Barnabas Church, Lead by KS2
This morning, the whole school came together for our Christmas Service at St Barnabas Church, lead by KS2. Over this term, KS2 classes have been preparing short presentations for the service, about an element of Christmas that they have been focusing on in R.E. In Year 3, the class presented pieces of artwork, focusing on the shepherd's visiting Jesus in the stable and being in the presence of God. Year 4 looked at Christingle's and created a fantastic rap, about the meaning of the Christingle and Jesus being the light of the World. Year 5 spoke about how different countries celebrate Christmas around the World. Finally, Year 6 spoke about Advent and what it means to them. Some children also shared their hopes and dreams for the future. The WOW Group also helped to lead parts of the service and we sang a selection of Christmas Carols as a whole school. Overall, we really enjoyed learning about different elements of Christmas and KS2 presented their learning brilliantly!
Carols by Candlelight
A huge thank you to everyone who came along to the Carols by Candlelight Service. Our choir sang brilliantly and well done to Jenson for his lovely reading. It was wonderful to hear one of previous choir members, Isaac, singing a beautiful solo too. It really does feel like Christmas now.
Out of School Superstars
Along with our Values Winners this morning, we celebrated our ‘Out of School Superstars’. It was lovely to hear about all of the different activities that the children have been taking part in. This week we presented awards for dancing, gymnastics, swimming, kickboxing, Beavers and cheerleading. Well done to each and every child that celebrated on the golden podium!
Celebration Worship
In Celebration Worship this morning we looked at how our children continue to work so very hard in promoting our Christian and British values. We are all so very busy preparing for the Christmas Fair, school performances and Christmas Worship. We had our House Team Winners announced for this half term - Whitehall Park for the second consecutive time- well done. It is so lovely to see all of the children celebrating each others success as we had lots of awards for out of school sports today.
Whole school worship: Peace during Advent
Last week we lit our hope advent candle. Today, Manni lit our peace advent candle. Katie, Eva and Jenson read out our peace prayer. Jesus was sent to bring peace to the world and he is known as the prince of peace. Today, we watched the new John Lewis Christmas advert. Lucy said that the man tried to learn how to skate to make the foster child feel welcome as the child may have felt a little frightened or worried. At the end, the child smiled as they had something in common and she would have felt at peace. For our reflection this week, we need to think about how we can find peace but also how we can bring peace to others.
Whole School Celebration Worship
During celebration worship, we celebrated all of our achievements in school this week! We announced the values awards winners in every class and the attendance winners for KS1 and KS2! At the end of our worship, the youngest child in school had the special job of putting the star on the top of our tree! We also welcomed Miss Horsfall to our school family. She will be teaching in the Reception class whilst Mrs Govan is on maternity leave. Congratulations to all of our children and staff members, for another fantastic week in school!
Celebration Worship: Sports Stars!
Well done to all of our sports stars this morning! It is lovely to see children across school celebrating their achievements, both in school and outside of school!
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Year 5- Class Worship- A gift that costs nothing
After watching 'The Grinch' Christmas campaign, the children explored the real meaning of Christmas and how being with your family was far more precious than receiving a gift. They then came up with ideas that they could make or do that don't involve spending money. Some of the suggestions were; to make a cup of tea, give your time to someone you love and care for, read a story, make your own decorations, give a hug and have a movie night.
Monday Worship: Advent
Our new vicar Rev Ben joined us for Worship today. We welcomed him into our school family by showing him our huge welcoming smiles. Good things come to those who wait. We are waiting for Christmas and now Advent has started. Advent is a time to prepare. Christians needed to have hope when they waited for Jesus to arrive. During lockdown, we saw lots of rainbows. God kept sending rainbows which gave us hope that there would be better times. During Advent, we need to see children showing kindness, friendship, respect, generosity and all of our Christian and British values. Mrs Ham asked the children what their hope is for the future. Elsa’s hope is to travel to every continent in the world, Sadie’s is to be successful in her job, Ruby’s is for peace and harmony, Grace’s is to get good results, Darcy’s is for peace around the world and Seb’s is to be an engineer. We watched a video about the special hope that was sent to the world: Jesus. We lit our first candle on our Advent wreath and prayed for hope. During our reflection, we thought about how we could turn somebody feeling sad into somebody feeling glad. We had a think about how we can show love and kindness to bring hope to others. We finished our worship by singing ‘may you find peace’.
Celebration Worship
This week we have been learning all about peace and harmony. A huge thank you to Miss Kachwalla for delivering our inter faith workshops all about the religion of Islam. Last night, Mrs Ham went to church to welcome our new vicar, Rev Ben. We will be sharing our vicar with St Paul’s, Hoddlesden and can’t wait to see him at school soon. Today, Sophie and Lola announced our anti-bullying competition winners. There were over 200 entries across the borough and 2 prizes were awarded to our school. 3rd place went to Harlow and Eliza and 2nd place went to Wilson. A huge well done! We have had yet another busy week in school. Well done to our values points award winners: Renee, Archie, Miley, Eden, Hamza, Archie and Darci. Our overall house winner for this week is River Darwen, well done! Our amazing attendance winners for this week are Year 2 and Year 4! We celebrated our super dodgeball team and girls football team who played on Wednesday and Thursday night. We also celebrated individual achievements for swimming, football, Rainbows, dancing and kickboxing. Well done to Leonora, Isaac, Eliza, Sofia, Carmen, Noah, Annabel, Cassidy, Ted and Mason. We finished our worship by singing the song of peace.
Induction of Rev Ben Marsden
This evening Mrs Ham and Mrs Frankish, our Chair of Governors, attended a very special induction service led by Bishop Philip in our church for our new vicar, Rev Ben Marsden. Mrs Ham welcomed him into our school family along with Mr Dugdale, the Headteacher from Hoddlesden St Paul’s and Mrs Hartley from Ashleigh. We are really looking forward to working with Rev Ben and inviting him into our school to join us in our Worships and school events. We know that he will fit right into our school family and we are sure that you will make him and his wife Sarah and their children Naomi and Lydia, feel very welcomed.