Year 4 - Linking Schools: Who Are We?
In Year 4, we have been spending some time exploring what makes us who we are. We started creating identity maps ready to send to our link class at St Matthew’s. We can’t wait to receive some work back and find out more about our new friends.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Who Am I?
Our Linking Schools project is due to start soon in Year 4. Today, the children learned a bit about the project and that we will be teaming up with a school from Blackburn across the year to share work. Further information will be going out to parents soon, but today was just an opportunity for the children to think about themselves and what is important to them. They used their ideas to decorate a piece of bunting and celebrate who they are.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Final Visit
This week saw the final meeting with our link school, St Matthew’s. It allowed Year 4 class to be the hosts and what amazing hosts our children were! We spent the day working in teams with our friends, playing problem solving games using hoops and bean bags and building sturdy towers from newspaper and masking tape. We were so proud of them all for making the Kestrels Class welcome. Some of the children even requested that we stay in touch next year.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Mosque Visit
Whilst visiting our link class in Blackburn, we visited the Jamia Ghosia Mosque, where some of our friends go every day after school. We explored the main prayer hall and learned about some of the religious symbols inside the mosque. We also visited the wash room (wudhu) and learned about how Muslims carry out ablution prior to praying. We will be talking about this further in our RE lesson next week. Thank you to the leaders at the mosque for welcoming us and answering our questions.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Developing Friendships
Year 4 class had a fantastic time at St Matthew’s on Tuesday. The children made some lovely friendships, taking part in collaborative activities and games, and having a picnic together. Our time at St Matthew’s came to a close by joining the Linking Network’s celebration Zoom meeting. We can’t wait to welcome our friends to St Barnabas next week.
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Year 4 - Linking Schools: Poem Dedications
Whilst visiting St Matthew’s, we decorated poems about the power of working together. We then dedicated these to a friend from our link class and they did the same for us. We had a great time decorating the poems and loved exchanging them with our friends.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Courageous Advocacy
A few weeks ago, the Year 4 class discussed a number of ideas to improve our community and decided on one issue to focus on. After a vote, the children decided they would like to tackle vandalism in the area. This week, we walked to Whitehall Park to assess the damage and found much of the equipment to be unsafe to play on. We took pictures of the problem areas and the children have decided they want to write to their local MP to ask him to repair the park. We are really hoping for a reply!
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Kindness Chatterboxes
In Year 4, our preparations are in full swing as we anticipate the arrival of our link class from St Matthew’s in Blackburn. In our final half term, St Matthew’s Year 4 class will be spending a day with us and we’ll also be spending a day at their school completing collaborative learning activities. Our chatterboxes contain kind acts and affirmations that we hope will help our visitors feel welcome in our school.
Year 4 - Meeting Our Linking Schools Class
The children were so excited to meet their Linking class this week. We had a Zoom meeting with the Kestrels class from St Matthews in Blackburn, in which we introduced ourselves, taught and learned some sign-supported English and played games. I think their favourite game was ‘Draw An Object’; the children had to hold their whiteboards on their heads and draw the instructed object without looking. Needless to say our attempts were hilarious and nothing like what they were supposed to be!
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Poems
The class are LOVING our linking work. We have a couple of pieces ready to send to St Matthew’s now, including these poems we’ve been working on. We have been thinking about the things we love and the things that make us unique. We hope Kestrels Class enjoy reading them.
Year 4 - Linking Schools Litter Pick
The final part of our Linking Schools project was to make a pledge to take part in social action. Year 4 chose to do a community litter pick. The council supplied the equipment and off we went, cleaning up Knowlesly Road, Watery Lane and Whitehall Park. We filled 3 bin bags and 2 recycling bags - a super effort, class!
Year 4 - Visiting our Link School
Another fantastic experience with our linking class! This week, Year 4 visited St Matthew’s Primary School in Blackburn for our final team project. We visited the Mosque next door to learn about its features, and we took part in team crafts. We have loved our year of linking!
Year 4 - Linking Schools Visit Day 1
Last week, we welcomed our friends from St Matthew’s to join us for a day of team building. We had a fantastic day building towers and taking part in team games. We are so excited to visit our link class at their school next week.
Year 3 Worship: Refugee Week
This morning, we had a very special class worship. We took part in the ‘Great Big Live Assembly’ where we went live to a refugee camp in Jordan. We learnt about the daily life in a refugee camp and listened to a Q and A, where pupils around the country asked Mohammed and Seedra questions about their lives as a refugee.
Year 5- Class Worship- Refugee Week 2023
Today, Year 5 took part in the Great Big Live Assembly for Refugee Week. During the assembly, we learned about the journeys of refugees from different parts of the world. We had the privilege of hearing from Mohammed and Sidra, two incredible individuals who have had to flee their countries and start anew at the Za'atari refugee camp. Mohammed and Sidra shared their inspiring stories of resilience and courage with us. They spoke about the challenges they faced, but also about their determination to rebuild their lives despite the hardships. Let us continue to foster empathy, understanding, and support for refugees within our school community and beyond.
Year 4 - Linking Schools Preparations
What an exciting time in Year 4 as we prepare to welcome our Linking Schools class! On Tuesday, Kestrel Class from St Matthew’s in Blackburn are due to visit us at St Barnabas for a day of team building and collaborative learning. We have been making name tags, banners, local area maps and preparing a few conversation starters and topics in order to help our visitors feel at ease in our amazing school.
Year 4 - Linking Schools
After discussing the things that we care about most in the world last week, Year 4 has spent this week considering how we can take social action to improve the things we care about. “Kindness” was definitely a key theme. Next, we will decide on 3 actions and share them with our linking school, St Matthew’s, Blackburn.
Year 4 - Linking Schools
As we began Phase 2 of our Linking Schools project, we spent some time considering what things in our world that we care about. We wrote our ideas on paper leaves ready to go on our class kindness tree.
Year 4 - Linking Schools Zoom Meeting
The class have loved meeting their link class today. We played games with our linking friends, like Would You Rather...? , Red Card Green Card and Draw a Picture in which children had to draw a picture on their whiteboards while it was balanced on the top of their heads. Thank you St Matthews- we can't wait to meet you soon!
Year 4 - Linking Schools
Today in our Linking Schools session we were exploring our similarities and differences and preparing for our inter-class Zoom session in two weeks’ time.
St Barnabas Choir: Let's Go Sing Workshop
This afternoon, the school choir took part in a singing workshop with 'Let's Go Sing'. During the workshop, the children took part in some fun warm up activities and practiced a selection of songs, that we they will be singing and performing at King George's Hall, on Monday 14th March. It was great to see the choir so enthusiastic and the children particularly enjoyed dancing and performing the song 'It's Carnival Time' around the hall!
Year 4 - Linking Schools
This week, we have kicked off our Linking Schools project in Year 4, learning a little bit about our link school, St Matthew’s in Blackburn, and creating bunting about ourselves and what we enjoy.
Year 3 Darwen Library Visit
Year 3 have had a fantastic morning at Darwen Library! The class took part in a workshop with children’s author Dan Worsley. Dan spoke to the children about how he became an author and what inspires him to write! We then had the pleasure of listening to some of Dan’s short stories. The children also had the opportunity to ask Dan questions about his job and how to write a book! The class loved listening to Dan and were inspired by his enthusiasm and enjoyment for creative writing and story telling!
Choir Let’s Go Sing Workshop
This afternoon, the choir took part in a singing workshop with Let’s Go Sing! We warmed up our voices and listened to and sang some of the songs that we will be performing, at a concert in March at King George’s Hall.
Interactive Transitioning Session
Today Year 6 took part in an interactive transitioning session with St Wilfrids and Darwen Vale. They were able to ask Year 7’s from each school any questions they had and spoke openly about any worries or concerns they might have regarding starting high school. The staff and children from St Wilfrids And Darwen Vale were brilliant and even those children not attending these schools learnt a lot about what is to come.
Year 4 - Questions About Ramadan
We absolutely loved seeing our friends from our link school, The Olive School, this week. We held a Q&A via Zoom so that we could ask them all about Ramadan and they asked us questions about Easter. We even sang ‘Oh When The Saints Go Marching In’ to them.
Choir workshop
This afternoon the choir took part in their final singing workshop, before our concert at Ewood Park! The children sounded absolutely fantastic and it has been wonderful to see how much the children have blossomed and grown in confidence in choir!