The Great Big Barney's Assault Course Challenge
An urgent need in South Sudan! A serious healthcare crisis is emerging and support to local healthcare centres such as Liwolo will end by September, with hospital services stopping by December. Without this support, many communities will be left without accessible medical care. The nearest healthcare facilities are several hours away and remain out of reach for many families due to distance and cost. Through the Bishop's Harvest Appeal, our Diocese will support the Jehovah Rapha Healthcare Centre in Liwolo, ensuring that people are able to access essential healthcare. Each child will take part in our Great Big Barney’s Assault Course Challenge, which has been planned by our WOW group, at school on Friday 6th November. Please ask family and friends to sponsor your child to complete the course and help us raise funds for this year’s cause. We would love to see photos of your children in training over the half term ready for our assault course challenge, so please send them via Class Dojo. Donations can be made through the QR code or here: https://www.parishgiving.org.uk/donors/find-your-parish/bburn-diocesan-harvest-appeal-blackburn?fbclid=IwY2xjawVEK0JleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mAWJyaWQRMDgwVEJYN0EzQ2lGbWVYT2VzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEebvIKZ7uGENPZjIfVN8P5b-WLjoYcHdWChA0xXbNPY1YwSgVkEwXRXG-vFV0_aem_70SfP6U3cGv2vCM-UXD3YA
Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our Celebration Worship by singing a wonderful Harvest song in preparation for our Harvest Worship next Thursday at St Barnabas Church. We recapped on all the great things that we have been achieving over the last couple of weeks. We then presented our Barney’s Brilliant Beacons. A huge well done to Louie, Noah S, Indie, Chester C, Olivia and Archie in EYFS and KS1 and Millie, Alayna, Charlie, Eddie, Cassius, Scarlett, Lilly and Peyton in KS2. Well done to these fantastic children for always demonstrating the Barney’s 4Bs, demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning and being fantastic role models. Mrs Araujo and Mrs Gardner then awarded lots of children with their pen licenses. Well done to Archie and James in Year 3 and Harry, Eva, Albie, Molly, Alicie, Elijah and Eddie in Year 4 for working extremely hard to excel in their handwriting. Mrs Gardner also presented James and Archie with a certificate for excelling on TT Rockstars. We then congratulated our Year 5&6 Girls’ football team who have been playing well in the DPSSA League’s Girls Football Tournament over the last couple of weeks. We then ended our worship with some beautiful prayers from Mrs Ham, Jack and Renee and Mrs Ham reminded us that we are accepting food items for our Harvest to donation to DARE and winter coats to donate to Rota Kids.
Hello Yellow Day Collective Worship
This morning, Mrs Gardner, our PSHE leader, The Wellbeing Warriors, some of our Year 4 children and our Head and Deputy Head’s led a special Collective Worship in celebration of Hello Yellow Day. They raised awareness of mental health and the importance of discussing our feelings, doing the things that we love and spreading kindness. Last week, Year 4 wrote some beautiful wonder poems in celebration of National Poetry Day and they shared these with us this morning and Thorncliffe Nursing Home last week. This was a wonderful act of kindness that brought huge smiles to the resident’s faces. They set us the challenge of spreading kindness and positivity today. We all then joined with a Hello Yellow Parade with each class showing off their amazingly yellow outfits. Thank you to our wonderful school community for all of their efforts… we were a sea of yellow. We then finished our worship with a very special prayer and sing along. What a joyous worship that helped to make us all feel brighter on a wet and miserable morning! 💛✨😁
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Whole School Worship
Today in worship, the children were treated to an exciting online worship from Picture News exploring the importance of inclusive sport and how we can break down barriers that may prevent people from taking part. We learnt about the struggles that Stef Reid, a Paralympic athlete, faced when she lost her foot in an accident. She was determined to run again though after being a keen sportswoman before her accident and she went on to win many medals in a number of Paralympic Games events including running and long jump. She then retired from athletics but then took up figure skating and competed in Dancing on Ice. What an inspiration! The children discussed how everyone has different strengths, abilities and experiences, and explored the idea that there is always more than one way to achieve something and to never give up, just like Stef. It was a fantastic opportunity for the children to think about inclusion, resilience and the importance of supporting and encouraging others.
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Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, Mrs Ham opened our Celebration Worship by telling us that today is World Smile Day. We talked about how smiles are infectious and how we are going to work even harder than we normally do to put a big smile on people’s faces and spread happiness, love and kindness. This week, we have enjoyed a wonderful variety of extra-curricular clubs, some fantastic worships and an extra-special day yesterday, celebrating National Poetry Day and Give Like Dolly Day. We then presented our Barney’s Brilliant Beacons. A huge well done to Reggie, Minnie, Luna, Poppy, Everley and Matthew in EYFS and KS1, and Joey, Skye, Marley, Mila, Iris, Oliver and Tristen in KS2. Well done to these fantastic children for their exemplary behaviour, exceptional attitudes to learning and for consistently demonstrating our Barney’s 4Bs and our Christian Values. We are incredibly proud of you! Looking ahead to next week, we are excited to welcome families to our second Open Day for the 2027 Reception intake on Wednesday, as well as our Stay and Play session in EYFS on Thursday. We will also be celebrating Hello Yellow Day next Friday, 9th October, before coming together for a special Harvest Service at St Barnabas Church on Sunday, 11th October. We ended our worship by congratulating Year 4 on being our Walk to School Winners for September, followed by some beautiful prayers from Iris, Alfie and Mrs Ham. What a wonderful way to end another fantastic week at Barney’s! 🌟
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Rev Ben’s Worship - Moses & the Burning Bush
On Thursday, Rev Ben led a worship all about following instructions. The children thoroughly enjoyed an active game of Captain’s Orders to begin with. They then listened to the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. Rev Ben posed questions about why Moses was afraid to follow God’s instructions at first and how people show trust in God.
Open Days for our September 2027 intake
💙Is your child starting Reception this September? 💙 We warmly welcome parents, carers, and children to come and see our school in action. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet our school family and enjoy a guided tour with our Headteacher, Mrs Ham. 📅 Open Day Dates & Times: Tuesday 22nd September: 9.00 - 10.30am Wednesday 7th October: 2.00 - 3.30pm Thursday 15th October: 2.00 - 3.30pm Monday 9th November: 9.00 - 10.30am Thursday 19th November: 9.00 - 10.30am Friday 27th November: 2.00 - 3.30pm 📝 How to Book Your Tour: To secure your place on one of our open days, please complete our booking form: 👉 https://forms.gle/DxqPdvyXDx1Xmd918 To get a feel for our school and what we can offer your child, please see our news page on our website: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news and our photo galleries: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-gallery-category/our-gallery Please also keep your eye on our website for the dates of our stay and play sessions that will soon be coming up for our current Reception parents and carers and pre-school children, parents and carers. We look forward to meeting you and your child! 💙😀
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Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, we began our Celebration Worship by reflecting on another amazing week at school. This week, we have thoroughly enjoyed our whole-school performance of Pinocchio, and across the school, our children have been working extremely hard to demonstrate Barney’s 4Bs and our Christian Values as they strive to earn ClassDojo points. We have been incredibly impressed by the children’s positive attitudes to learning and the high standards of behaviour we have seen throughout the school. Well done, everyone! We then celebrated our Barney’s Brilliant Beacons. A huge well done to Hunter, Lily, Albie and Hadi in KS1, and Elsie, Phoebe, Annabel, Alice, Harry, Emily, Alfie and Eliza in KS2. Well done to these amazing children, who have made such a fantastic start to the academic year! You have all been wonderful role models and truly shining examples of Barney’s Beacons. We are incredibly proud of you! Mrs Ham then shared a few important reminders with us. The Big Summer Weekend at our church this weekend, School Photograph Day will take place on Wednesday 16th September, followed by our Macmillan Coffee Morning on Friday 25th September. Our lunchtime and after-school clubs have also now gone live on Arbor and are available to book. To bring our worship to a close, we were treated to some beautiful prayers from Annabel and Seb. Thank you to everyone who joined us for Celebration Worship this morning, and an extended thank you to all of our families for your continued support, both this week and every week. We wish you all a wonderful and restful weekend! 🌟
Behaviour Update
Dear Parents and Carers, welcome back everyone! It has been wonderful to see the children looking so smart in their uniforms and being ready to learn. They have all come into school beautifully and behaved so well in worship this morning. A special welcome to our new Reception children who settled so well this morning and we are looking forward to our second group of children this afternoon. It was fantastic to see so many of our previous Year 6 children as they came to say hello and have a hug before starting at high school tomorrow. We wish all of our previous Year 6 children all the luck in the world as they start their high school journey this week. Remember, keep achieving great things and living life in all its fullness! Please find attached to class dojo a behaviour update document, which details some exciting updates to our school behaviour policy. We officially launched this new system during worship this morning! Because of this, you may have already noticed instant notifications popping up on your Class Dojo app today when your child was awarded a point. As outlined in the letter, we are moving away from our traditional "values points" and will now be using Class Dojo points to track and reward positive behaviour across the school. This means you will no longer have to wait for physical values awards to come home; instead, you will be able to see daily updates of your child's wonderful behaviour at the click of a button. Please take a few minutes to read the letter in full to learn more about: *How children earn points (such as following the "Four Be's" and demonstrating our Christian Values). *The exciting new individual, class, and house rewards. * Important adjustments to our Friday Celebration Worship and how we celebrate out-of-school achievements. Thank you for your continued support and we welcome your feedback!
Welcome Back Worship
It was wonderful having all of the children back today in worship. Mrs Ham welcomed everybody back to school and reminded us of our Christian values. We linked them to our school rules and recapped how to show our best behaviour around school. We also learnt about our new class dojo behaviour system. Some of the children were invited to the front to demonstrate their favourite morning greetings, and we ended the worship with our much-loved school rules song.
Welcome Back: Supporting Children's Return to Routine
School reopens for our children on Wednesday 2nd September. Returning to school after a break can be a significant adjustment for children and young people, particularly when routines, concentration and social confidence need time to rebuild. Our latest #WakeUpWednesday guide supports families, carers and education professionals with practical ways to make the transition smoother. The guide explores: • Restoring sleep and morning routines gradually • Creating predictability through clear expectations • Preparing school essentials in advance • Encouraging responsibility in age-appropriate ways • Supporting healthy nutrition, wellbeing and self-regulation • Reconnecting with learning, friendships and familiar routines With expert insight from Adam Gillett, Associate Vice Principal for Personal Development at Penistone Grammar School, this resource offers supportive ideas to help children return to school feeling more confident and prepared. Access the guide: https://vist.ly/5g6hq #Education #StudentWellbeing #BackToSchool #Safeguarding
Goodbye and Thank you
This morning, as part of our Leavers' Worship, we took the opportunity to say some very special goodbyes. We thanked Lucy for her many years of hard work and dedication to Friends of St Barnabas, Miss Kachwalla for her seven years of commitment to our teaching team, Mr Carter for his fantastic work teaching our Year 2 class this year, and Summer, who is relocating and moving to a new school. Here is the special thank you video that some of our staff and children created to say thank you and goodbye to Miss Kachwalla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsO8FEbXHQA We are incredibly grateful for everything each of you has contributed to our school community and wish you every success and happiness as you embark on your exciting new adventures. Good luck—you will all be greatly missed!
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