Biggest Ever Girls Football Event
Today, we proudly took part in the FA’s Biggest Ever Girls’ Football Event, celebrating the joy of football and encouraging more girls to get involved in the sport. Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 participated in a fun, game-based session where they had to dribble the ball and score in any of the four goals while defenders tried to stop them with tackles. The session helped develop their dribbling, spatial awareness and teamwork skills in an exciting and engaging way. Years 3, 4, 5, and 6 took part in a series of competitive matches, showcasing their skills and teamwork. They then tested their nerves in thrilling penalty shootouts, demonstrating confidence and precision under pressure. It was fantastic to see so much enthusiasm, determination and teamwork throughout the morning. The event truly highlighted the growing passion for girls’ football in our school!
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and reflecting on our very busy yet enjoyable week in school. This week, we launched our challenge called ‘THE BIG LENT WALK’ which involves our whole school community working together to raise money to make a difference to the lives of those who don't have enough food. Please continue to let either Mrs Wilkinson or Mrs Ham know if you have walked anywhere and send photos if you can. We have also been thinking about how Lent is a good time to give things back so we have launched our 40 Day Kindness Challenge. This week, we have also celebrated Shrove Tuesday, World Book Day and enjoyed a great variety of after school clubs such as Craft Club led by Fred and Pearl, Cross Country, Mad Science, Choir , Dodgeball and Gymnastics clubs led by Edstart. We then congratulated this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Evie, Alessia and Heidi in EYFS and KS1 and Lottie, Penelope, Nevaeh, Seb and Laila in KS2 for their fantastic work ethic, their commitment to demonstrating the Barney’s 4Bs (being ready, respectful, kind and safe) and showing full participation and engagement in lessons. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 2 and Year 3 classes for being our attendance winners this week with 99.2% and 99.3% attendance, River Darwen as our value award winners this week with 509 points and our Year 4 Football team who kicked off their journey in the BRFC league with three exciting matches on Tuesday evening and represented school amazingly well. We also congratulated Year 3 and Year 6 as being the WOW (Walk to School) winners for the month of February. Well done to these classes for earning the most badges. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school sports award winners. This week, it was a week full of congratulating super swimmers. Well done to Zac for being a super swimmer and achieving his Puffin award, Phoebe for achieving her Stage 1 swimming certificate, Annabel for achieving her 15m swimming certificate, Ava for achieving her Stage 2 swimming certificate, Desmond for achieving his silver and gold swimming certificates, Iris for achieving her Stage 6 swimming certificate and Bluebelle for swimming an amazing 50m. We also said a huge well done to Carter for being a fantastic footballer and Lana for being the Star of the Week at Performing Arts. To end our worship, we read a beautiful Lent prayer together as a school and sang ‘We Have a King Who Rides a Donkey’. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.
World Book Day- Storytime Across School
To celebrate World Book Day, our children voted for the story that they wanted to listen to and moved around school to listen to their chosen one. Miss Flynn read ‘The Monkey With a Bright Blue Bottom,’ Mrs Wilkinson read ‘The Wonky Donky,’ Mrs Govan read ‘Taylor Swift (Little People, Big Dreams), Mr Norris read ‘Sammy Striker and the Football Cup,’ Mrs Hegarty read ‘The Great Dog Bottom Swap,’ Miss Woods read ‘I’ve Broken My Bottom,’ Miss Kachwalla read ‘There’s a Snake in My School,’ Mrs Gardner read ‘Revolting Rhymes,’ Mr Bloomfield read, ‘The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors,’ Mr Prescott read ‘The World’s Worst Children’ and Miss Lyons read ‘Absolutely Awful Adults.’ Most of these stories were new to our children and they thoroughly enjoyed listening to and engaging with them. There were lots of giggles!
World Book Day Worship
World Book Day Worship This morning we launched World Book Day 2025 with a lovely Worship led by Miss Flynn and the librarians. We started with a book- Do Not Open This Book by Andy Lee. The children absolutely loved listening to the story and definitely did want to OPEN THE BOOK and turn the pages so that they could read the whole book! The theme for this years World Book Day is Get Ready to Read Your Way which encourages us all to read wherever and whenever we want. Next the librarians, Walter, Elliott, Tristan and Ivy, led a quiz where the children had to guess where you might enjoy a good book from the pictures on the screen. We had some great answers which included: in the car, whilst walking the dog, at the park, in the library, in bed, in a den, outside with our friends, in the bath, in the dentist or at school. The children that guessed correctly won a special WBD prize. In the next part of the quiz, the librarians shared a slide with four pictures of our school staff with their faces covered reading books in their favourite places. There was A - Miss Kachwalla in the bath, B - Mr Bloomfield in the living room, Mrs Singleton in the staff room D , - Mrs Govan in her bedroom, E - Mr Norris on the sofa - Miss Lyon’s reading with her daughter in bed,- G - Mrs Wilkinson - sat on the sofa, H- Miss Flynn reading to her child. To end the special Worship we shared The Story of The Little Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch. We can’t wait for the rest of our World Book Day activities which include a live workshop, teachers sharing their favourite books and how we can use our WBD token so that we can get a free book.
Little Craft Club
Today at The Little Craft Club, the children designed and decorated their own pencil cases. They thought of their favourite things so the final products represented each of them! Some of the children delved into our Imagination Station box to find things to creatively decorate the zip pull too! This activity is going to be part of a special Craft Club session at The Carus Centre in Hoddlesden during the Easter holidays. In the session, we will also be painting canvases and making bracelets/phone charms. The session is open to the public and can be booked here: https://fredandpearl.com/collections/easter-holidays
Worship-Shrove Tuesday, Lent and Ramadan
This morning in Collective Worship we built on our knowledge of Lent from yesterday's worship and focused on things we could give during Lent, the time of preparation for Easter. Some children said they would sort their clothes and toys and give them to charity, some said they would raise money through walking for the Big Lent Walk and some said they would help others. Yesterday Leonora said she would show kindness everyday during Lent which then led us to take up a 40 day Lent generosity and kindness challenge. Over the next 40 days in school, we will take part in generous acts in order to spread kindness to others. We said our special Year of Prayer prayer today too which was about compassion and how Jesus showed compassion to others and helped them and we can be like Him and help others too. We then learned about the holy month of Ramadan that Muslims around the world are taking part in at the moment by fasting, praying to God and giving back. We discussed the similarities between Lent and Ramadan and agreed that they are both times to feel closer to God, give things up or fast and give things back. They are also times to prepare for celebrations as Christians will be celebrating Easter and Muslims will be celebrating Eid. Miss Kachwalla and Ms Lohar are both fasting at the moment during the day and we learned that Muslims fast to understand how it feels to be hungry and think about and pray for those less fortunate around the world, as well as feeling closer to God. As part of our Big Lent Walk, we can make a difference to the lives of those who don't have enough food by raising money to help them. At the end of our worship we sang some Easter hymns and shared pancakes together as a whole school family as today is Shrove Tuesday. We then reflected on how we can 'be kind' and show generosity to others this Lent.
Collective Worship: The start of Lent
Today, Mrs Wilkinson discussed what is happening this week. Tomorrow it is Shrove Tuesday and we discussed what happens on Shrove Tuesday. We are looking forward to tasting some pancakes tomorrow during worship! On Wednesday it is the start of Lent. The children watched a video all about Lent and we discussed what it means for Christians. We discussed how it is a time of reflection and many Christians give up something or do something during Lent. Some of the children said they would give up chocolates, sweets and fizzy drinks. Some children said they'd give to charity and be kind every day. Mrs Wilkinson introduced the Big Lent Walk challenge which our school will be doing. We are aiming to raise money for Cafod and will aim to walk 200km collectively. We will also be walking during the school day in our classes to achieve our target so any sponsorship will be greatly appreciated. Your sponsorship can change lives. Every £1 raised through the Big Lent Walk will help fight poverty globally in countries like Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. The children seemed very excited to get started and thank you to those families who have donated already. To donate please click here https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-ce-primary-academys-big-lent-walk and don't forget to send photos to either Mrs Wilkinson or Mrs Ham so we can update our page. We finished our worship by singing Jesus strong and kind.
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and reflecting on our very busy week. This week, we launched our new behaviour focuses for this half-term which have been centred around dinner time behaviours. We have been really impressed with how much calmer our school hall is at dinner time- Well done to our whole school and thank you to Mrs Araujo and the WOW group for monitoring! This week we also saw the start of our wonderful Mad Science Club and we are really looking forward to the rest of our after-school clubs starting next week. There are still spaces to sign up to the craft club led by Fred and Pearl and the gymnastics and dodgeball club led by Edstart if anyone is interested. We then congratulated this week’s individual value award winners who have made a fantastic start to the Spring 2 term. Well done to Jess, Declan and Miley in KS2 and Albie, Harry and Thea in EYFS and KS1 for their consistently positive attitude to learning, demonstrating resilience and perseverance in their learning and showing all of our Barny’s 4Bs (being ready, respectful, kind and safe). Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 3/4 Sportshall Athletics winners who competed amazingly well to achieve gold at Our Lady and St John’s on Wednesday evening, River Darwen as our value award winners this week with 396 points and Reception and Year 6 on being our amazing attendance winners this week. A special well done to Reception who achieved 100% attendance. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school sports award winners. Well done to Ava for achieving 5m in her swimming, Thea for fantastic bar work in gymnastics, Lyla for achieving her level 2 in gymnastics, Seb for achieving ‘Trainer of the Week’ at football, Haydn for achieving ‘Player of the Week’ at football, Isabella for being ‘The Little Darreners’ Player of the Week’ at football, Archie for being awarded his green belt at martial arts, Eleanor for being awarded multiple gardening badges at Rainbows, Alessia and Piper-Jo for achieving Stage 2 in their swimming, Marley for her commitment to Brownies, Charlie for achieving 10m in his swimming, James for being a super improved player at football, Isaac for being ‘Player of the Day’ at football, Callie for being fiercely brave at Stagecoach and singing a solo, achieving several awards in her gymnastics such as gaining her level 2 grading and for also receiving Grunty the Dragon in martial arts, Alice for achieving 600m in her swimming, Peyton for achieving a badge at kickboxing, Scarlett for her fabulous commitment to Rivington Netball Club and Mason for achieving Stage 5 in his swimming. To end our worship, Mrs Ham reminded us that it’s World Book Day next Thursday 6th March where we will be dressing in pyjamas and participating in some fun and exciting reading activities and that it is also non-uniform day and a disco for India Mill and Whitehall Park on Friday 7th March for being the overall value award winners last half-term. We then had some beautiful prayers from James and Martha who prayed to keep those who are poorly and those in heaven in our thoughts. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.
Worship with Rev. Matt
Today’s worship with Rev. Matt began with The Story of the Great Parade. Rev. Matt invited children to take on different roles, bringing the story to life with waving leaves and flags as Year 6 paraded around the hall. The atmosphere was filled with excitement, just as it would have been on that first Palm Sunday, when crowds welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem. After the reenactment, Rev. Matt explained the significance of Palm Sunday, reminding the children that Christians around the world still celebrate it today. He encouraged them to think about the emotions of the crowd —joy, hope and anticipation—as they welcomed Jesus as their king. He then explored a key Bible verse: “He always had the nature of God, but took on the nature of a servant.” The children reflected on what this means and discussed how they could show humility and kindness in their own lives. Ideas included helping others without expecting rewards, showing respect to friends and family, and using their voices to support those in need. To close the worship, Rev. Matt led a moment of quiet reflection, asking the children to think about one small way they could follow Jesus’ example this week. It was a meaningful way to prepare for Easter and to consider the values of humility and service in everyday life.
Spring 2- Week 1 Collective Worship- Life in all its fullness & Year of Prayer
This morning in Collective Worship our WOW (Worship our Way) group showed us the special way of praying this week as part of the Year of Prayer across Blackburn Diocese. This week we will be writing our fears and worries on a piece of paper and then fold it into a paper aeroplane. We can then have fun throwing it whilst saying a prayer to God to take our fears and worries away. Some children shared their fears such as heights, clowns, being alone and snakes. We then looked at the Year of Prayer for the whole school which was 'Where are you today?' . We looked at 10 doodled people around a tree:some looked happy, some sad, worried or confused . We then had to decide which one we were at the moment or we would like to be today. We reflected on how we can feel lots of different emotions in a day and then we said a special prayer to ask for God's understanding and support when we feel different emotions. Next we reflected on our school vision and how Jesus came to give us life in all its fullness and He also said He was the good shepherd and the gate. We discussed that when we are feel sad, we can take comfort in knowing that Jesus knows us, just like a shepherd knows his sheep and He is always with us. We thought about how developing our spirituality can also support us when we are feeling sad and we looked at the five ways of wellbeing such as taking notice of God's creations and different ways of connecting with Him, our family and friends. We finished by singing two of our favourite uplifting songs 'If I were a butterfly' and 'Sing a new song to the Lord'. We agreed that they helped us all to feel happy and also showed our gratitude to God for the wonderful world that he created.
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Whole School Worship- How to make an enjoyable lunchtime?
Our whole school worship today began with the signing of the Trinity by the Heads and Deputies. Mrs. Araujo then led the worship, introducing our new behaviour focus: creating a calmer and more enjoyable lunchtime experience, while continuing to practice the good manners we have already learned. Mrs. Ham highlighted the importance of feeling safe at school, emphasizing that it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure a secure and supportive environment for all. To help improve lunchtimes, Mrs Araujo used a data logger to measure noise levels in the dining hall, which ranged from 79.5 to 80.5 decibels as loud as a truck! Many children noted that the high noise levels were overwhelming, made them want to cover their ears, and could prevent them from hearing important instructions in an emergency. During the worship, children worked with talk partners to discuss the question: If we use good table manners, how could this improve our lunchtimes? Through these discussions, they identified key areas for improvement, such as sitting properly at the table, using a knife and fork to eat, and avoiding walking while eating to reduce choking risks. The WOW group played a key role in visually demonstrating positive lunchtime behaviours. They were featured in photos and role-play scenarios, modelling both the correct and incorrect ways to behave in the dining hall. These demonstrations helped reinforce the importance of eating safely and respectfully. To support these changes, new posters have been placed around the school, reminding everyone to face the table while eating, lean over trays or lunchboxes to avoid spills, and wait until they have swallowed their food before getting up. These expectations will continue to be reinforced through modelling, praise, and reminders, ensuring that lunchtimes are a safe, calm, and enjoyable experience for everyone.
Friday Celebration Worship
Our celebration worship today began with the signing of the Trinity by the Heads and Deputies. Moving onto expressing our gratitude to everyone who supported the school's Valentine's Disco, which promoted love and kindness. We also acknowledged Safer Internet Day, which classes have been focusing on this week. The whole school also enjoyed a fantastic science show presented by Mad Science. The children were buzzing with excitement as we witnessed multiple experiments involving, an egg, fire and a red cabbage. The children in Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 shared their thanks for wonderful dance and gymnastics sessions led by Rothwell Arts. We've also had a great half term of extra-curricular clubs, including Foodie Friends Club, Craft Club, Basketball, SATS and Multi-Sports. Next half term's clubs include Mad Science Club, Edstart Dodgeball and Gymnastics, Craft Club, Performing Arts, SATs Club, Choir, Cross Country, and Netball. Sign up soon, as spaces are limited! All class teachers presented value awards to children in their class that received the most value points this week, Luna, Joey, Lyla, Chloe, Lilly, Isabelle, and Daisy for demonstrating our 4 Bs: being respectful, kind, safe, and ready along with our Christian Values. Well done to these children for their excellent attitude and commitment to learning. The WOW group announced the ‘Wow Badge Winners’ for their amazing badge creations: Reception: Eva, Year 1: Elsie, Year 2: Renee, Year 3: Cassidy, Year 4: Alexis, Year 5: Bella, and Year 6: Daisy. They all received a big bar of chocolate for their entries. Well done to Year 2 and Year 5 for their amazing attendance this week! We also celebrated our out-of-school achievers: Hayden (good tackling), Hendrix (key game at Squirrels), Maggie (Rainbows badges), Olivia (gymnastics), Annabel (Rainbows badges for healthy mind), Grace (song and dance), Molly (swimming), Jack (swimming, Stage 7), Olivia (player of the match), and Tristan (imaginary green belt for kickboxing). Our Sports Hall Athletics team came 3rd in the final! Well done to the whole squad! Our house teams with the highest points will be rewarded with a house points disco and non-uniform day after the holiday. Congratulations to the Green (Whitehall Park) and Red (India Mill) teams tied with an overall score of 11 points for the half term. This week Darwen Tower placed 4th, India Mill came 3rd place , 2nd place Whitehall Park and 1st place River Darwen. Mrs Ham read out a special prayer called the Lord is my Shepherd which focuses on Jesus being like a shepherd by guiding us and always being there for us and Lydia placed the “ Year of Prayer” sticker on our special chart. We thank all those who attended the celebration worship and wish our school family a lovely, restful half-term break. Thank you for your ongoing support.
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