Harvest Church Service 2023
A huge well done to our WOW (Worship our Way) group and our choir for leading our Harvest Church service and to Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 for their wonderful contributions. Thank you so much for your generosity shown towards Darwen Food Larder and DARE (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise). All of the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/harvest-church-service-2023 and the videos are posted on classdojo.
Whole-School Worship: Moses Saves God’s People
This week, Rev Ben led our worship, teaching us all about the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, and how that was all a part of God’s great rescue plan. The children loved acting out the story. We also spent some time reflecting on God’s generosity towards the Israelites.
Whole School Celebration Worship
To start our celebration worship this morning, we reflected on another busy week. We talked about a couple of highlights such as our ‘Hello Yellow Day’ to celebrate World Mental Health Day, A Let’s Sing Together workshop and library visits for years 3 and 5. We then presented our value award winners for this week. Well done to Harry, Eva, Scarlett, Arabelle, Darcy, Reuben, Will and Isaac for demonstrating the 4Bs. We then said congratulations to India Mill for achieving the most value points this week and an even bigger congratulations to River Darwen who are our overall value award winners for this half term who will celebrate with something of their choice next Thursday. Our well-being warriors then announced the six winners for our ‘Hello Yellow’ self affirmations poster competition who were Molly, Mila, Summer, Lucy, Lilly and Alice. Also, we said a huge congratulations to our Y5/6 football team for their superb talent and sportsmanship last night as they won both matches, Reception and Year 5 for being the super attendance award winners this week and Jake in Year 5 for getting his pen license. We then celebrated our out of school achievements. Well done to Marley for her drawing certificate that she achieved at Rainbows, Harriet for achieving 75m in her swimming, Grace for achieving a special honours award in her Jazz, Poppy for getting player of the match in her football, Layla for her football award that she achieved by attending Blackburn Rovers, Alby for reading 6 different books as part of the summer Reading challenge and Vienna for achieving 20m in her swimming without armbands. We ended our worship with a lovely prayer from Rev Ben and a reminder about our Harvest Celebration at St Barnabas Church next Thursday 19th October at 9.30am. Everyone is welcome and we would really appreciate some donations for the local food bank. Thank you for your continued support and we wish you all an enjoyable weekend.
Whole-School Worship: Hello Yellow Day
Today we are celebrating Hello Yellow Day for World Mental Health Day by dressing in yellow. In worship, our Heads and Deputies dressed as Mrs Ham's Minions and they explained all about Hello Yellow Day. We learnt that we all have mental health and there are things we can do when we don't have good mental health. We made each other smile and feel happy by dancing and singing together with the minions to 'Happy'. We then joined a special live assembly with lots of other primary schools in Blackburn and Darwen, which was led by the Mental Health support team. We talked about our worries and how we can shrink them using mindfulness techniques. Thank you to everyone for dressing in yellow to raise awareness of mental health and remember that it is good to talk to our friends, parents, teachers and other trusted adults if we are worried about anything.
Whole-School Worship: Jacob and Esau and God’s Forgiveness
Rev Matt joined us for worship today. He talked about good and bad, and then read the story of Isaac’s sons, Esau and Jacob. We then reflected on how God taught Jacob to be truthful and how He showed forgiveness.
Celebration Worship
This morning, Rotakids welcomed us into celebration worship as we came in dressed in the colours of the Moroccan flag. They thanked us all for supporting our non-uniform day to raise money for Morocco who have recently faced an earthquake. They explained that our money would go towards medical supplies and other essentials such as blankets, food and shelter for those who were affected in the earthquake on September, 8th. We then said goodbye to Mr Tierney for his 7 years of service as our fantastic site supervisor. It was clear from the children’s memories that they shared and the video that Mrs Ham had made that Mr Tierney has had a hugely wonderful impact on our whole school family and that he will be greatly missed, especially for the joy and humour that he spreads on a daily basis. The children absolutely loved your goodbye song dressed as Santa Claus… what a way to end your time here at St Barnabas! We also said thank you very much to our amazing choir who sang at The harvest Festival on Sunday. We then said well done to Cici, Phoebe, Renee, Scarlett, James, Grace, Matthew and Charlie who were our value award winners this week and Isaac, James, Mila, James, Naomi, Lydia and Layla for being our out of school sports achievers. Well done to Isaac for showing good sportsmanship at football, James for being beaver of the week, Mila for attending rainbows for one year, James for achieving his stage 4 in swimming, Naomi for being extremely kind at rainbows and getting Olivia, Lydia for joining in and being a superstar at rainbows and Layla for being a wonderful footballer. We then congratulated River Darwen who are our value award point winners this week, Reception and Year 5 who are our amazing attendance award winners this week, our Year 5/6 football team for wonderful sportsmanship last night and winning all 3 games, our play leaders for completing their training and Eden and Esme for achieving their pen licenses. Finally, we ended with some lovely prayers wishing Mr Tierney all the best at his new job at Blackburn college and for those who are facing hardship in Morocco due to the devastating impact of the recent earthquake. Just a reminder that next Tuesday 10th October is Hello Yellow Day so all children are asked to wear something yellow to celebrate World Mental Health Day. We wish you an enjoyable weekend and thank you for all of your support this week.
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Celebration Worship Begins
Dear Parents and Carers, You're very welcome to join us for our first Celebration Worship of the year tomorrow morning at 9.05am. Our class teachers will be letting our children know how impressed they are with how well they have started the year. We have had a fantastic start so far and we are proud of all of the children. We have seen wonderful walking, legendary lining up and the children have been following our Barney's Brilliant Behaviour Be's (4B's)- Be ready, Be Kind, Be Safe and Be Respectful. As ever, if your child has an award from out of school, they are very welcome to bring it into school so we can present it to them on the golden podium. From next week our Heads and Deputies will be counting up the Values points from each class and the Values Winners will be awarded in Celebration Worship on Fridays. Parents will be informed on Wednesdays if their child is the values winner. However, you are all welcome to attend our Celebration Worship every week or whenever you are free.
Year 6 Leavers Service
Congratulations to our amazing Year 6 class for being such superstars over the last seven years. It has been a privilege to have you as part of our school family and we are so immensely proud of you all. We wish you all the luck in the world as you all go off on your new adventure to high school and we know that you will achieve great things and shine from the inside out. I really hope today has made you realise how precious you are and that you from here with confidence. We also said thank you to our wonderful volunteers who support our school family so brilliantly. Thank you Carol, Fran and Glenda. We also said a huge thank you to Rev Ben. This time last year our WOW group interviewed Rev Ben and we have loved having him as part of our school family over the last few months. We sadly said thank you, good luck and goodbye to Miss Horsfall and Miss Wilkins, who have both been covering maternity leaves this year. They have been amazing and have fit right into our school family. We also said thank you and goodbye to Mrs Kay who is leaving her welfare role at the same time as her son leaves Year 6. Thanks for being a star Mrs Kay! We then said thank you to Miss Bentham who was with us short term and has secured a permanent role in another school closer to her home. Thanks Miss Bentham! Lastly but certainly not least, we said thank you, goodbye and good luck to Miss Ashworth, who has recently moved to Yorkshire. She has been an absolute star and we wish her all the luck in the world in her new school. We are sure she won’t miss the long commute to St Barnabas but we know that St Barnabas will always have a special place in her heart. Thank you so much to our parents and carers, you have been wonderful and we couldn’t do what we do without your support. On behalf of all of the staff I would like to thank you for your support, kind words and gifts. Finally, I would like to thank your truly amazing children for their huge smiles, enthusiasm and positivity. They have worked their socks off all year and it has been another brilliant year. I consider myself so lucky to lead such a wonderful school with the best staff team in the world, the most amazingly supportive parents and the most charismatic, delightful children who brighten up our days. Wishing you all a fabulous Summer holiday and we look forward to welcoming you all back on Monday 4th September. Take care and God bless, Mrs Ham
End of Year Awards Ceremony
This morning we had a very special awards Worship to celebrate all the great achievements of our children and our school this year. Quinn received an award for being our planet protector by looking after our world and God’s planet in so many different ways, thank you for your contribution Quinn! We were so proud (and some of us a bit emotional!) to present Ezmae with the Sharon Kay award for always showing kindness and generosity to her peers, what a credit to the school! For our Progress awards, we said a huge congratulations to Lola, Bobby, Tilly, Charlie, Jacob, and Eddie, who have wowed us with their progress this year. We also had our Star of the year awards where Sophie, Ruby, Sofia, Arabelle and Frankie shone like the super stars they are. Our Children’s champion awards were chosen by each class to reiterate the importance of Democracy. Well done to Lyla, Scarlett, Ivy, Lily-May, Joshua and Mason, who have clearly impressed their peers! Finally, we had our Amazing attendance awards. We can never expect children to have 100% attendance as we all get poorly sometimes or have big events in our lives, so our school target for attendance is over 96%. So many of our children achieved this target, well done! Well done to all the award winners and all our other children in school who have shone in their own way this year. We hope they are all as proud of themselves as we are!
Friday Celebration Worship
This morning in celebration worship, Mrs Ham started by praising all of our children for their courage and positivity during our whole school transition day yesterday. All of the teachers were super impressed with the creativity, attitude to learning, behaviour and manners that all of the children showed in their new year groups. We then said well done to our Reception and KS1 value award winners who were Connie, Bobby-Ray, Jack and Eliza and our KS2 value award winners who were Edward, Alice, Oscar and Freya. We said a huge well done to our High 5 netball team who represented BwD at the Lancashire School Games at Stanley Park on Tuesday and got through to the quarter final. We also celebrated lots of out of schools sports award winners. Well done to Ruby and Archie for entering and competing the Iron Kids Competition, Daisy for being a fantastic gymnast, Lyla and Sofia for their ‘Going Places’ dancing trophy and Sofia for being outstanding at Musical Theatre, Eliza for demonstrating wonderful football skills, Isaac for his ‘potential and success in the arts’ trophy, Peyton and Cassidy for being superstars at rainbows, Summer for achieving stage 6 at swimming and level 2 at gymnastics and Grace for wonderful improvement in her ballet, a gold award in jazz and being the overall classical dancer of the year. We congratulated Reception and Year 6 for being the attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park for being the Value Award House Point Winners this week. Lastly, we heard some beautiful prayers from Hamza, Sofia and Jack and sang Sing a New Song to the Lord. Thank you to the those who could join us for celebration worship this week and we wish you all an enjoyable weekend.
Whole School Collective Worship- Archdeacon David
This morning in worship, we welcomed Archdeacon David who visited our school to lead collective worship. Archdeacon David asked us what we think it means when we say that Jesus is the light of the world. We had responses such as it means that Jesus leads us and guides us in the right way, that Jesus lights up the world and makes it a nicer place for us all to live and Jesus is the light of the world by encouraging us to be peaceful, respectful and kind. Archdeacon David told us that we also have the special power of being the light of the world too. He reminded us that Jesus said, ‘When I go back to heaven, I will leave you a special thing called the holy spirit. I want you to shine as a light in the world to make the world a better place.’ Archdeacon David left us to reflect on how we can achieve this. He said that next time he visits, he will give us the opportunity to tell him how we have been shining as a light in the world just as Jesus does and asks us to do. We finished our worship by singing 'Shine from the Inside out'.
Monday Worship: St Barnabas and St Paul and Welcome to Rev Matt
Today, Rev Ben led our worship and we welcomed Rev Matt who will be working at St Barnabas Church too. We began our worship by thinking about a time where something happened to us and where we couldn’t wait to tell others about it. Amelia couldn’t wait to tell others when her Mum had a baby. Mason couldn’t wait to tell others that he had been on the television! We thought about how St Barnabas and St Paul were generous about the message about Jesus and how they told Jesus’ story to people for the first time. Rev Ben shared a video with the children about their story. On Saturday, Matt became Rev Matt and was ordained at Blackburn Cathedral. Rev Matt wanted to become a vicar because he wanted to spread the word of Jesus and to find out more about Jesus. Rev Matt spent three years at vicar school. He said he was most excited to learn more and for the children to learn with him. We gave Rev Matt a huge St Barnabas welcome. We ended our worship by singing ‘story of the cross’.
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