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Design Technology Products
Good afternoon parents and carers, our children have been working really hard on their design and technology skills over the last few weeks to create products that can bought at our Christmas Fair. They are available to purchase on parent pay for £2.00 each, which will help to cover some of the cost of the materials used. Reception: Wooden christmas decorations Year 1: Christmas moving books Year 2 : Christmas puppets Year 3: Christmas pouches Year 4: Christmas stockings Year 5: Christmas cushions Year 6: Christmas loop games
Whole School Celebration Worship
This week has been full of joy, community and Christmas spirit across our school! We started our celebration worship by lighting our first Advent candle together. Mrs Ham also thanked all the children and staff for decorating Christmas trees across school and highlighted a special moment when Phoebe, our youngest child in school, put the star on top of the tree in the school hall. We also said a huge well done to Reception who did an incredible Nativity performance. We also celebrated a couple of children who proudly represented our school at a local care home, singing for the residents and spreading Christmas cheer. We also had a fantastic time at the pantomime this week so a big thanks to Mrs Wilkinson for organising it. This week, our Values Awards were presented to the following children: all of Reception for their fantastic performance, Eleanor in Year 1, Teddy in Year 2, James in Year 3, Arabelle in Year 4, Sophia in Year 5 and Isabelle in Year 6. These children have been working so hard, following our 4’Bs and demonstrating Christian values. Mr Mealor also awarded Alexis, Miles, James, Harriet and Charlie with pen licenses for excellent progress in their handwriting. We also celebrated our Team Values Points with India Mill finishing in fourth place, River Darwen in third place, Whitehall Park in second place and Darwen Tower in first place! Mr Bloomfield also announced our first Times Table Rock Stars Winners: Charlie in Year 3, James in Year 4, Ivy in Year 5 and Charlie in Year 6. Our overall winners were Year 6! Well done. We are very proud of all the children who received special sports awards this week. Ava received Squirrel of the Week for her kindness. Zachary achieved his Stage 2 swimming certificate. Charlie was named Player of the Week for his excellent goal scoring. Desmond and Iris both competed in swimming events and placed in the top three, earning several medals. Thea was recognised for her fantastic balancing skills in gymnastics. Olivia was awarded the Olivia doll at Rainbows for her hard work. Vienna achieved her Stage 5 swimming certificate for completing 400m. Finn was named Player of the Week for his good passing skills. Willow achieved an impressive 19 skills in gymnastics. Luna earned the red belt in kickboxing. James received the Wilson Cup Trophy after finishing second with fewer players and also swam an impressive 50 metres. Grace was celebrated for helping others and persevering. Mollie was awarded the Claire doll for being helpful. Jack earned Captain of the Month for his encouragement, discipline and leadership. Tristan earned both his blue and purple belts in kickboxing and completed three minutes of continuous punching. Harriet was praised for her amazing progress in MMA. Lilly achieved a distinction in her Grade 1 acting school exam. Lila reached the finals of a dance competition, placing first in improv, first in commercial and second in lyrical. Our KS2 football team also showed great resilience this week. After losing their first match 7-0, they came back stronger to draw 2-2 in their next game. The winners of the Walk to School Challenge was also won by Reception, well done! We also celebrated our attendance winners this week which are Year 2 and Year 3. We have several exciting events coming up. The Lantern Parade will take place this Saturday in Whitehall Park. Our Christmas Fayre will be held next Wednesday in the school hall. The Christmas Carol Service will take place next Sunday. We also have an Advent Art competition with submissions open until Wednesday. Year 1 and Year 2 are performing their Christmas Cracker Show on Thursday and Friday. Year 1 are continuing to collect Christmas Hamper donations for the Darwen Asylum Refugee Enterprise. We are so proud of our wonderful children and look forward to another week of joy and celebration through our Advent journey.
Reception Maths - Numberblock Stampolines
This week, Reception have been further developing their understanding on composition of numbers 1-5. We used the Numberblocks as reference to print patterns equal to their amounts and looked at the parts we could see. We also thought about how each Numberblock can create different shapes, but still remains the same amount as before. The children then used an interactive grid on the large screen to explore these shapes and patterns.
Snow White Pantomime
The children had a brilliant time today at Blackburn Empire Theatre. The whole school watched Snow White. It was wonderful to see their faces light up, Christmas is in full swing at St Barnabas! All of the photos will be uploaded shortly to here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/snow-white-pantomime
Reception- Snow White
Our Reception class have had a very busy day. After performing in their very own Nativity, we went to watch Snow White at Blackburn Empire Theatre. We loved shouting at the wicked witch and we loved cheering and dancing. The children all had a brilliant time and enjoyed eating an ice lolly at the interval too, what a treat!
Reception Nativity 2025
We want to express how incredibly proud we are of all the children in Reception class for their truly amazing performance in their Nativity play! The children showed such courage and confidence on the stage. We were so impressed with: Brave Speaking: Every child who had lines delivered them so clearly. Enthusiastic Singing and actions: Their little voices filled the hall, making the performance joyful and bright and we were so impressed with the amount of words they had to learn in the songs. It takes great bravery to stand up in front of a big audience, and they all shone! It was a very special occasion, and they brought the Christmas story to life beautifully. Thank you so much for your support in preparing them for the show and for your active participation in the show. A huge thank you to our Reception staff team for the time and effort they have put into the production, Mr Ashworth, our CEO of Cidari Multi Academy Trust for his support, Mr Bloomfield for filming and Rev Ben for leading us in prayer. All of the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/reception-nativity-2025 The video links will be send shortly.
Reception PE - Climbing & Jumping
This week we have been continuing to develop our jumping skills, but also introduced climbing. We have been building our resilience and courage to take safe risks when climbing. This helps us to build our upper body strength so we can develop our stamina for writing.
Reception - Electricity and Safety
This week as part of our Understanding of the World, we have been looking at objects in the home that use electricity. We talked about the power of electricity and what jobs it helps us to do, but also the importance of how we can be safe around electricity, as it can be very dangerous if not used by a grown up or used carefully. The children enjoyed spotting electrical items around the classroom and the ways we use electricity to improve our learning. We also thought of ways we can save electricity by making sure electrical devices are turned off when they aren't being used.
Reception-PSHE- Teamwork
In our PSHE lesson we were learning all about teamwork, why teamwork is important and different ways we can work as a team. The children were set a challenge, in their colour teams they had to sort the sections of the tray into five different colours using the blocks. Each team were timed on how quickly they could work together to solve the problem.
Whole School Worship - The Importance of Trees
This week is National Tree Week and Mrs Ham introduced an exciting new tree-planting project that we will be undertaking as a school. Following on from Switch Off Fortnight, we will continue our Planet Protectors mission by planting trees on our school grounds and, of course, our fantastic children will be involved. To kick start the project, we had a discussion about why trees are amazing. The children gave some very thoughtful answers, such as “they give us oxygen”, “they take harmful carbon dioxide out of the air”, “they provide protection for animals”, “we love playing in the trees”, “we use trees to make things”. Mrs Ham also told us the story, The Man Who Planted Trees. It was about a shepherd who saw the barren land and wanted to improve it, so he started planting trees. He planted over 1000 acorns, and after many years, the landscape was filled with lush, green trees, rivers flowed and a town was built. We learned from this 100-year-old story that one person’s small act can make a huge difference. Just like in the Parable of the Talents, we learned that it’s important for us all to use what we’ve been given to make a positive impact on the world. We can’t wait to use the trees that have been donated to us by the National Trust to make a positive impact on our community.
Reception RE - Why the characters in the Nativity are important
During our RE session we played a game of ‘who’s in the bag’ The children picked out the characters from the Nativity Story and identified each character, they talked with their partner about why the characters were important to the story and what part they played within it.
Reception-PSHE- I am Caring
In PSHE we were discussing what does caring behaviour looks like? And what can we do to show that we are caring? The children learnt that their own caring actions can help make a difference to how others feel. The children spoke about when others had shown kindness to them and when they have shown kindness to others. As part of the activity the children made a circle and and soft toys were placed in the centre. The children were told the toys were feeling lonely and they were then asked what they could do to help. The children came up with some lovely ideas such as play with them, share with them, make them things, give them a cuddle if they want one or make them a card.