Year 4 - RE: What is God Like?
In RE, we’ve been looking at psalms this week in Year 4. We looked for the symbolism used to describe God and talked about what it reveals about Christian belief.
Rev Matt’s Worship - Temptation
Today in whole-school worship, Rev Matt talked about temptation and how the devil tried to tempt Jesus in the desert. We thought about what tempts us and what we might do if we wanted to celebrate Lent.
Year 3- R.E- How did/does Jesus change lives?
This afternoon in R.E. Year 3 listened to "The Calling of Levi". After the story, we made two lists: one about what mattered to Levi (Matthew) before Jesus called him, and another about what became important after Jesus called him. We talked about why his priorities changed after meeting Jesus. Meeting Jesus made Levi think differently about what's important in life, like his beliefs and values. Jesus' teachings and being around him made Levi rethink what matters most and make good changes in his life. Levi became a better person after meeting Jesus because he used to do a job collecting taxes, which was important for money. But when he met Jesus, he decided to follow Him and be a friend. So, what became important to Levi was being friends with Jesus and learning from Him, instead of just collecting money. It shows how meeting someone special can change what's important to us.
Rev Ben's Worship: Turning to God
This week, Rev Ben told us the story of John the Baptist and how he preached about the importance of turning our lives to God. We spent some time thinking about what it means to turn to God.
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Year 3- Class Worship-To drive or be driverless?
During our class worship today, we watched this week's story. According to the Transport Secretary, Mark Harper, there's a possibility that by 2026, motorists might find themselves completing journeys in driverless vehicles – cars that can navigate without human control. Year 3 are worried about the idea because they felt uneasy and thought it could be unsafe not having a driver. But, we used this chance to discuss the British Value 'Rule of Laws'. The children were reminded about how everyone must follow the rules when driving to keep things safe. We thanked God for the wonderful world and everything in it. To conclude our worship, the children sang the hymn, 'Our God is a Great Big God.'
Year 4 Class Worship - Picture News - Is an e-reader better than a book?
In Class Worship this morning we focused on Picture News, which asked the question - Is an e-reader better than a book? A study from Spain found that print reading could boost skills by six to eight times more than digital reading. Our class was a complete split but the children discussed their ideas behind their choices and then looked at various ways in which we can read. We then looked at what we prefer to read and ordered these from favourite to least favourite. Reading messages from friends came top and reading instructions was our least favourite!
Year 4 - RE: Looking in Hearts
If there’s one thing our Year 4s are good at, it’s demonstrating our Christian values. In RE, this week, we discussed how God chose people to do important jobs and that it was all about what was in their hearts. The children wrote about the values in their hearts and what actions they take that show the good in their hearts.
Rev Matt's Worship- Courage
After the fun of finding that it has snowed this morning, we had a whole school worship led by Rev Matt. He showed us lots of different images of people waiting and then read us the Bible story of Anna and Simeon waiting for Jesus. They had to wait a long time, many years, but they trusted in God and knew that he would send his special son, Jesus. We enjoyed joining in with the 'tick tock, tick tock' everytime Rev Matt said the word waited. We then reflected on how Anna and Simeon showed courage and thought of ways that we can show courage this week. We finished singing one of our favourite songs, My Lighthouse. How will you show courage this week?
Year 4 - RE: Hanukkah
To finish our Year 4 Christmas RE unit, we learned about the significance of light in the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah. We discussed the story and how the Jews felt about their sacred temple being destroyed and the miracle of the oil lasting longer than it should have. We also made our own Dreidels and played a few games.
Rev Ben’s Worship: Courage and Epiphany
This morning, Rev Ben came in to talk about courage and how the wise men showed courage on their journey to meet Jesus. The children shared their bravest moments and they enjoyed joining in with the Bible story and especially Rev Ben’s impression of a grumpy and mean King Herod. We reflected on how the wise men showed courage, how we can show courage this week and how it helps us to know that Jesus is always with us. This doesn't mean that the fear goes away but Jesus helps us to face our fears and be courageous, just like the wise men.
Epiphany Collective Worship
It was wonderful to have our school family back together again for our first collective worship after the Christmas holidays. Today we focused on Epiphany which is when the three wise men went to see baby Jesus. Our Reception class Kings helped up to learn about the special gifts that they gave to Jesus and what they symbolised. Gold= King Frankincense= God and Myrrh = Sacrifice. We then watched a short film called 'Far from home' which we thought was about modern day refugees but the more we watched it, the more we realised that it was very similar to the Nativity story. We discussed how Mary, Joseph and Jesus had to flee as King Herod wanted to kill Jesus. We reflected on how they must have felt and how it must feel for those children nowadays who are living in places that aren't safe, such as in Palestine, Israel and Ukraine. We then thought about how we can support refugees who arrive in our country seeking safety. We had some brilliant answers such as give them a warm welcome, donate toys, food, clothes and money etc. We then looked back at some of the generous work we have been doing to support Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise such as donating toys, books and chocolate at Christmas time. We finished with a prayer and sang 'We three kings' and noticed what the three gifts symbolised- King, God and sacrifice, in the song.
Thank you from DARE ( Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise)
Thank you so much to our staff team and our Year 1 kindness elves for donating Christmas items to Darwen Asylum and Refuger Enterprise. The donations have been used to create Christmas hampers for families in need. They were distributed at the DARE Christmas party and were gratefully received.