Year 3- English- Zoom session from Tom Roberts-Author of the The Great Realisation poem and film. ·
Performance poet Tom Roberts also known as Tom Foolery shared his journey into poetry and explained his creative process during a Zoom session with Year 3 today. He emphasized the importance of focusing on subjects that matter to you at the moment, whether personal or universal, making the work more engaging. He shared valuable advice from a former teacher about structuring a poem. Instead of thinking of a poem as having a beginning, middle, and end, he approaches it as a progression from stability to instability, and finally to resolution. During the session, Tom delighted the children by reading two poems: "The Great Realisation" and "The World Awaits" – the latter from his second book. To make the experience even more special, he included the names of the children while performing. Year 3 loved it! Inspired by this session, the children will now use Tom's approach to structure their poems on the theme of refugees.
English- Year 3- Refugees from Sudan and Libya
Today in Year 3, we welcomed two refugees. Zinab from Libya and Samah from Sudan. They both had to leave their families because it was not safe in their countries. Zinab and Samah told us about their struggles and worries about fitting in here in the UK. They were very grateful to the UK for providing them with housing and support. They also reminded us to be thankful that we don't have wars, and that we have safe places to stay and food to eat. The question and answer session helped the children understand the challenges refugees face, which they could then portray in their writing.
Year 5 - The CO2 Crew Workshop
Today, Year 5 took part in the Safety Seymour workshop. The children discussed and explored the dangers of carbon monoxide and discussed how they can spot it in their homes as this is something that cannot be detected by our senses. The children explored a variety of ways that if carbon monoxide is detected, what can be done to mitigate the spread of the harmful gas.
Year 6 Money Matters
Year 6 had their final money matters session this week led by Debt Aware- Money skills for life. They at enterprise and entrepreneurs.
Year 1 and 2 visit BeWILDerwood
Our Year 1 and 2 classes had a fantastic time at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire. They showed lots of courage when taking part in a variety of challenging activities such as den building, wobbly wires, slippery slopes, the mish mash maze, the broken bridge, storytelling and crafts. For all of the photos, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/year-1-2-bewilderwood-trip-may-2024
Year 6- Islamophobia Workshop
This week, year 6 took part in an islamophobia workshop. They discovered what islamophobia is, why we have islamophobia and how we tackle the issue. The overriding theme from the workshop is that it exists from a lack of education around the Islamic faith and it can be tackled through education. This will allow the children to make informed choices as they go out into the world.
Year 2 & Year 4 - RE: The Church
Our pupils in Years 2 & 4 had a walk down to St Barnabas Church this week. Both classes are currently studying the church in RE and Rev Ben was kind enough to invite us into church to explore symbols within the church. For Year 2, this built on the children’s learning about important features found in a church, and for Year 4, this gave a starting point for comparisons with churches from other denominations of Christianity. The children were very knowledgeable and loved exploring the inside of St Barnabas Church.
Year 5- PGL- Three day residential trip
Year 5 have been on a 3-day residential trip to Winmarleigh Hall, where they created lasting memories, and tackled challenging activities such as; Zip wire, abseiling, survivor skills, traverse, raft building, quizzes, sensory trail and vertical challenges demonstrating incredible teamwork. Well done Year 5! A huge thank you to Mr Bloomfield, Miss Kachwalla and Rev Ben for their amazing support!
Year 4 - RE: The Essence of the Church
After writing an extensive list of what we would need to create our own class church on the playground, we read what Peter said about ”the church” and realised that we actually only needed 3 key elements: people, the Bible, and a place to gather. Once we found a quiet spot to gather, we began our church by signing the trinity. One of the children selected a passage to read and told us all that she thought it meant that Jesus is always with us. We discussed times when it is important to remind ourselves of this, such as when we are worried about an upcoming event. The children then gathered some natural materials to make their own crosses. We finished with a prayer and returned to class singing “My Lighthouse”.
Year 2 - Fire Service Visit
On Monday, the fire service visited year 2. However after 10 minutes they received a radio call saying there was an emergency so they were needed somewhere else in Darwen. Thankfully Firefighter Clough was keen to come back so on Tuesday morning we got to do it all again. We spoke about how we should react should we ever be in a fire. We also discussed ways to help reduce danger in scary situations. We also spoke about the importance of smoke alarms in our homes. All the children were asked to check their smoke alarms were working at home. We had water guns, wigs, hats and plenty of jokes to make this a memorable visit!
Year 5 PGL- Raft Building
Year 5 are having lots of fun and are showing friendship and teamwork when building rafts on their PGL residential. Well done Year 5! For all of the PGL photos so far, click here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/year-5-pgl-to-winmarleigh-2024
Year 1- Road Safety Visit
This afternoon in Year 1, we had visit from Road Safety Officer Katie. We learnt the Green Cross Code which is to only Cross the road when we have stopped, looked, listened and thought. Katie then talked to us about how we should put this into practice when we are making decisions concerning our roads. Katie then spoke to us about the dangers of having our shoe laces undone, being on an electronic device and wearing headphones whilst crossing the road as well as running across a road and following a ball or other object that has rolled into the road. We discussed these in depth and decided that anything that would result in us being distracted, not being able to hear properly or potentially resulting in us falling and being stranded in the middle of the road would be incredibly dangerous and we should take precautions so that they don’t happen . Katie then shared one of the most common ways for people getting hurt whilst crossing the road. This is when people cross the road between two parked cars. We learnt that by doing this, you can’t see the oncoming traffic properly and the oncoming traffic can’t see you. Therefore, Katie told us that we must cross the road in a safe place where you have full visibility of the road and the oncoming traffic has clear visibility of you. Late at night, this would mean that you would also need to wear fluorescent and reflective clothes and/or accessories. Katie gave us lots of these- thank you! Throughout the lesson, we took to the crossing and practised some of these road safety skills that we had learnt. To end the lesson, Katie talked to us about the importance of a seat belt. She told us that the seatbelt should sit positioned between our shoulder bone and hip bone and then securely fastened. Katie also told us that we needed to be a certain height in order for this seatbelt to fulfil its job of keeping us safe. All of us were measured and we all discovered that we need a booster seat to ensure that we are the appropriate height for the seatbelt to do it’s job. Thank you to Katie for a very informative session.