Whole School Harvest Celebration
This morning, we celebrated Harvest with a very special worship service at St Barnabas Church, led by our wonderful WOW group and Mrs Araujo. It was a joyful celebration filled with singing, gratitude and reflection. A huge well done to Reception, Year 1 and Year 3, who did a tremendous job of sharing what they have been learning in their RE lessons. Reception bravely opened our worship by singing ‘Thank You for the Harvest’, followed by Year 1, who expressed their gratitude to our farmers for all their hard work with a lovely rendition of ‘Thank You to the Farmers’. We also heard from Year 3, who shared beautiful prayers expressing their gratitude for all that we have, as well as leading us in a shared prayer using Makaton. We are incredibly proud of all the children for their thoughtful contributions. This year, we are supporting DARE, RotaKids and The Bishop’s Appeal. A heartfelt thank you to our school community for your generosity in donating non-perishable food items and pre-loved winter coats. Your kindness and support make a real difference to others. Looking ahead, please remember that we will be taking part in the Big Barney’s Assault Course Challenge on Friday 6th November to raise money for the Jehovah Rapha Healthcare Centre in Liwolo. The funds raised will help ensure that people can access essential healthcare. We would be very grateful if you could ask family and friends to sponsor your child and support us in this important mission. Finally, thank you for your continued support throughout this half-term. We wish all our families a wonderful and restful half-term holiday!
Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our Celebration Worship by singing a wonderful Harvest song in preparation for our Harvest Worship next Thursday at St Barnabas Church. We recapped on all the great things that we have been achieving over the last couple of weeks. We then presented our Barney’s Brilliant Beacons. A huge well done to Louie, Noah S, Indie, Chester C, Olivia and Archie in EYFS and KS1 and Millie, Alayna, Charlie, Eddie, Cassius, Scarlett, Lilly and Peyton in KS2. Well done to these fantastic children for always demonstrating the Barney’s 4Bs, demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning and being fantastic role models. Mrs Araujo and Mrs Gardner then awarded lots of children with their pen licenses. Well done to Archie and James in Year 3 and Harry, Eva, Albie, Molly, Alicie, Elijah and Eddie in Year 4 for working extremely hard to excel in their handwriting. Mrs Gardner also presented James and Archie with a certificate for excelling on TT Rockstars. We then congratulated our Year 5&6 Girls’ football team who have been playing well in the DPSSA League’s Girls Football Tournament over the last couple of weeks. We then ended our worship with some beautiful prayers from Mrs Ham, Jack and Renee and Mrs Ham reminded us that we are accepting food items for our Harvest to donation to DARE and winter coats to donate to Rota Kids.
Whole School Worship: Rev Ben
A big thank you to Rev Ben for leading a wonderful collective worship session with our children today! Building on our recent learning about Moses, we explored how God gave Moses the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai as important rules for his people to follow. During our reflection, we discussed why rules alone aren't always enough for Christians. God recognised that people would struggle to keep all these rules perfectly on their own—which is why he later sent Jesus to us. The children reflected on how God gives the 10 Commandments to all who love and trust him, but Christians believe true change needs to happen on the inside. That inner transformation of the heart is at the very core of why Jesus came. Thank you, Rev Ben, for helping us unpack such a thoughtful message and inspiring our reflections today!
Year 3 - RE: Preparing for Harvest
To finish our Harvest unit in Year 3, we created a class prayer about thankfulness. Miss Craig and Lenny helped us all learn how to sign some parts of our prayer with Makaton so that we can perform it in church next week.
Worship: Black History Month
Our Black History Month worship began by inviting the children to imagine a huge book containing the history of the entire world. We discussed how some pages would be familiar to us, while others would tell stories we had never heard before. The children were then challenged to identify significant historical figures, including Samuel Pepys, Neil Armstrong and Adolf Hitler. We then introduced a selection of influential Black individuals. The children recognised Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, but were less familiar with the other figures. This provided an opportunity to reflect on whose stories we learn about and why it is important to celebrate and recognise the contributions of Black people throughout history. We watched a Newsround video explaining what Black History Month is, why it is celebrated and the importance of learning about Black history. Following this, we explained that each class would focus on a different significant individual each week, giving the children opportunities to discover new stories, learn about inspiring people and understand the impact they have had on the world. We concluded our worship by singing Make a Difference, encouraging the children to consider how they can make a positive difference in their own lives and communities. The worship provided an opportunity to celebrate Black history, broaden the children’s understanding of significant historical figures and encourage them to think about the importance of representation, equality and making a difference. A huge thank you to Miss Woods, our History subject leader for planning and leading the worship and follow up work.
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Harvest Family Church Service
A huge thank you to all our wonderful children and families who joined us for our Family Harvest Church Service this morning! It was fantastic to see so many of you there celebrating together. A special thank you goes to Rev Matt for leading such a lovely, engaging service—the inflatable game was an absolute highlight and enjoyed by everyone! We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to our Year 1 class parents for their incredible generosity in putting together the Year 1 Harvest hamper. Your contributions are truly appreciated. Over the next few weeks, we will continue collecting tins and non-perishable packets to support our local food bank. Any donations you are able to send in will be greatly received and will go a long way in helping families in our community. Thank you again for your continued support!
Hello Yellow Day Collective Worship
This morning, Mrs Gardner, our PSHE leader, The Wellbeing Warriors, some of our Year 4 children and our Head and Deputy Head’s led a special Collective Worship in celebration of Hello Yellow Day. They raised awareness of mental health and the importance of discussing our feelings, doing the things that we love and spreading kindness. Last week, Year 4 wrote some beautiful wonder poems in celebration of National Poetry Day and they shared these with us this morning and Thorncliffe Nursing Home last week. This was a wonderful act of kindness that brought huge smiles to the resident’s faces. They set us the challenge of spreading kindness and positivity today. We all then joined with a Hello Yellow Parade with each class showing off their amazingly yellow outfits. Thank you to our wonderful school community for all of their efforts… we were a sea of yellow. We then finished our worship with a very special prayer and sing along. What a joyous worship that helped to make us all feel brighter on a wet and miserable morning! 💛✨😁
Whole School Worship with Rev Matt
During our whole-school worship, Rev Matt explored the theme of ‘Life as a Journey’, sharing the story of Moses and how he led the Hebrew people through challenges and uncertainty towards freedom. The children reflected on how journeys can be filled with obstacles, difficult decisions and moments that test our faith, but also how perseverance, courage and trust can help us overcome these challenges. This encouraged the children to think about their own journeys through life and the importance of supporting one another along the way.
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Whole School Worship
Today in worship, the children were treated to an exciting online worship from Picture News exploring the importance of inclusive sport and how we can break down barriers that may prevent people from taking part. We learnt about the struggles that Stef Reid, a Paralympic athlete, faced when she lost her foot in an accident. She was determined to run again though after being a keen sportswoman before her accident and she went on to win many medals in a number of Paralympic Games events including running and long jump. She then retired from athletics but then took up figure skating and competed in Dancing on Ice. What an inspiration! The children discussed how everyone has different strengths, abilities and experiences, and explored the idea that there is always more than one way to achieve something and to never give up, just like Stef. It was a fantastic opportunity for the children to think about inclusion, resilience and the importance of supporting and encouraging others.
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Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, Mrs Ham opened our Celebration Worship by telling us that today is World Smile Day. We talked about how smiles are infectious and how we are going to work even harder than we normally do to put a big smile on people’s faces and spread happiness, love and kindness. This week, we have enjoyed a wonderful variety of extra-curricular clubs, some fantastic worships and an extra-special day yesterday, celebrating National Poetry Day and Give Like Dolly Day. We then presented our Barney’s Brilliant Beacons. A huge well done to Reggie, Minnie, Luna, Poppy, Everley and Matthew in EYFS and KS1, and Joey, Skye, Marley, Mila, Iris, Oliver and Tristen in KS2. Well done to these fantastic children for their exemplary behaviour, exceptional attitudes to learning and for consistently demonstrating our Barney’s 4Bs and our Christian Values. We are incredibly proud of you! Looking ahead to next week, we are excited to welcome families to our second Open Day for the 2027 Reception intake on Wednesday, as well as our Stay and Play session in EYFS on Thursday. We will also be celebrating Hello Yellow Day next Friday, 9th October, before coming together for a special Harvest Service at St Barnabas Church on Sunday, 11th October. We ended our worship by congratulating Year 4 on being our Walk to School Winners for September, followed by some beautiful prayers from Iris, Alfie and Mrs Ham. What a wonderful way to end another fantastic week at Barney’s! 🌟
Give Like Dolly Day Worship
Today, we celebrate the life of the American singer songwriter Dolly Parton. The whole school has come dressed in sparkles and colours and in worship, Mrs Wilkinson told us about Dolly’s remarkable life and achievements. Dolly Parton was dedicated to allowing as many children to read as possible and founded the Imagination Library charity in 1995. Mrs Wilkinson lead a discussion on the power of reading and how it can provoke our imagination and allow us to engage with the written word all throughout our lives. We then watched a video of Dolly Parton reading a very special bed time story called Stuck in the Mud before the whole school sang and danced to her 1980s classic hit ‘9 to 5’. Her amazing legacy of music and charity will live forever and be an inspiration to us all.
Whole School Worship
We started the week by singing the 80s classic hit ‘Nine to Five’ to celebrate the life of Dolly Parton, who dedicated her life to helping children read. We can't wait for our 'Give like Dolly Day' on Thursday where we will be wearing our brightest clothes whilst raising money. Your money will help to provide books to children in need, opening up their world and unlocking the curriculum. We can't wait for our mystery readers across the week either. Afterwards, Mrs Ham spoke to us about our most important Barney's Four Be's- Be safe and how her most important job was to keep us safe. We discussed and acted out what the children should do in case of an emergency at school and how we would safely evacuate or invacuate the premises. Reasons to evacuate may include a fire, so the children were introduced to the fire alarm and shown how they should calmly stop, line up and gather on the playground for a headcount. Should an air ambulance land on the playing fields or a dog come onto the school premises, any children outside would calmly move indoors to ensure their safety and we listened to our new lockdown message over the tannoy. We will be rehearsing drills over the next few weeks so that everyone knows how to be safe, especially our Reception class who have only just joined us. A huge thank you to our Year 6 volunteers for their amazing acting skills.
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