Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our Celebration Worship by reflecting on another busy week in school. This week, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr's birthday and thought about how we can all make a positive difference in our world. We have enjoyed focusing on the theme of building each other up as part of our Year of Prayer, Reception, Year 1, 2 and 4 have enjoyed dance and gymnastics sessions led by Rothwell Arts. Reception have enjoyed a visit from Rev Ben to learn about the role of a vicar and we have enjoyed various after-school clubs such as basketball, multi-sports, foodie club, Rocksteady and choir. We then congratulated Will, Hollie and Charlie in EYFS and KS1 and Arabelle, Daisy, Charlie and Rosie in KS2 for making a fantastic start to the Spring term by working extremely hard across the curriculum, always striving to improve and demonstrating our Christian Values and the Barny’s 4Bs. Furthermore, we congratulated Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, India Mill as our overall value award winners this week with 750 points and our Year 5/6 football team who represented our school amazingly well last night in the DPSSA football league against Ashleigh and St James’. We then congratulated Ella for achieving her Stage 2 swimming certificate for swimming across the pool with no armbands, Freddie for being awarded with his 10m swimming certificate, Callie for achieving her Stage 5 swimming certificate, Thomas for swimming an incredible 50m, Lyla for being a super gymnast and achieving a silver medal, Haydn for being awarded a huge gold trophy for his skilful tackling in football, Lydia for being awarded with Olivia at Rainbows for showing super respect and tidying up, Leonora and Iris for participating in a recent gymnastic competition and demonstrating great skill and Brooke for being selected for Blackburn Rovers Girls’ team. To end our worship, we prayed for peace in the world and said thank you for all of the things that we are lucky enough to have. We then sang ‘Build Up’ and thanked those who could attend celebration worship. We thank the rest of our school family for all of your continued support and we wish you all a lovely weekend.
Year 1 - Year of Prayer
This week’s theme for the Year of Prayer is ‘Build Up’. Year 1 have been focusing on building each other up through collaboratively constructing a tower while saying something kind to their partner as they add a brick. We have had comments such as ‘I love your smile,’ ‘You are a brilliant mathematician,’ ‘You show respect by sitting nicely,’ and ‘You are helpful’.
Worship with Rev. Matt
Today’s worship with Rev. Matt began with an engaging vote about which activities take the most time to prepare for. Rev. Matt then shared a parable told by Jesus, illustrating how we pray and connect with God. The story featured two men who went to a temple to pray: a Pharisee, who proudly listed his good deeds and a tax collector, who humbly asked for forgiveness. The children reflected on the contrasting attitudes of the two men, learning that prayer is not about boasting but about speaking honestly and sincerely with God. Rev. Matt emphasised a powerful message from the parable: Those who make themselves great will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be made great. This served as a reminder to approach life with humility and gratitude, encouraging the children to think about how they communicate with God and with others.
Year 1 PE- Street Dance
Year 1 enjoyed this second session of street dance this afternoon. They started with a warm up where they had to create a movement for a given animal such as stretching tall like a giraffe, pulling themselves across the floor like a snake and jumping like a monkey. Then Year 1 recapped some of the dance movements that they learnt last lesson such as ‘The Smurf’ and ‘The ATL (kick, kick, jump)’ before learning a new movement called ‘The Bart Simpson.’ Finally, they practised these movements as part of a routine before performing it in groups.
Whole School Worship - Who Is My Neighbour?
In our collective worship, we were considering the question, “Who is my neighbour?” We discussed what it means to love your neighbour as yourself (as mentioned in parts of the Bible such as Leviticus and the Gospel according to Mark) and that there are times when it can be incredibly difficult. In hearing about the life of Martin Luther King Jr, as today is Martin Luther King Jr Day, we discovered that, even when it feels impossible to love our neighbour, when we are mistreated, ignored or disrespected as he and other black people have been, we must try harder to follow God’s greatest commandment, just like Martin did. Our children considered this and spent some time reflecting on the Christian Values that Martin demonstrated and the ways that they would like to make the world a better place and make a difference. Some of the children’s examples included: protecting nature, making peace when we have disagreements, putting a stop to pollution and eradicating poverty. We finished with prayers thanking God for Martin Luther King Jr and all that he did to the make the world a better place and asked Him to give us the courage to stand up for what is right. Rev Ben finished with a special blessing and we sang 'I can make a difference'.
Year 1 Art- Creating Lines
This week in art, Year 1, have been exploring and creating different types of lines. They have been looking at the direction in which a line can be drawn (vertically, horizontally and diagonally) and how we can draw various types of lines such as straight, curved, wavy or broken. Having this understanding of line is going to support them to create interesting pieces of artwork in the style of Friedrich Hundertwasser.
Year 1- Creating Repeated Patterns using 2D and 3D shapes
This week, Year 1 are enjoying completing existing patterns and creating their own patterns using 2D and 3D shapes. They have really impressed us with their ability to tell us what repeated pattern they have created using the correct names for the shapes.
Year 1 Maths- Sorting 2D Shapes
Year 1 have really enjoyed learning to recognise and name 2D shapes such as circles, triangles, squares, rectangles, pentagons and hexagons. They have really impressed us with their understanding of the properties of shapes. They are able to name the number of sides and corners of each of the shapes that we have studied and other properties such as whether or not they have curved sides. They used this knowledge to sort the 2D shapes into two groups. Well done Year 1!
Collective Worship- Year of Prayer
This morning in our Collective Worship we focused on our prayer for this week of the Year of Prayer from Blackburn Diocese. We discussed and shared our responsibilities in school and at home such as cleaning our rooms, loading the dishwasher, helping look after younger siblings, helping with the cooking and cleaning, counting values points (Heads and Deputies) and planning and leading sports events (Sports Leaders) . We then said together a special prayer for our responsibilities and discussed how God is always with us during those responsibilities and having a smile on face whilst carrying them out benefits others. Mrs Ham then shared the responsibility of selecting songs to sing and choosing children to demonstrate the actions at the front. The children chose to sing 'Life is always better when we share it with each other', 'Waymaker' 'My Lighthouse' and 'Build Up'. Build up is also the theme for our class Year of Prayer this week too. Our WOW group members informed each class of the special build up prayers they would be saying this week.
Year 1 Science- Identifying Materials
Today in their science lesson, Year 1 explored four common materials (wood, plastic, fabric and metal). They then sorted objects into a Venn diagram based on the material that they were made from. To help them to identify what an object was made from, Year 1 looked for key characteristics such as whether it was soft, shiny, hard, brightly coloured and strong. They even challenged themselves to find objects that were made from more than one material. They found that whiteboard rubbers were made of both wood and fabric, the sellotape holder was made of both plastic and metal and the Rekenrek was made out of plastic, wood and metal. Well done Year 1- you were all super scientists.
Year 1- Retelling the Story of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’
In English this week, Year 1 have been learning the story of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. Today, they retold the story with accompanying actions and loud, clear voices. We retold the repeated part as a whole class but each took one of the settings to retell as a group such as the long wavy grass, the deep cold river, the thick oozy mud, the big dark forest, the swirling whirling snowstorm and the narrow gloomy cave. We are very excited to start planning our very own version of this story next week with our own choice of settings.
Worship with Rev. Ben- God is always listening
Rev. Ben's worship began with an engaging activity exploring creative ways to get people's attention. The children enthusiastically shared their ideas, suggesting: making gestures, creating signs, standing up, dancing, doing something funny, shouting names and waving. Rev. Ben then transitioned to discussing how, in Jesus' day, people had various ways of trying to get God's attention. He explained that Jesus told his people that it was very simple to get God to listen. The children watched a short clip that highlighted some of the ways people believed they could gain God's attention. They concluded that God is always listening, no matter what and that Jesus taught there’s no need for special rituals to communicate with God. Instead, Jesus encouraged everyone to talk to God anytime, anywhere and to speak to God like a friend. Following this, the children engaged in a thoughtful discussion. They explored the question, "What did Jesus say we should do when we pray?" and shared their personal responses to the idea, "If you could ask God for one thing, what would it be?" This reflection helped deepen their understanding of prayer and the nature of their relationship with God.