Year 1 Class Worship- World Down Syndrome Day
In class worship this morning, Year 1 watched a video to learn and understand more about Down syndrome and then listened to the story ‘This is ME!’ This story helped us to understand that we are all different and have many different interests and qualities that make us all unique. To end our worship, we had some lovely prayers from Annabel and Elijah about showing kindness to each other and appreciating all of our differences that make us unique.
Well-being Club
For our final session, we walked to Jack Keys and enjoyed a nature walk! It was lots of fun and it was lovely to enjoy the outdoors with everyone.
Year 1 RE Artwork
This afternoon, Year 1 created their artwork for the Rose Garden at Whitehall Park. Their artwork was based on the resurrection of Jesus. The hands on their artwork represent Jesus rising from the dead and the butterflies, flowers, dragonflies and bunny rabbits represent new life.
Rev Ben’s Worship: Palm Sunday
Today, Rev Ben read the story of Palm Sunday and talked about the joy of the crowd when Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. He contrasted this with the anger of the crowd when they were led to believe that Jesus lied about who he was. Determination and perseverance were two key qualities demonstrated by Jesus during that time and Rev Ben asked everyone to reflect on when they will need to show these qualities this week.
Year 1- Local History Walk
In their history lessons, Year 1 have been learning about the positive impact that Queen Victoria had on Britain during her reign. They learnt that Queen Victoria and her husband, Albert, supported Britain in becoming more developed. During her reign, trams and trains being developed meant that people and goods could move around the country and machinery that could be powered by coal and water could produce materials such as cotton, paper and metals very quickly that could then be shipped to other countries to support Britain becoming wealthier. Today, Year 1 went on a walk around Darwen to see the impact that Queen Victoria’s reign had on their hometown. They saw many factories that have now been repurposed but were once cotton or paper mills such as Radford Mill on Bolton Road, Hilton’s Old Paper Mill which is now Kenleys and Brittania Mills. They also saw several sights were cotton factories used to be that are now housing estates such as the site where Bowling Green Mill used to stand and where Waterfield Mill used to be. From visiting so many locations where cotton and paper mills used to be, it helped year 1 to understand just how much of a part Darwen used to play in producing cotton especially. They also learnt that this cotton used to get shipped over to India to make Britain wealthier and this is why Ghandi visited Darwen. As well as this, Year 1 also saw the original tramway track which was built and in operation during Queen Victoria’s reign and the concrete capping on Clough Street which tells us that there was a coal mine in his area which would have been used to generate the power for both the trams, trains and machinery. Year 1 walked over 3 miles during our local area history lesson which is a great contribution to our ‘Big Lent Walk’ challenge too- well done Year 1.
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Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our celebration worship by thanking our whole school family for dressing in red to support Comic Relief. We then thought about how we’ve lived life in all its fullness this week with the help of our amazing after school clubs, a wonderful worship with Rev Matt about Jesus being kind towards Zacchaeus and by celebrating British Science Week. Mrs Ham also updated us all on our Big Lent Walk progress. Up to now, we have collectively walked 1239km and raised £215. We believe that we can continue to better this and achieve 2000km and raise even more money. We then presented Summer, Eli, Lyla, Ivy, Ruby, Hamza and Charlie as the value award winners this week. Well done to those children for consistently demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning and our 4Bs. We also congratulated Reception and Year 3 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, the KS2 girls who took part in the Girls Football tournament last Friday with Mr Bloomfield to celebrate International Women’s Day and River Darwen who are our overall value award winners this week. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Olivia for achieving her white belt at kickboxing, Sofia for achieving her 8th birthday badge at Rainbows, Carter for achieving his stage 2 at swimming, Annabel for achieving swimmer of the month, Vienna for being awarded an amazing 50m at swimming, Elsie for her incredible swimming and Renee for achieving her Stage 1 swimming. To end our worship, we had some lovely prayers from Olivia, Olivia, Finn and Mrs Ham who prayed for those who have died , are in the midst of conflict and a prayer to encourage us to be both kind and forgiving during this time of Lent. We also sang along to ‘Sing Hosanna.’ We thank all those who attended celebration worship and we wish the the rest of our school family a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support too.
Spring attendance update
Good afternoon parents and carers, please see the images for the latest attendance update for the Spring term. In the Autumn term we achieved an award for being in the top 25% of schools nationally for attendance and we are really close to our school target and government target of 96%. With your help we can ensure that your child achieves the best possible outcomes in life by coming to school every day and on time. We are looking forward to presenting Amazing Attendance certificates to all of the children who are at our 96% target and above at our Easter Service in church on Thursday 28th March at 9.15am. For further information about attendance, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/academy-life/attendance
Well-being Club
This week the children worked together to make playdough. They decided to colour the playdough purple and used a variety of different coloured glitters. The children decided on an orange scent for their playdough. They enjoyed playing with it after and made tacos, wraps, houses, pizzas and lots of other creative objects!
WOW Ambassador Training
In our very first WOW Ambassador meeting today, we met to discuss the children’s role and how they will promote this walk to school initiative throughout school. We also completed training on how to access the travel tracker and monitor each class on a weekly basis. The children can’t wait for the launch of this exciting new walking to school initiative next week!
Easter Singing Worship
We had a wonderful morning singing our favourite Easter hymns and songs. To finish we practised the Spring Chicken song in hope that we get a visit from the Spring Chicken at the end of term.
Year 1 Science- Reflective Materials
In their science lesson, Year 1 were exploring reflective materials. They took a variety of materials (tin foil, dull black paper, shiny black paper, mirrored plastic, newspaper, brightly coloured paper, brightly coloured fabric and dark fabric) into a dark tent to see whether they were or were not reflective. They shined the torch at the material to see whether the light did or didn’t bounce back. They decided that all of the materials reflected some light. Therefore, to help us to decide the properties of the most reflective items, we used a data logger. By using the data logger, we found out that tin foil and mirrored plastic were the most reflective and black dull paper was the least reflective. We came to the conclusion that the most reflective materials are shiny and bright.
Year 1 PE- Athletics
Year 1 enjoyed their athletics session today. They practised ‘rolling a goal’ to score points, tracking the distance that they could hop, skip and jump and completing a relay that involved part balancing a beanbag on their head and part sprinting. Well done Year 1.