News: Year 2

Christmas Lunch

We had a fabulous traditional Christmas lunch of roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots, sweetcorn, yorkshire pudding, stuffing and gravy following by a Christmas shortbread biscuit. It was lovely to pull crackers with our friends and sing along to our favourite Christmas songs. Thank you so much to Mrs Norton, Miss Beech and Miss Norton for the wonderful food and to all the staff who helped serve the children!

Year 2 - Artwork in Whitehall Park

We had a lovely afternoon in Whitehall Park. We walked to the Rose Garden to look at the amazing artwork being displayed there. Children from across school, have put lots of effort into making beautiful pieces of artwork for the public to enjoy. It was lovely to see a few pieces from Year 2! We also had time for a Advent quiz linked to the artwork.

FOSB Fundraiser Thank you

Good morning, A huge thank you to you all for your support with our recent fundraisers. Our total profit from our spooky disco was £426.89. Our total profit from our Christmas gifts and cards fundraiser was £222.12. Our total profit from our Christmas Fayre was £810.08. This means we have raised £1459.09 Thank you to our FOSB for all of their support and help with planning and running our fundraisers. The money will help us to purchase chrome books and repair our trim trail. Thank you, Mrs Wilkinson

India Mill Winners Disco

Well done to our children who are in India Mill House Team. Their team won the most Values points this half term and were rewarded with a non-uniform day and a disco. The children enjoyed some sweets, danced lots and played musical bumps too.

Year 2 - Fruit Kebabs

Over the past couple of weeks, in English we have been learning how to write a set of instructions. We learnt that each instruction must have a time conjunction and an imperative verb. We also found that some instructions need an adverb. In our final set of instructions we wrote, we told the reader how to make a fruit kebab. As a result of our instructions being superb; I thought it was only right we got the chance to follow our own instructions and make a fruit kebab in class!

Autumn Amazing Attendance Alert

A huge congratulations to all of our children who were awarded with an amazing attendance award for having over 96% attendance, for the whole of this Autumn term! We are so proud of you all! There have been quite a few winter bugs doing the rounds so if you didn't manage to get a certificate this time due to being off poorly, we are hopeful that you will achieve one at the end of the Spring term, if you continue to have good attendance.

Collective Worship- Love at Advent

This morning in our collective worship we walked in to the song 'Wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas' which is from one of Mrs Ham's favourite Christmas films, The Muppets Christmas Carol. We then signed and lit our trinity candles and then lit our advent candles of hope, peace and joy. We then learnt about the fourth candle, which represents love. We watched a special video called from God with love which told God's big story and how he loves us so much that he sent his special son, Jesus. We then reflected on how we can show love to others this Christmas and we had some wonderful ideas such as smiling, giving our time, hugs, food for the homeless, giving presents and showing gratitude for everything we have. We thought about all of the lovely ways we have shown love to others over the last week through singing in care homes, delivering Christmas cards to East Lancs Hospice and bringing joy to others with our Nativity and Christmas Cracker Concerts. We then said a special prayer thanking God for his most amazing gift of Jesus and sang some Christmas carols. Whilst we were singing, Mrs Ham gave every single child in our school family a special gift of a small wooden heart with love engraved on it to remind us that God loves us, she loves us, all the teachers love us and our friends and family love us. She explained that everytime we look at it we can remember how loved we are and it can encourage us to show love to others in all the fantastic ways we thought of earlier.

Year 2- A Visit From Santa

Year 2 had a special visit this afternoon. They thoroughly enjoyed their visit from Santa and were so excited to receive their special gift.

Year 1, 2 and 3 Christmas Party

Year 1, 2 and 3 had a great time at their Christmas Party. They enjoyed having a dance with their friends and playing corners, musical statues and pass the parcel. We had some fabulous dance moves and it was lovely to see the children having so much fun and enjoying the Christmas festivities. For all of the pictures, please follow the link: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/eyfs-and-key-stage-1-christmas-parties-2024

KS1 Christmas Cracker

We are so proud of our Year 1 and 2 children for their wonderful Christmas Cracker Concerts this morning and yesterday afternoon. It was an absolute delight to see them singing and dancing with such enthusiasm and confidence. They certainly did bring joy to everyone who came to watch. A huge thank you to Miss Flynn for her amazing role as musical director, Mr Norris for the high pressured job of playing the music, Miss Craig, Mrs Hegarty and Miss Lyons for their wonderful props, stage directions and encouraging the children with the actions and to Mr Bloomfield for filming. Thank you to all of the parents and grandparents who came along to show their support. Thank you also for helping the children learn their lines and for providing them with their wonderful Christmas clothes. Thank you to Rev Ben for leading us in prayer and blessing us all. All of the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/ks1-christmas-cracker-1 The video can be found here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=usy-SsMPTGc

Whole School Celebration Worship

During this week’s celebration worship, we reflected on the theme of joy this Advent, alongside the lighting of the peace and hope candles as part of our preparations for Christmas. We discussed how joy can be found in simple moments and acts of kindness, and the children were reminded of the many wonderful events that brought happiness throughout the week. These included the Rocksteady concert, where children showcased their musical talents, the magical pantomime Aladdin on Ice, the school Pantivity Production and the festive fun of the Christmas Fair. Our Values Award winners were celebrated with great applause: Harry in Reception, Molly in Year 1, Evie in Year 2, Chay in Year 3, Sofia in Year 4, Elsie in Year 5, and Poppy in Year 6. Their contributions to school life have been amazing and have been reflected in their awards. Year 1 and Year 4 were also recognised as the winners of this week’s attendance award for their commitment to being present and ready to learn. A heartfelt special thank you was given to all the children who contributed their creative talents to produce the stunning Christmas artwork now proudly displayed in the Rose Garden at Whitehall Park. This beautiful display adds a festive touch to the community and each class will now take a trip to the park to admire all the children’s artwork. Prayers were shared during the worship, led by the children, who asked for peace in countries experiencing conflict and war, kindness to those without food or shelter, and blessings for everyone to have a safe, warm, and joyful Christmas. The Team Values Points results were eagerly awaited, with Darwen Tower placing fourth, India Mill third, River Darwen second, and Whitehall Park taking first place for the week. In addition, India Mill was announced as the overall half-term winner, earning a well-deserved non-uniform day and disco celebration as a reward for their hard work and teamwork throughout the term. This will take place on the last Thursday of the term. We proudly acknowledged the remarkable achievements of our children. Lydia was recognised for earning her Rainbows Influencer Skills Builder badge and for taking action to make a difference, while Naomi received her Christmas badge for Brownies. Isabella celebrated swimming 5 meters, and Lyla earned a Medal with Rothwell Arts for her dedication to ballet. Marnie May was applauded for her accomplishments in tap dancing and gymnastics and Grace achieved her Bronze Award for earning multiple badges at Brownies. Olivia was named Star of the Week for her excellent performance in gymnastics and Tristen celebrated earning his blue belt in kickboxing. Scarlett shone with her Netball Shooting Award, while Oliver achieved a swimming award for swimming 5 meters. Elana was recognised for her Rainbows Influencer Skills Builder and taking action and Luna was honored as Dancer of the Day. Alice and Evie were recognised as they performed beautifully in Over the Bridge and Leonora and Desmond proudly represented their swimming competition in the regionals. Well done to all for these incredible accomplishments! The worship concluded on a high note, with everyone coming together to sing joyful Christmas songs, filling the room with festive cheer.

Whitehall Park Rose Garden Art Trail

Thank you to all the children who created fantastic Art work for our ADVENTure trail at the Whitehall Park. A selection of the Art work is now on display in the Rose Garden for everyone to see. All classes will be visiting next week to look at the Art work, talk about the Nativity story and sing some Christmas carols to get us all in the festive spirit!

Worship with Rev. Ben

During worship with Rev. Ben, the children began by playing a game of "Spot the Difference," where they had to identify which picture was missing from a selection of displayed images. Following this, Rev. Ben shared the story of Daniel and the Lions' Den. The children learned how Daniel, despite knowing that following God and continuing to pray would put him in danger, trusted in God and was unharmed by the lions. This led to a thoughtful discussion about Daniel's courage and faith. The children then reflected on how they could show courage in their own lives, drawing inspiration from Daniel’s example.

Not Getting Inn!

Our whole school was treated to a modern day version of the Nativity story. 4Front Theatre put on a wonderful production for our children. There was lots of laughter, singing and chanting throughout. Most importantly, there was a wonderful heartfelt message at the end of hope and joy. The photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/not-getting-inn-1

Whole School Worship: Joy at Advent

This week, our advent theme is JOY. We learned about the joy of Jesus’s birth and how we can bring joy into the lives of others this Christmas. We looked at the John Lewis advert about the man in the moon and how the little girl brought joy to the man, who had been very lonely. We also watched an alternative to the original advert about a girl searching for God and when she almost gave up looking, he sent to her his greatest gift: his son, Jesus. We finished with a look at all of the ways our classes have been bringing joy to each other and the community, including litter picking and singing in the local care home and reflected on how we can bring joy to to others this Christmas.

Aladdin on Ice

The children are all very excited for Aladdin on Ice at Planet Ice. We are very lucky and appear to have the best seats in the house! Oh no we haven't, oh yes we have!! All of the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/aladdin-on-ice

Aladdin on Ice

Our whole school family watched Aladdin on Ice this afternoon at Planet Ice. We all got involved in lots of singing and dancing at the beginning. Santa, a snowman and even the Grinch made an appearance! During the show it was wonderful to see so many talented ice dancers and actors. We enjoyed a bag of sweets as a treat and some of us even got to high five members of the cast. A well deserved Christmas treat for all of our children. All of the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/aladdin-on-ice

Whole School- Design Technolgy

This half term, our students have been busy creating a range of designs in Design Technology. From Reception's wooden Christmas decorations to Year 6's electronic steady hand games, our children have showcased their imaginative and creativity skills. Year 1 brought their imaginations to life, creating interactive moving storybooks using slider mechanisms. Year 2 developed their sewing skills, designing and creating a range of Christmas puppets. Year 3 designed and made festive pouches, perfect for holding small gifts or treats. Year 4 stitched up Christmas stockings, ready to hang by the chimney, finally, Year 5 created festive cushions. These creations were showcased and sold at our Christmas Fayre. We're incredibly proud of the hard work and imagination our students have demonstrated in these festive DT projects.

Year 2 - D.T. - Hand Puppets

The Year 2 class have done a fantastic job creating their Christmas hand puppets over the last few weeks. Some have found it a bit of a struggle but with perseverance they have all managed to sew their puppets. This week we have put the finishing touches on so they are ready for our Christmas fair.

Year 2 - Science - Personal Hygiene and Bacteria

Today for Science we have had an experiment to see how washing our hands can help to stop the spread of germs. We used pepper to represent germs and sprinkled some into a bowl of water, then, the class used dish soap on their fingers to repel the “germs”.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by reflecting on another week in school. This week, we have been thinking about peace and how this is especially important at this time of the year when things can feel busy and chaotic on the run up to Christmas. We also thought about our many highlights such as watching the fabulous Nativity Performances led by Reception, the final dance sessions in KS2 with Rothwell Arts, our fabulous choir and their siblings bringing lots of festive cheer to the residents at Acer Lodge Care Home in Blackburn yesterday evening and our Year 5/6 football team for representing school at Witton Park last night and bagging several wins. We then congratulated Marnie-May, Percy and Fletcher in EYFS and KS1 and James, Desmond, Bella and Jake for being the individual value award winners this week. Furthermore, we congratulated Reception and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, River Darwen as our overall value award winners this week with 451 points and Year 3 on being the overall ‘Walk to School’ winners for the month of November. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Thea for achieving a super 5m in swimming, Ralphy for being a superstar swimmer and being awarded his Duckling 1, 2 and 3 award and his Stage 1 and 2 award, Reggie and Albie for having the best decorated tractor at the Turton Young Farmers Tractor Run at the weekend, Beau and Haydn for achieving a fabulous 10m in her swimming, James for winning ‘Player of the Match’ at Darwen FC Aces, Hollie for achieving stage 2 in her swimming, Callie for being a wonderful swimmer and achieving her 10m backstroke and butterfly, Stage 8 in her gymnastics and working exceptionally hard at Stage Coach, Archie for being awarded his orange belt in kickboxing, Harriet for achieving 200m in her swimming and Stage 4 water skills award, Grace for being awarded two medals for ballet and acro dancing, Penelope for gaining the ‘Most Improved dancer’ in Acro at Rothwell Arts, Renee for gaining her white belt at kickboxing and her Stage 2 in swimming, Eleanor for achieving her Stage 2 at swimming and Charlie for achieving Stage 4 at swimming. To end our worship, we had two beautiful prayers from Lydia and Harry who said a prayer for refugees and keeping them safe as they flee their countries. We then sang ‘We Three Kings’ and ‘Ding Dong.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely weekend.

Worship with Rev. Matt

During worship with Rev. Matt, the children began with a lively game of musical statues, setting a joyful tone for the session. They then listened attentively to the story of The Men Who Liked to Say No, which illustrated how unwavering faith can triumph over even the greatest challenges. The story emphasised the courage and resilience needed to stand firm in one's beliefs. Following the story, the children engaged in a thoughtful reflection on its message. They discussed the true meaning of Christmas, explored practical ways to do good, even in difficult situations. They shared ideas on how small acts of kindness and faith can make a big difference, connecting the lessons of the story to their own lives. It was a meaningful session that left the children inspired to carry the spirit of Christmas into their everyday actions.

Year 2 - Geography

In Geography, we had a closer look at the continent of Asia. I was extremely impressed with the countries we could remember such as Japan, The Philippines and Saudi Arabia! We found lots more out about Asia today such as that Asia is made up of 48 countries. I’m sure the children will remember these facts just as well.

Collective Worship: Peace at Advent

Our school is starting to get ready for Christmas and has been decorated. There was one final job to do- our youngest child, Annie placed the star on our Christmas tree. This week we started our worship by looking at the Year of Prayer, which we will be taking part in along with lots of other schools from across our Diocese. Our WOW group explained what we would be focusing on this week in classes. All classes will have a go at alphabet prayers. The children will all think about something that brings joy to them. We then looked at our whole school focus which was on the value of peace. Mrs Wilkinson led the children in prayer. Mrs Wilkinson recapped what Christians focus on in the first week of advent: hope. She lit the first Advent candle. We then looked at what we would be focussing on this week which was peace. The children watched a video all about peace. Leonora said that if we experience conflict in school, we could walk away or not argue with our friends and remain at peace. Matthew said smiling brings us joy and peace. We all reflected on what the world would be like if it was always at peace. The children discussed how loving everyone can bring peace. We ended our worship by singing 'We Three Kings' and 'Ding Dong'.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Today, every child in school helped to decorate our real Christmas tree in the hall. They have been busy decorating their classrooms too so it really is beginning to look and feel like Christmas! On Monday, as part of our St Barnabas tradition, the youngest child in our school will place the star on top of the tree in Worship.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by reflecting on another very busy week in school. On Monday, we started the week by introducing our children to the Diocese ‘Year of Prayer Challenge,’ we’ve had some fabulous clubs such as sportshall athletics, choir, lego and football training, great enthusiasm whilst rehearsing for our Christmas productions and making Christmas products in our D&T units to sell at our Christmas Fair. We then congratulated our individual value award winners. Well done to Minnie, Olivia and Marley in EYFS and KS1 and Cassidy, Peyton, Theo and Grace in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these fabulous children for consistently showing our Christian Values, Barney’s 4Bs and always demonstrating a positive attitude to learning. We also congratulated Elsie, Mollie, Haydn, Joey, Archie, Seb, Mila, Lyla and Heidi for representing school in the KS1 Multi-Skills Festival at St Bedes, our amazing Sports Leaders for supporting this KS1 Multi-Skills event and our fantastic Year 5/6 football team who represented school at BRFC Kids Cup. Despite their defeat, they bounced back amazingly and had two successes last night against St Edwards and Avondale. Well done boys! Furthermore, we congratulated Year 1 and Year 6 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park as our overall value award winners this week with 296 points. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Vienna for swimming 100m without armbands and achieving her Stage 4, Arabelle for achieving Stage 5 in her swimming, Haydn for achieving his 5m and Stage 3 in his swimming, Sofia for achieving a medal for demonstrating great perseverance in her commercial dancing, Lyla for her fabulous audition as Glinda in Wicked, Grace for her fabulous dance talent, Eleanor for being a super Rainbow, Mollie for achieving her Stage 1 water skills award, Elsie for achieving 75m without armbands in her swimming, Olivia for getting Emily at Brownies for demonstrating kindness and using her manners, Beau for being awarded her Stage 2 at swimming, James for achieving the team captain arm band this week at football and Matthew for playing and winning in a special tournament for Manchester United at the weekend. We then said a farewell to a valuable member of staff, Mrs Stanton. We thank her for her dedication over the past 18 months in her role as Key Stage 2 Teaching Assistant and previously in her role as office admin. We wish her all the best in her new role as a design and technology teacher. To end our worship, we had three beautiful prayers from Hamza, Leonora and Olivia who said prayers about appreciating all the things that we can sometimes take for granted and being grateful for everything that we receive this Christmas. We then sang ‘Ding Dong' with great enthusiasm! We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely weekend.

Year 2 - Gymnastics

This week in Gymnastics, year 2 continued to learn skills and movements. We also used apparatus which allowed us to perform our new skills in different ways. We will continue to develop our skills and build a routine in our next gymnastic lessons!

Worship with Rev. Ben

During worship with Rev. Ben, the children explored the story of Daniel and "the boys who liked to say no." Worship began with a fun game of yes or no, where the children decided which foods they would or wouldn’t eat. In the story, Daniel and his friends said no to the king’s food to show their obedience to God. Because they supported one another and remained loyal to their faith, they were granted strength and looked healthy. Rev. Ben explained that, unlike Daniel and his friends, Christians today don’t follow food rules in the same way. However, there are many ways we can remember God in our daily lives. The children reflected on how Daniel and his friends stayed faithful and considered how they could remember God this week—in their prayers, words, and actions.

Year 2- Science- What does a healthy balanced diet look like?

This afternoon, Year 2 scientists recapped the five food groups and expanded their knowledge of different food types. We explored the advantages of fresh foods and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of pre-cooked and processed foods. Some children participated by using the interactive board to categorise food items. We had a great discussion about processed foods like canned fish and popular choices like McDonald's and pizza. For their mission assignment, the children created healthy meal plans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Key Stage 1 Multi- Skills Festival

We have had a wonderful morning at the Key Stage 1 Multi- Skills Festival at St Bedes. The children took part in lots of activities which were based on fundamental skills. They tried extremely hard and thoroughly enjoyed every second. Our Sports Leaders also did a great job in supporting the younger children, guiding them through each activity and encouraging them all. We even came away with a gold medal! Go Team B!

Gymnastics in Year 2

In our gymnastics session today we looked at building a sequence using travelling and jumps. We practiced shapes such as star, straight and tuck. We then moved onto a 1/4 turn jump which was quite tricky. Finally we learned how boys and girls present differently to begin and end a sequence and then added these to our four piece sequence.

Whole School Worship - Bishop Philip’s Year of Prayer Launch

The St Barnabas school family were thrilled to join a live worship with Bishop Philip this afternoon, along with nearly 60 other church schools in Blackburn Diocese. Lisa and the Bishop met us via Zoom to talk to us about prayer, why we pray and what happens to our prayers. We were fascinated to learn that Jesus knows each and every one of us, and that he hears all of our prayers. We also learned some new ways to pray. These included quiet prayers, for which we were silent and focused on just being with our thoughts, and noisy prayers, for which we shouted out our school name and our own name as loud as we could. Over the course of this academic year, we will be focusing on a new way to pray each week in whole school collective worship, and in our classrooms. We know the children will enjoy exploring prayers along with hundreds of other children across the Diocese.

Lego Club

We had another fun week at Lego club. This week things got slightly competitive. We had a competition to see which groups could build the most sets and who could be the most creative building their own ideas.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by reflecting on our busy week in school and all the fabulous snowy weather that we’ve had. We then congratulated our individual value award winners. Well done to Albie, Millie and Alice in EYFS and KS1 and Naomi, Walter, Jenson and Harry in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these amazing children for showing great enthusiasm across the curriculum, working hard to consistently demonstrate our Barney’s 4Bs and being fantastic role models. We also congratulated Martha, Declan, Harry and Tilly for representing school in the Pantathlon Bowling Competition and Charlie, Darcy, Eliza, Carter, Ivy and Edward for representing school at a Dodgeball Festival this week, Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and India Mill as our overall value award winners this week with 428 points. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Ava and Hendrix for taking part in Squirrels at Bold Venture Park, Eliza for achieving many rosettes for being a fabulous jockey, Reggie for doing a fantastic pass and being ‘Player of the Week’ at Little Darreners, Thea for showing amazing skill and bar work at gymnastics, Olivia for achieving the team captain arm band this week at football, Harry for achieving ‘Man of the Match’ for showing grit and determination at football, Marley for being amazingly creative, Maggie for achieving her ‘Animal Lover’ and ‘Family Tree’ badge at Rainbows, Desmond and Leonora for being super swimmers and achieving many PBs and Isabella for achieving 5m in her swimming without armbands. To end our worship, we had three beautiful prayers from Finn, Cassidy and James. Finn said a prayer for those who have sacrificed their lives in the war past and present, Cassidy prayed for those who are less fortunate than us including those without toilets and James prayed for us all to have a lovely and restful weekend and for our safe return on Monday. We then sand ‘Sing a New Song’. We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely weekend.

Rev Matt Worship

Today, Rev Matt led a fantastic worship that focused on how we can often lose sight of things that are important. He started with a challenge that involved watching a video with a focus in mind, but in doing so, we missed some other events that occurred. This linked nicely to the story ‘God Sends Fire’ as King Ahab had lost faith in God and decided to worship a false God called Baal. To show everyone that God was the true God, Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest. They had to build an altar and ask their God to set it on fire. The prophets of Baal danced and prayed all night, but nothing happened. Then, Elijah asked people to drench his altar with water. He prayed to God, and fire came down from heaven! It burned up the altar and all of the water. Everyone saw this and knew God was the true God. This story can help us remember to have faith in God, even when things are tough, and to always trust that He is in control.

Whole School Worship - World Toilet Day

In worship yesterday, we looked through our spirituality windows and out into the world on toilets. We were shocked and saddened to find out that around 700 children under 5 die every year due to poor sanitation. We heard about Jeremiah in Kenya who doesn’t have access to a toilet. In his community, people would mostly use a hole in the ground or a plastic bag, which some people would tie up and throw on other people’s roofs. We talked about how this affects people’s health and shared ideas of what we could do to help. The children then learned about our Toilet Twinning project for which we raised money a few years go to sponsor the building and maintenance of toilets in Nepal, Uganda, Tanzania, and Afghanistan. We reflected on how we should never take our toilets for granted and thought of ways we could save loo paper and water.

EYFS and KS1- Snow Much Fun

EYFS and KS1 got wrapped up and made the most of the snow this lunch time. They had great fun working together to build snowmen amongst other things.

Little Craft Club: Dinosaur Week

This week at The Little Craft Club, it was Dinosaur week! The children used problem solving skills to make paper plate dinosaurs without instructions. They also created exploding volcanoes using paint in a spray bottle… this was lots of fun! The children finished by working together as a team to clean and tidy the Rainbow Room. Next week is the final Little Craft Club of term and the children are excited to be making some cold climate creatures.

Year 2 - Fire service visit

Cloughy and Fiona from Darwen Fire Service visited year 2 today. The enthusiasm in class from everyone was brilliant. The children had one main message to remember check your smoke alarms! We had role play, dressing up and waved them off in the fire engine. Thank you Cloughy and Fiona!

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by reflecting on our very special and busy week in school. This week has seen us celebrate Remembrance Day, Anti-Bullying Week, Inter-Faith Week and Children in Need. We then congratulated our individual value award winners. Well done to Beau, Leila and Roman in EYFS and KS1 and Emily, Olivia, Mason and Daisy in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for working exceptionally hard across the curriculum, demonstrating our Christian Values. We also presented Emily with an additional award for achieving her pen license, our Year 5/6 football team for bouncing back from last week’s defeat and representing school with exemplary behaviour and brilliant sportsmanship which saw them win two matches at the Darwen School’s League last night, Year 1 and Year 6 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and River Darwen as the overall value award winners this week with 404 points. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Ava for taking part in Remembrance Day at Bold Venture Park, Callie for always listening and following instructions beautifully during her singing, dancing and acting lessons at Stage Coach, Seb for getting ‘Man of the Match’ and ‘Trainer of the Week’ at football, Elijah for achieving ‘Player of the Week’ at football for mastering a new skill called the step over, Finn for achieving ‘Player of the Day’ at Football and achieving ‘Most Improved Player’ for his cricket team, Quinn, April, Walter, Eve and Percy for attending the ‘Little Potting Club’ at Whitehall Park and achieving an environmentalist award, Beau for achieving 5m in her swimming, Jack for being awarded with his Stage 6 swimming certificate, James for attending the remembrance service with Beavers and Haydn for showing super skills in a recent football match. To end our worship, we had three beautiful prayers from Darcy, Olivia and Mason who thought about fuelling children in need with food and remembering those who sacrificed their lives for us and we sang ‘Build Up’ to reinforce the message of ‘building each other up’ this Anti-Bullying Week. We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.

Children in Need 2024

Our Y6 Heads and Deputies asked everyone to dress in pyjamas or spots to show our support for Children in Need this year. Yesterday we had a special visit from Pudsey Bear and Christine from Asda. They told us all about how Asda are raising money for Children in Need and they said a special thank you to us all for our fundraising to help children who are less fortunate than us. Thank you so much to our staff, children and parents for the effort you have gone to in dressing in your pyjamas or spots and thank you for your generous donations on parent pay. Together we can make a positive difference to the lives of so many disadvantaged children around our country.

Year 2 - Hinduism Workshop

Year 2 were very lucky to have an exciting visitor in school today. During our workshop, Prags shared her knowledge and experience of Hinduism. We discussed how Hindu’s prepare for worship and how their prayers are similar and different to Christians. We also joined in some classic Hindi dancing wearing very colourful skirts and jackets.

Odd Socks Day at St Barnabas

To launch Anti-Bullying week, we celebrated Odd Socks Day in style today with some brilliant demonstrations of uniqueness. The children showed off their odd socks to their peers and shared reasons for their choices that really showed off their different preferences and personalities!

Year 2 - Sewing practice

In preparation for making our Christmas hand puppets, we began to practice a running stitch. We will be using a running stitch to join our two pieces of material. It was very difficult to thread the needle and tie a knot. A lot of perseverance and resilience was required, everyone had a really good go and I was impressed with our textiles skills!

Lego Club

Everyone had a great time at Lego club again this week. We got the chance to make models we didn’t get the chance to last week and some new ones! The ice cream stand seemed to be a popular choice this week!

Year 2- P.E- Bouncing, throwing and catching a soft ball.

This week in PE, we continued progress in our ball handling skills. This week, we began dribbling in different directions and different speeds. We also incorporated a chest pass and catching with our partners.

Year 2- Maths- Adding across a 10

Our focus this week in maths, was adding across a 10. This can be tricky as it requires an exchange from ones to tens. We have used base 10 to help us work out the answers. As we have practiced more and more, we are becoming much more confident and becoming much more familiar with the steps of the additions.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by reflecting on our week of remembering to honour ‘Remembrance Day.’  We said that we have been thinking about the people who sacrifice their life to keep us safe and/or bring about positive change in our world such as the soldiers, The Royal Navy, the NHS, the firefighters, the police and the charity workers and we observed a two minute silence to pay our respects. We then congratulated our individual value award winners. Well done to Tommy-Joe, Teddy and Archie in EYFS and KS1 and Rosie, Jack, Grace and Hamza in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for always being respectful, kind, well-mannered and exceptionally hardworking. We also congratulated Desmond, Eliza, Daisy, Jack, Sofia and Tristen for achieving their pen licenses, Ted, Sofia, Daisy, Alice, Darcy, Walter and Sonny for representing our school amazingly well yesterday at the Cidari Moon Conference at Blackburn Cathedral, our Year 6 JagTag team for also representing our school superbly at the Soccer Dome on Tuesday and our Year 5/6 football team for representing school well at the Darwen School’s League last night, Year 1 and Year 3 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and India Mill as the overall value award winners this week. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Ava for her swimming certificate, Grace for passing her jazz exam, Eliza for demonstrating phenomenal skill in her horse riding mounting games and for placing 1st and 2nd in her most recent event, Olivia for achieving Player of the Match in a recent football match, Tristen for achieving his blocks badge and yet another belt in his kickboxing, Fletcher for being awarded with his green belt in genjitsu, Thomas for being a super pool player, Cassidy for being a super gymnast and achieving a silver medal for her vault work, Isaac for being an incredible captain and leading his football team with great confidence and skill, Mila, Eden and Sofia for taking part in a remembrance parade and Sofia for achieving several awards for her Brownies. To end our worship, Mrs Ham reminded us that next Tuesday 12th November is Odd Socks Day to celebrate Anti-bullying and Interfaith week and then next Friday 15th November is Children in Need and the children can wear pyjamas, spots or Pudsey merchandise. Rev Ben said a special remembrance prayer and then we sang ‘A Song of Peace’ to pray for a world of peace. We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.

Years 2 and 3-Outdoor Classroom Day- Remembrance Walk

This afternoon, Year 2 and 3 celebrated Outdoor Classroom Day by walking up to the WW1 Memorial Wall in Darwen Cemetery. As they gathered at the memorial wall, they paused to remember the brave soldiers who fought in the War. They thought about the sacrifices made and the courage shown by those for our freedom. Isaac, Bobby Ray, Lyla, Renee Archie, and Heidi shared heartfelt prayers and poems, honoring the memory of those who gave their lives for our country. As they walked back to school. they appreciated God's creation, the beauty of the trees, and the sweet songs of the birds.

Christmas at St Barnabas

Good morning parents and carers, Christmas will soon be here and we know what a busy time of year it is for everyone. We have lots of exciting things planned at St Barnabas so I thought it might help to have all of the dates in one place. Here are all the important dates you need in the lead up to the Christmas holidays. Please save it to your phone or device and I will also send it to you as a message. I hope this is helpful, Mrs Ham

Whole-School Worship: Remembrance

At St Barnabas, we always take the time leading up to Remembrance Day to reflect on the people who kept us safe in the past and those who keep us safe now. In worship, we heard examples of people who came from other countries to help defend the UK during the World Wars, and the courage and friendship they demonstrated in doing so. We also thought about how we would like to remember those who lost their lives in war. The children had some lovely ideas, including writing or saying prayers, drawing poppies, visiting memorial sites, attending church services, and even holding a two-minute silence at their weekend football matches. We remember those who gave up their lives for our country and also say a huge thank you to those who work hard everyday to protect us such as the armed forces, the police, firefighters and the NHS. We sang a lovely song of peace at the end of our worship in hope that the world will one day be filled with peace.

WOW Year Group Winners for October

A huge WELL DONE to Year 4 who gained the most walk to school badges for the month of October! It was great to see so many more children gaining their badges this month now we can take part in school through choosing to do the 1K A Day too. Thank you to parents and carers too for all of your support with this super initiative.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by reflecting on the wonderful week that we have had in school. We lit a special candle for All Souls Day on Sunday to remember all those who have sadly passed away and reflected on the positive behaviour that we’re seeing around school such as holding open the doors for each other and using our wonderful manners. We also thought about all the amazing experiences that we have had in school such as Reception showcasing their Diwali learning to the whole school, Year 1 and Year 3 visiting Nightingale Farm, Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 fully embracing their dance sessions led by Rothwell Arts and the WOW group for giving the harvest donations to DARE (Darwen Asylum Refugee). Firstly, we congratulated the amazing children who took part in the 6 week Cre8ability programme which has allowed them to explore many of their creative talents such as painting, sculpting and being musicians and learning about their superpower emotional intelligence. We then presented Jasper, Vienna and Maggie in EYFS and KS1 and Ella-Grace, James, Quinn and Matthew in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for working extremely hard across the curriculum, showing a positive attitude to learning and using exceptional manners. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Eleanor who has recently made her Rainbows promise, Ava for achieving her Stage 1 swimming certificate, Fletcher for being awarded with his 25m swimming certificate, Lyla and Darcy for achieving a medal for their incredible gymnastic talent, Lydia and Naomi for receiving a letter from the head of royal correspondence thanking them for their very thoughtful letter to Princess Charlotte, Grace for being an amazing dancer, brownie and physicist, Olivia for being an incredible captain and leading her, Eliza for being an outstanding footballer and Sofia for achieving her intermediate award in gymnastics. We also congratulated our Year 4/5/6 girls football team who attended the DPSSA football league presentation evening last night and coming in 3rd overall, Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners, India Mill for winning the Inter-house sports competition before the holidays and River Darwen as the value award winners this week. We also congratulated River Darwen as being the half-termly award winners for last half-term. They will be awarded with a non-uniform day and disco next week. Our heads and deputies also announced that they will be selling the Remembrance Day merchandise every break time next week to raise money for The Royal British Legion. To end our worship, we sang ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ in celebration of All Saints Day. We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.

Year 2- Adding by making 10

This week we have be making 10 whilst adding two numbers together. Our knowledge of number bonds to 10 have really helped with this. Sometimes a question can look difficult but we have found if we partition the number to make 10 first it can be much easier to find the answer.

Year 2 - English

This week we have began reading our new book ‘Prince Cinders’ , this book is a twist on Cinderella and we have really enjoyed the book so far! We have made some interesting predictions, some predicting there will be a happy ever after ending and others are not so optimistic! We are looking forward to seeing if any of us have predicted the rest of the story! We also gave the horrible bothers a grilling as we generated questions for them. It’s fair to say we are not happy with the way Prince Cinders gets treated by his mean brothers.

Worship with Rev. Matt

During this week’s worship, Rev. Matt engaged the children with a game of ‘Real or Fake,’ encouraging them to think carefully about what they see and question whether images are genuine or not. This led into the story of Elijah, who courageously stood against people worshiping a statue made of sticks and stones, teaching the children about the importance of true faith over false idols. To close, Rev. Matt invited the children to reflect on what they would like God’s help with, creating a moment of thoughtful prayer and connection.

Harvest Heptathlon

Today, each class took part in our Harvest Heptathlon obstacle course challenge for the Bishop’s Harvest appeal. The course consisted of running, hurdles, travelling through a hoop, hopping, skipping, speed bounce and star jumps. A huge well done to every child that took part. They gave it their best effort. And an extra big thank you to all of the Year 6 helpers for helping to set up, replace equipment, demonstrate the course and support and encourage the younger children to complete the course. Let’s hope we can raise some much needed funds for developing classrooms and literacy in church schools in Multan, Pakistan.

Whole-School Worship: Allhallowtide

In our first collective worship of the week, Mrs Ham looked at Allhallowtide through our three spirituality lenses. Lens 1 - Windows: we looked out into the world at a photograph from Bangladesh depicting Christians gathered around graves with lit candles on them and discussed our observations and ideas about what the people were doing and how they might have felt. We had some fabulous ideas such as it must be a place of worship as they could see a cross and candles like we have in our worship, that they might be praying and that they were remembering. Lens 2 - Mirrors: we learned about All Souls’ Day and reflected on how we might remember our loved ones. The children had some lovely ideas about lighting candles and going to a special place. Lens 3 - Doors: we learned about All Saints’ Day and thought carefully about how we could be like saints. The WOW group introduced our behaviour focus for this half term , which is using good manners around school, and the children immediately put these into action by saying please and thank you, holding doors for each other, and letting people past. What a fantastic start to the new half term!

Year 1 and 2 at Break Time- Recycling Leaves

At break time, Year 1 and 2 enjoyed recycling the autumn leaves to make huge bouquets to give to their family members this Harvest Time.

Harvest Church Service 2024

Thank you to our Wow group, EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 classes for leading our Harvest celebration at church today. I have uploaded some videos to class dojo and additional photos can be found here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/harvest-church-service-2024 It was wonderful to see so many of our families in attendance. A huge thank you to you all for coming to watch and thank you to all of our families for your continued support this half term. Thank you for all of your kind harvest donations, these can be continued to be sent in during the first week that we are back at school. Wishing you all a wonderful half term, Mrs Wilkinson

Monday Worship: Harvest Appeal

This week is Recycle Week so we will be thinking about all of the rubbish we throw away and how it could be rescued and reused or recycled. Bobby-Ray said what one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure! Thank you for all of the donations of coats we have had so far for our Rota Kids Wrap Up Appeal. Mrs Ham showed us two bin bags that at first she thought was rubbish but they were filled with coats that can be donated to the homeless. Mrs Ham then introduced the Bishop’s Harvest appeal which our WOW group have chosen to support this year at Harvest along with DARE (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise). We started by exploring our spirituality window and looked at a photo of the classrooms of a church school in Multan in Pakistan. We stopped and reflected on what is great about our classrooms. Lottie loves the amount of paper, Ella-Grace said our teachers, Callie said our books, Eleanor said our friends, Jacob said the opportunities to learn, Olivia said the view of Darwen Tower and Will said everything. There are some boys and girls in Multan in Pakistan that are unable to go to school and some who do but don't have many resources in their classroom. We took some time to look at a picture and reflect on what we could see. The classrooms in Multan do not have any chairs, tables, pictures, windows or toys. The children reflected and felt empathy for the Christian children in Multan who did not have the same experience and resources as we all do at St Barnabas. We then started to think about what we could do to make a difference to their lives. The Bishop’s Harvest Appeal has helped the children to receive books, solar panels and hand washing facilities in the past. Rosie said we could do a sponsored run and James said we could collect books. Bishop Philip has asked us all do to a Harvest Heptathlon . We need to think of seven things we could do to help the children in our area and also the boys and girls in Multan. Over the next few weeks, we will be thinking about how we can help and make a difference. We ended our worship by singing ‘I can make a difference’.

Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by thanking everyone for dressing in yellow yesterday for World Mental Health Day. What a fabulous day we had! This week, we have also been thinking about courageous advocacy. Well done to our Rotakids who are being courageous advocates by collecting coats to keep people warm this winter and our WOW group for collecting harvest donations for DARE (Darwen Asylum Refugee Enterprise). We then presented Ralphy, Skye and Ella in EYFS and KS1 and Lyla, Harriet, Ruby and Noah in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for working extremely hard across the curriculum and always demonstrating our Barny’s 4Bs (being ready, being safe, being kind and being respectful) and our school Christian values. We also congratulated our Year 5/6 football team who worked exceptionally well as a team in the Kids Cup Heat on Monday during all of the group stages and will now be competing in the final in the 23rd November, our Year 4/5/6 girls football team who played amazingly well in the DPSSA football league last night, Year 1 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners for the second week running and River Darwen as the value award winners again this week. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Lyla and Carmen for achieving their Stage 5 in swimming, Tristen for achieving his green and white belt in kickboxing and completing the BwD Summer Reading challenge, Maggie for being a superstar rainbow and being awarded Olivia this week and Isabella for being a fantastic swimmer. Finally, we had some beautiful prayers from James, Iris and Elijah to pray for those who have been affected by the hurricane in Florida and to give thank you this Harvest time and then we sang ‘Sing a Song of Harvest.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.

Inter-House Sports Dodgeball led by Sports Leaders

A huge thank you to our new Sports Leaders who ran their very first Inter- house competition today. They chose to do dodgeball and every class thoroughly enjoyed it! The children showed each other respect, demonstrated the 4 B’s and encouraged each other every step of the way. We can’t wait to hear who the overall winners are next week

Hello Yellow Day

To celebrate and raise awareness for World Mental Health Day, all the children and staff dressed in yellow to show their support. During a special worship, the children danced to happy songs. We reflected deeply on our emotions, exploring how they shape our inner lives and how we can find strength in times of struggle. We discussed the importance of nurturing our mental well-being through kindness, prayer, and community support. This spiritual reflection reminded us that we are never alone in our challenges; by turning to our faith and embracing hope, we can find peace and resilience within ourselves.

Rev Matt’s Whole School Worship

Today, during Rev Matt’s worship, the children were captivated by a short clip showing the powerful moment when Moses received the Ten Commandments. The video illustrated how, with people's disbelief in God, dramatic lightning and clouds appeared, revealing the presence of God as he delivered these sacred laws. Through this visual and the accompanying story, the children were guided to understand not only the importance of the commandments but also the broader significance of rules in our lives. This reflection helped them recognise that rules, much like the Ten Commandments, are there to keep us safe, fostering a sense of responsibility and care for one another within our community.

Year 2 - Clay Tiles

In Art, we have been building our previous skills with clay. Today we used our new skills to make shapes and patterns on our tiles. The results were brilliant and the children really enjoyed using a different medium to create artwork.

Year 2 - Food Chains

This week in science, we explored food chains we might find in various habitats. There can be lots of technical vocabulary when labelling a food chain. We drew a food chain and used this vocabulary to label the diagrams to help understand the processes that occur in the chain.

St Barnabas do Hello Yellow Day 2024

Today in school, we celebrated Hello Yellow Day 2024. Hello Yellow Day is a day when we can show our support for young people and let them know they're not alone with their mental health. Thousands of children came together to make World Mental Health Day that little bit brighter by wearing something yellow and donating to YoungMinds. Right now, the world is a really tough place for children and young people to grow up in. We want young people to know that they don’t have to go through this alone. Things can get better. Because we stand brighter, together.  At St Barnabas, we celebrated through our whole school worship led by Mrs Ham and her minion friends, Harry, Hamza, Daisy and Rosie. Each class then used their PSHE session to explore Hello Yellow Day further and it was clear to see that every class made a super effort with their outfits too. What a super day being loud and proud in yellow. #HelloYellow

WOW Group- Harvest Donations

Dear parents, Harvest is almost upon us and, this year, our wonderful WOW group have chosen to support two charities. They would like to continue to support refugees in our local area through the charity D.A.R.E. (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise) and are asking for donations of non-perishable food items, toiletries and good quality clothing. Please send these into school any time over the next week (by Thursday 17th October) and we will ensure they get to D.A.R.E. More details of the second charity we have chosen will be released shortly. Thank you, Mrs Araujo :)

Walk Once a Week Challenge September Winners - Year 3

Congratulations to Year 3 for having the most children who either walked, park and strode or completed the 1K a day in the month of September. They received a whopping 29 badges in total and will now take their place on the WOW hall of Fame. A huge well done and thanks to all of the parents and carers who have encouraged their children to take part in the scheme. Don’t forget - if you can’t manage the walk or park amd stride, you can always do the 1K a day with your teacher in school so that you have the opportunity to gain your badge as well! The WOW ambassadors highlighted that October is National Walk to School month so it is really important to try and travel more actively to school either in the morning or after school has finished.

Whole School Worship: Courageous Advocacy

Today in worship we continued to explore the meaning of spirituality, looking at adversity in the world, how it makes us feel, and talking about what we can do about it. We discussed how we can turn our sparks into flames, our ideas into actions. The children were really inspired by some of the images and shared some great ideas, such as donating warm clothing to the homeless, picking up litter so that it doesn’t hurt wildlife and donating food to local shelters and charities. We will be putting some of these ideas into action over the next few weeks, through our Harvest festival and our Rotakids initiatives.

Year 2 - Caption Writing

In English, we are preparing to write our non-chronological reports. Over the past two weeks, we have been practicing the writing techniques that we will need to use in our reports. Today we learnt what a caption is and the purpose of them. We then had a go at writing our own for various pictures.

KS1- Book Explorers

This week in Book Explorers, we read a lovely book all about friendship called ‘The Best Gift of All.’ This story is set in the Autumn and features lots of Autumn animals. We learnt about how all of these animals were amazing friends to the rabbit when she wasn’t feeling very well. We then made some wonderful Autumn wreaths to take home.

Whole School Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by thanking everyone for their very generous Macmillan Coffee Morning donations last Friday. The heads and deputies will be announcing the final amount later today. We also lit a candle for gratefulness to say thank you for all of the wonderful things that we have in our lives including our loved ones and the beautiful nature around us. We then presented Ava, Isabella, Callie and Mila in EYFS and KS1 and Martha, Carmen, Edward and Will in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for working extremely hard across the curriculum and always demonstrating our Barny’s 4Bs (being ready, being safe, being kind and being respectful) and our school Christian values. We also congratulated Walter and Alice in Year 4 for gaining their pen licenses, all of the children who have achieved their ‘WOW’ badges this month for walking to or from school at least once a week, Year 1 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and River Darwen as the value award winners this week with 549 points. We gave our girls football team a huge round of applause for their three amazing wins last night and particularly congratulated our Year 4 members of the team who stepped up into the Year 5/6 team. Finally, we congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Beau, Jack and Lyla for completing the Summer Reading challenge, Darcy for being awarded Star of the Week at gymnastics, James and Grace for gaining their Stage 5 swimming certificates, Leonora and Desmond for their fantastic swimming whilst competing for Blackburn Centurions, Isaac for being awarded Soccer HQ Player of the Day for demonstrating fantastic football skills, Daisy for being awarded 3 medals in the Paris Olympic Competition at gymnastics, Harriet for swimming 100m in her swimming, Fletcher for celebrating his uncle, Charlie for being a super football star, Laila for being the Player’s Player of the Match at football and Brooke for being awarded the Opposition Player’s Player of the Match. Finally, we had some beautiful prayers from, Renee, Callie and Mason and sang ‘If I was a Butterfly’ in celebration of ‘World Animal Day.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.

Year 2 - Microhabitat Hunt

We took our science lesson out into the woodlands of Jacks Key. We have been learning about habitats and that inside those larger habitats there are smaller microhabitats. We identified various microhabitats in the woodland such as under a log or rock, burrows and nests. It was great to go and find different living things that live in those microhabitats.

Rev Ben’s Collective Worship

In today’s collective worship, Rev. Ben began by engaging the children in an interactive challenge, where three children had to use two pieces of paper as stepping stones to cross the hall. This activity set the stage for the theme of the session: perseverance and trust in challenging times. Rev. Ben then shared the Bible story of Moses and the Israelites' long journey through the desert, highlighting the struggles and faith they experienced along the way. After listening to the story, the children were encouraged to reflect and discuss key questions: 'What did God's people do during their journey through the desert?' and 'What are some positive alternatives to complaining when things get tough?' These discussions helped the children connect the story to their own lives, exploring how patience, gratitude, and faith can guide them through difficult situations.

Whole School Worship: What is Spirituality?

In our Tuesday worship, the theme was spirituality and what it means to us. Mrs Ham talked about things that we can see (physical/ material things) and things that we just feel (spiritual things). We played a fun game where we had to put on a pretend pair of binoculars if it was something physical/ material that we can see or cover our eyes if it was something spiritual that we can't see. We had things like connecting with nature, a big house', money, connecting with friends, inner peace and believing in a God. She introduced the ‘windows’ looking out on the world and how we should take time to learn, to gaze, to wonder and admire and ask ‘why?’ We looked at some of the ways we can live life in all its fullness and today we particularly focused on being 'grateful' for all of God's creations. We also explored how taking notice is one of our five ways to wellbeing too. We looked at some of God’s creations in a video and discussed our favourite ones with our partner. There were lots of 'WOWs' and 'aahhs' at some of God's amazing creations. We finished with a prayer thanking God for all of his creations and sang 'If I were a butterfly' to sing thank you to God. Across this academic year, we will continue to further explore what spirituality means to us at St Barnabas.

Singing Worship- Harvest

What a joyous way to start a new week at St Barnabas! We first discussed why we sing and we had some wonderful answers such as : to communicate with God, to learn new words and vocabulary, to learn new sign language so we can communicate with those who can't speak or hear, to have fun and to say thank you to God. Today some of our fabulous volunteers taught Reception class some of the signs and actions for some of our Harvest songs that we will be singing in our Harvest Festival on Thursday 17th October. We sang 'If I were a butterfly' and 'Sing a song of Harvest' to thank God for all of the wonderful living things he created such as animals, plants and trees.

KS1 After School Club- Book Explorers

This week in Book Explorers, we read some monster themed stories and created our own monster themed bookmark.

Macmillan Coffee Morning

A huge thank you to everyone who has supported our Macmillan Coffee Morning this morning with donations of cakes and/ or money. Every child in school was able to have a cake at break time thanks to your generous donations. Donations can still be made on parent pay or after school. We have some cakes left over so we will have a stall after school on the infant yard.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by thanking everyone for their very generous Macmillan Coffee Morning donations, saying a huge thank you to our wonderful teaching assistants on National Teaching Assistant day and saying a special prayer and thinking about both our Cidari family of schools and local schools on ‘National Pray for Schools Day.’ We then presented Olivia, Reggie, Joey, Lydia and James in EYFS and KS1 and Olivia, Lana, Luke, Ted, Eden, Summer, Brooke and Charlie-Rose in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for being fantastic role model for their peers, having a fantastic work ethic and always demonstrating our Barney’s 4Bs (being ready, being safe, being kind and being respectful). Then, we heard from our well-being warriors who told us about ‘Hello Yellow Day’ coming up on Thursday 10th October and asked us to make a contribution on ParentPay in return for dressing in yellow to promote positive mental health. We also congratulated Year 2, Year 3 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and River Darwen as the value award winners this week with 410 points. Finally, we congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Hendrix Elijah, Maggie and Callie for completing the Summer Reading challenge, Ava for being awarded her ‘Little Puffin’ certificate at swimming, Scarlett for being achieving an award for her positive contribution to West Pennine Netball, Maggie for achieving a super drawing award, Bobby-Ray for achieving his white belt at kickboxing and stage 1 at swimming, Lyla for achieving two gold awards at gymnastics, Isabella for earning her brown belt at kickboxing and achieving all of her badges at Rainbows and moving up to Brownies, Peyton for red and white belt at kickboxing, Bella for achieving ‘The Little Darreners’ Player of the Week,’ Iris for being a super swimmer, Marley for being a yoga superstar, Charlie for achieving his brown belt at kickboxing, Olivia for achieving her Stage 6 swimming certificate and Layla for achieving a special rosette for being a super horse rider. Finally, we said the Grace and we sang ‘We Can Make a Difference.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.

Rocksteady Launch

This morning, we were treated to an exciting Rocksteady assembly, where children explored the world of electrical musical instruments. The children were introduced to instruments such as drums, guitar, bass guitar, and keyboard, learning how each contributes to creating music. They were captivated by the live demonstrations and enthusiastically sang along, filling the hall with energy. Mr Norris, Mr Bloomfield and Mr Prescott also got to live out their dreams as they got the chance to be in their own boyband The session offered a wonderful opportunity for the children to discover different musical sounds and rhythms, sparking their curiosity and love for music. Information about how you can sign your child up to play in a rock band will be being brought home this evening.

Year 2 - Time Conjunctions

In Year 2, we have been reminding ourselves of time conjunctions and how they are used in our writing. We discussed how time conjunctions help us to order events in this case the events in our story ‘Caterpillar Shoes’. The children identified appropriate time conjunctions and then began to use them to retell our story.

Rev Ben’s Worship: God the Rescuer

Rev Ben came in today to talk about rescuers. He began with a dressing up challenge in which 2 teams had to create their own superhero. Mind Reader won the most votes as the best superhero. Rev Ben linked this to a great rescuer from the Bible: Moses. He told us about God recruiting Moses to talk the Pharaoh into setting his people free. It was a difficult task but, with God’s help, he achieved it. The children spent some time thinking about what made Moses a rescuer and what made Jesus the ultimate rescuer.

Year 2 - Exploring Clay

This afternoon, year 2 had a great time exploring different shapes and textures using clay. We used our hands to start and created different shapes such as spheres. Then we moved on to using other tools such as rolling pins and sculpting tools. We are able to explore different ways to create interesting textures. These new techniques will come in useful in our future art lessons.

European Day of Languages 2024 - Harvest Songs

Today, in singing worship, the children were introduced to some Harvest-themed songs in different European languages. This was in celebration of European Day of Languages, which will take place on Thursday. We have set the children a challenge to learn part or all of one of these songs. They can do this for next week. We are not expecting them to know it by Thursday. There may be some value points available to those who try! :) Here are the links: Harvest songs Portugal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2iZZ9GBUFE Germany - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzQraV8d1Q France - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjU3YhaM_50

Friday Celebration Worship

During our celebration worship this morning, Mrs Ham began the worship by lighting the candles and reflecting on the many things we are thankful for and grateful for, which led to some children sharing their thankful moments, such as our school, our outdoor area and our families. We then moved on to celebrating a very special member of staff, Mrs Pendlebury who is sadly leaving us today to enjoy her retirement. She has been with us for over 25 years. Heads and Deputies expressed some of their fond memories shared with Mrs Pendlebury. Rosie, expressed by stating that Mrs Pendlebury is one of a kind, Daisy remembered a time when Mrs Pendlebury kindly gave her a hat to wear on a class trip to rock and River. Harry and Hamza recalled moments when Mrs Pendlbury almost fell off a chair which they found amusing. We also watched a short video celebrating Mrs Pendlebury’s time at our school, filled with wonderful memories, a true legend. Mr Bloomfield and Mr Prescott shared a few words too, though no words can capture or express how much Mrs Pendlebury has meant to the school. Her grandchildren Jack and Beau, helped present Mrs Pendlebury with gifts and flowers from the school and staff. Mrs Ham then shared the awards that children received outside of school, including achievements for Charlie, Molly and Isabelle swimming, Isabella, Annabel and Phoebe for the summer reading challenge, James football, Grace dancing and Ella-Grace scouted for Manchester United. Reception and Year 5 won the attendance award. Darwen Tower gained an extra break for the most value points received this week. We then had prayers from Naomi, Sonny and Oscar and sang Mrs Pendlebury’s favourite songs, ‘Welcome everybody’ and Our God is great big God’.

Rev Ben's Collective Worship- Moses

Collective Worship - 19.09.24 During this week's worship session, Rev. Ben shared the story of Moses and the burning bush. He explained how, when God gave Moses a mission, Moses initially struggled to obey, feeling unsure and inadequate for the task. However, God revealed his power and presence to Moses, showing him the way and helping him develop trust. With God's guidance, Moses was able to achieve far more than he ever thought possible. The children engaged in thoughtful discussions, exploring questions like: What might it look like for you to recognise God's presence in your life? Some children reflected on seeing God's presence in acts of kindness, through nature, or in moments of peace when they feel supported by their friends and family. Others spoke about sensing God during quiet times or prayer, feeling that God is guiding them in difficult situations. When asked, Why do you think Moses was hesitant to follow God's instructions? The children expressed that they could relate to Moses’ fear and uncertainty. Some mentioned how Moses might have felt unworthy or scared of failing, while others said that like Moses, they too sometimes feel afraid when they are asked to do something new or hard. The group agreed that trusting God, even when they feel unsure, can help them overcome their fears. The final question, How does it change things for you, knowing that God is always with you? brought a range of responses. Some children said it gave them comfort to know they are never truly alone, even in hard times. Others felt it gave them courage, knowing they could rely on God’s strength when facing challenges. Many agreed that just like Moses, having faith in God’s presence helps them feel more confident in the tasks they are given, knowing they have divine support.

Whole School Worship: The Good Shepherd

Today, we were learning about Jesus’s parable of the Lost Sheep. We discussed why Jesus said 'I am the good shepherd', and how he will always come to us when we feel lost. Thanks to Mr Bloomfield and some of our younger children for acting out the story so brilliantly. We reflected on how we can life live in all its fullness knowing that Jesus is always watching over and protecting us, just like a good shepherd does for his sheep.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our first celebration worship of this academic year by signing the trinity and talking about our extremely busy couple of weeks in school, especially focusing on our Barny’s 4Bs (being ready, being safe, being kind and being respectful) and our school values. We then presented Thomas and Fletcher in Years 1 and 2 and Alfie, Eliza, Ella and Leonora in KS2 with certificates for being our value award winners this week. Well done to these children for starting the academic with an amazingly positive attitude, demonstrating fantastic behaviour for learning and consistently displaying our school values. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Harry for completing the Summer Reading challenge and being awarded a huge trophy for demonstrating kindness at SportsCool Summer club, Albie, Samuel, Renee, Carmen, Olivia and James for completing the Summer Reading challenge, Grace for being awarded the lyrical and jazz winner of the week, 3rd place for song and dance and a silver medal for her acro, Sofia for achieving Star of the Week at gymnastics club, Maggie for being a super Rainbow and working exceptionally hard to achieve all of her badges and Marley for achieving all of her badges at Rainbows and moving up to Brownies. We also congratulated Reception, Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and India Mill as the value award winners this week with 427 points. Finally, we had some lovely prayers of thankfulness and appreciation from Leonora, James and Lennox and we sang ‘Shine.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.

Year 2 - Fundamental Motor skills

In PE year 2 have began to perfect their fundamental motor skills. We had various activities that allowed us to practice hopping, throwing, jumping and bouncing a ball. The children loved it and we will continue with similar activities for more practice of our skills.

Alice in Wonderland Production

Wow! Our whole school family really enjoyed watching Alice in Wonderland this morning. It was a fantastic production and it was lovely to watch all of the children’s expressions throughout the performance.

Year 2 - Habitats

Today in science, we started looking at our first topic - where do animals live? We recapped on our already brilliant knowledge of what a habitat is. We built on our knowledge by exploring why it is important for an animal to have a habitat. We decided the three main reasons are for shelter from the weather, safety from predators and food to feed themselves and their offspring.

Whole School Worship: Paralympic Values

We began our Monday worship with a race this week, except the race wasn’t very fair. One person was running the race, one was hopping and one was blindfolded. We discussed why this wasn’t a fair race and then we watched some athletes’ performances from the Paralympics. We were amazed to see people with no arms playing the piano, flying aeroplanes, brushing their teeth and driving cars etc and then we reflected on how we can learn from the Paralympians and have a 'yes, I can' attitude. We learned about the Olympic and Paralympic values and how some of the values are the same or similar to our Christian Values., We discussed how we can do anything with hard work, determination and self-belief and read in the Bible that with God, all things are possible.

School Admissions

Good morning parents and carers, the applications are now open for primary and secondary school admissions for September 2025. Primary school applications are open from 3 September 2024 until 15 January 2025. Secondary school applications are open from 3 September 2024 until 31 October 2024. For further information, please click here: https://www.blackburn.gov.uk/SynergyWeb/ We will be holding a 'Stay and Play' session for children who are due to start primary school in September 2025 on Thursday 3rd October from 9.00am-10.30am. Here you will get to meet our EYFS staff team and Mrs Ham will take you on a tour of our school to meet our amazing children and staff. There is no need to book and further information will be shared shortly. If you are not able to make the stay and play morning, please contact our school office on 01254 702996 to arrange a tour with Mrs Ham at a time that is convenient for you. Parents of children who are due to start secondary school in September 2025. Here are the dates of the open evenings for our local high schools that have been released. I will share the dates of the other schools once they have been published. DACA: Wednesday 2nd October 4.00-7.00pm https://www.daca.uk.com/Open-Evening/ St Wilfrids: Thursday 26th September 4.00-8.00pm https://www.saintwilfrids.co.uk/events/academy-open-evening Darwen Vale: TBC St Bede's: TBC

Rev Ben’s Worship- Trust

Rev Ben welcomed us back to school by reflecting on our school holiday and what we were most looking forward to this school year. He then told us the Bible story about Abraham going on a journey but he didn't know where he was going but he put his trust in God. Rev Ben said that our life can be a wonderful journey if we put our trust in God and remember that he is always with us. We then discussed with our partners how we can make the most of this year and live life in all its fullness. We finished with a lovely back to school blessing and sang a special back to school song.

Year 2 - Self portraits

We had a lovely afternoon on Wednesday as we headed to Whitehall Park. This was ideal for gathering materials to make our self-portraits out of natural materials. The children loved finding different ways of showing their unique features. As the children walked wonderfully they got the chance to test out the new play area on the way back to school.

Fun in the sun!

We have had lots of fun playing in the sun with our friends at lunch time!

Back with our friends

It is wonderful to be back with our friends! We have had a brilliant day so far and we had lots of fun playing with our friends at break time.

First day in our new classes

We’ve had a super first day in our new classes. Mrs Ham and our class teachers have been so impressed to see everyone following our four B’s and demonstrating our Christian Values. So many children have moved onto ‘time to shine’ and have been awarded values points. Well done everyone, it’s wonderful to have our school family back together again! We are so proud of our new Reception class children as they have settled so brilliantly and were so brave!

Whole School Worship: Jesus the Good Shepherd

We were all so happy to have everyone back for our first day of the school year. In our first worship we recapped and celebrated all of the amazing ways we live out our school vision and what Jesus meant when he said we should have life in all its fullness. We heard about His teaching of the sheep and the gate and learned that He wished for all of us to use Him as our gate to God; that we can have a good life if we follow His word. We then recapped our 4 B's school rules and our Christian Values. Our teachers will be looking for our children to demonstrate these in order to gain values points each day and get on our 'time to shine' board. We reflected on what we are looking forward to this year and how we will achieve great things and live life in all its fullness.

Whole School Awards Ceremony

This morning, we had a special award ceremony to celebrate a fantastic 2023-2024 academic year here at St Barnabas. First of all, we said a huge well done to Harvey and Miss Reynolds. We thank Mrs Reynolds for the amazing support that she has given to Harvey and the rest of our school family this year and we celebrate all of the wonderful things that Harvey has achieved. We wish him lots of luck at his new school. We then moved on to our Progress Award, Star of the Year and Children’s Champion winners in Years Reception-5. We congratulated Olly in Reception, Eli in Year One, Martha in Year 2, Alfie in Year 3, Elsie in Year 4 and Betsy in Year 5 with the Progress award, Elsie in Reception, James in Year 1, Naomi in Year 2, Alice in Year 3, Declan in Year 4 and Matthew in Year 5 as the Stars of the Year and Edward in Reception, Evie in Year 1, Alfie in Year 2, Daisy in Year 3, Annabelle in Year 4 and Harry in Year 5 as the Children’s Champion. Well done to all of these children for their incredible effort this year. Mrs Gardener and Mrs Ham also presented two of our Year 4 children with special awards. We said a massive congratulations to Annabelle who won our Protecting the Planet award. This is an award that Rev David left after retiring a couple of years ago. It goes to Annabelle for her fantastic commitment to preserving the planet. They also presented the Sharon Kay Cup for Kindness to Bella for her kind, caring, loving and empathetic nature. Mrs Ham, our current Heads and Deputies and Sports Leaders then presented Harry as our new Head Boy, Hamza as our new Deputy Head Boy, Daisy as our new Head Girl and Rosie as our new Deputy Head Girl for next academic year and Matthew, Freddie, Austin, Ezmae, Brooke and Poppy as our new Sports Leaders for next academic year. Well done to all of these children for their very successful applications-we are sure that you’ll all do a fantastic job in your new roles! Mrs Ham then presented all the children in school who have achieved 96% attendance across this academic year- a huge well done to these children for their commitment to learning. Finally, the Rotakids then presented Darcy and James as the sweet jar winners. Thank you to all of our children who guessed the number of the sweets in the jars to raise money for East Lancs Hospice and well done to Darcy and James for guessing correctly. We are so proud of our whole school family for their hard work and dedication, they really have achieved great things and lived life in all its fullness. 

Whitehall Park Disco

Whitehall Park team enjoyed a disco in the school hall at break time today. They received the most house points this term. The children enjoyed some sweets, danced and also played musical bumps.

Rev Ben’s Worship: Talents

Today, Rev Ben set a task for our volunteers: to carry a balloon from one side of the hall to the other without using their hands. He shared the story of Paul and the shipwreck and talked about the Christian belief that it is their task to share the good news of God and His Son, Jesus. We also considered the talents God gave us and how these talents can be used to serve God and others.

Summer Reading Challenge 2024

This morning, Angela came in to invite us all to join in with ‘The Summer Reading Challenge 2024- Marvellous Makers’. This is a national reading activity, which aims to encourage a love of reading in children and develop their literacy skills throughout the summer. To get started, drop in to either Darwen or Blackburn Library. Angela told us that once you’re enrolled, each member needs to read 6 library books (or eBooks/eAudio), with stickers or a prize being awarded for each book that is read and returned. Prizes will include origami paper and pencil crayons. Those who complete the scheme (all 6 books), will receive a medal and a certificate that they can bring into school in September and have presented in Friday celebration worship. Angela asked us why it would be amazing if we all completed the Summer Reading Challenge. Our children said that reading can help us to learn new words, increase our imagination, get us excited so our hearts will beat fast and help us to challenge our brains. We look forward to hopefully presenting lots of ‘Summer Reading Challenge’ certificates and medals in September. Extra Information To enrol, simply go to your nearest Blackburn with Darwen library and complete an application form between 1st July & 30th September. Enrolment in the scheme is free of charge, and involves children borrowing books on a library card. If your child does not yet have a library card, we would encourage you to take this opportunity to enrol them as a library member. This is a quick process, and you will simply be asked to complete and sign another form. However, those children without library cards may still join the Summer Reading Challenge, and temporary arrangements will be put in place to allow them to borrow books.

Rev Matt’s Worship - Seeking Truth

Rev Matt shared with us the fantastic news of his recent ordination. Some of the children even helped with a little re-enactment. He explained that his duty as a Christian is to live a life of truth. We listened to the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego; three men of faith who were punished for refusing to turn their backs on God in order to worship an image of the king. Rev Matt spoke about how it isn’t always easy for us to stand by our beliefs and we discussed times when this might be particularly difficult.

Growth Mindset Assembly

Today, our school had a very special assembly by Liz from Growth Mindset. The children explored the differences between fixed and a growth mindset. The children understood the advantages of growth mindset and how we can channel our growth mindset to overcome challenges and hurdles that we face daily. Liz shared a story about her uncle David who overcame many challenges to compete in the Para Olympic Games which demonstrated the powers of growth mindset. The children were faced with a variety of scenarios and shown how a growth mindset can help achieve and succeed. Just remember: “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step” A huge thank you to Liz from Grow Your Mindset!

Fundraising - East Lancs Hospice

A huge well done to the whole of St Barnabas, we have raised a massive £277.30 for the East Lancs Hospice through our Hop, Skip and Jump event and our Barney's Got Talent Show. The money will be used to help care for those in need and will support the wonderful staff that do an amazing job within the health care system.

Friday Celebration Worship- Whole School

Today, in celebration worship, we began by signing the Trinity and discussing the busy week. Mrs Ham thanked the children who sang at Blackburn Cathedral for the celebration of Cidari's 10-year anniversary. These children were recognised for demonstrating our Christian value of courage. All classes were praised for their transition day to new classes. They showed bravery and respect throughout. The class teachers presented value awards to the following students for always doing the right thing and trying their best in everything: Joey from reception, Harry from Year 1, Harry from Year 2, Darcy and Ivy from Year 3, Eden from Year 4 and Brooke from Year 5. Well done!. Year 1 and Year 4 won the attendance award this week. Well done for ensuring you are always in school, ready to learn. We also celebrated children for their extracurricular activities outside of school. Many showcased their trophies, medals and certificates in swimming, football, ballet, brownies, dancer for the year, gymnastics, performing arts, horse riding, Iron Kids Run, and lifeguarding skills. The Wellbeing warriors presented the children with walk to school badges and we sang' School Rules' which the children enjoyed. To conclude our worship, prayers were led by Lilly, Olivia and Mrs Ham.

Year 2 - 3 Transition Day-

Year 2 - Year 3 transition day was incredible! The children were amazing. They kicked off the morning with Junior Jam, where they played music, learned French, and explored computing. In the afternoon, they created a fantastic piece of artwork to showcase in September—a personalised pencil crayon highlighting what makes each of them unique and designed their bookmark. They also demonstrated their best handwriting and shared their favourite books and authors. We also visited the Junior yard where they will be playing in September, and they felt so grown up. They can’t wait to play in the yard with the other children and make new friends. They are eagerly anticipating their move to Year 3, and I am super excited for the new school year!

Rev Ben’s Worship - Living a Life of Truth

This week, in Rev Ben’s worship, we learned the importance of telling the truth and we discussed the consequences of lying. We found out that part of being a Christian is aiming to live a life of truthfulness. We also reflected on ways we could stay truthful in our daily lives.

Year 2 - Football Session

This afternoon, Year 2 were very lucky to have Stephen and Lily come in and take us for a football session. The children got stuck in and really enjoyed playing. It was lovely to see some children playing football for the first time!

Barney's Got Talent

To celebrate World Music Day, Mrs Ham supported by our Heads and Deputies (Lucy, Skye, Isaac and Wilson) presented a very special Barney's Got Talent this morning. We are collecting donations that will be going to East Lancs Hospice to support the wonderful work they do. All of the talents that we witnessed from our school family were absolutely incredible and we commend all of the children for being so courageous and sharing these talents with such a large audience. A huge well done to Callie the Tangled Twin , Super Summer the Gummy Bear, Haydn and Percy as the Football Friends, Olivia and Lydia as the Barbie Girls, Ballerina Annabel dancing to the instrumental version of ‘Dance Monkey,’ Super Ted and Electric Elijah with their amazing street dancing, The Friendship Band of Iris and Naomi singing ‘This Girl is on Fire,’ Jack, Ella-Grace and Chay as The Conga Monkeys, Miles, Daisy and James as The Brilliant Believers singing Believer by the Imagine Dragons, Toffee Tristen singing Pure Imagination dressed as Willy Wonka, Sparkly Sofia singing ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone, Dramatic Darcy singing ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri, Mason and James as the MJ Boys singing ‘Shotgun’ by George Ezra, Amazing Annabelle as a magician , Graceful Grace dancing to ‘ABC’ by the Jackson 5, Beau, Jess, Laila, Brooke, Charlie-Rose and Betsy dancing to ‘Who Runs the World? (Girls)’ as the 6 Golden Stars, Eliza as The Joyful Joker, Outstanding Oscar playing and singing ‘Believer’ on the Piano, R’Kid Seb singing ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ by Oasis, Archie the Arrow thrashing Mr Bloomfield at darts and The WWE Wrestlemania team of Charlie, Carlton and Alfie. Wow! What a lot of talent. Thank you to the parents who could attend our Barney's Got Talent, we hope you enjoyed the performances. For those who couldn’t, Mr Bloomfield kindly recorded it and this will be shared with you all. We wish you a lovely restful weekend. Thank you for your continued support.

Mrs Ham's Highlights

Dear parents and carers, wow, another super busy week of living life in all its fullness at St Barnabas! The highlights of the week have been: *Our Barney’s Got Talent show this morning. We are so proud of our super talented and courageous children who took part in it. Thank you so much for all of the parents and grandparents who came along to support. Thanks so much for your kind donations to East Lancs Hospice. You can still make a donation on parent pay if you would like to. Photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/barney-s-got-talent-june-2024 *Learning about refugees in class worship as part of refugee week and Years 3 and 5 have special visits from two refugees from DARE (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise. * Our high fives netball team winning the league and will now go on to represent BWD in the Lancs school games. *Our boys cricket team crowned champions of the DPSSA cricket competition. * Our tennis team did brilliantly at the tennis tournament. *Our new after school clubs started with Little craft club and Little Voices. *We had a carbon monoxide safety assembly for the whole school and workshops in Years 5 and 6. * Our WOW group have started to create our Spirituality garden with the help of Mr Fairbanks, Mr Ham and Mrs Ham’s son. We still welcome donations of pots and plants if you have any spare ones lying around at home. Next week we are looking forward to our Sports Day on Friday. Fingers crossed this lovely weather stays. The Infants ( Reception, Year 1 and Year 2) will go first at 9.15am- 10.30am and then the Juniors (Years 3,4,5 and 6) at 10.45am- 12.15pm. Parents are very welcome to attend and we are hopeful that we will be able to have our Mums, Dads and toddler races too. Work will begin next week on a new canopy on our Reception class yard. Therefore the Reception class yard will be closed and children will need to walk around the outside path to get to and from their class, rather than through the Reception yard. Further information will be sent out on Monday about where to drop off and collect Reception children from. Yesterday I sent out information about our children being invited to sing at a ‘Cidari 10 Year Celebration’ on Wednesday evening. I’m aware this clashes with out of school activities for some of our older children. Therefore, I have opened this up to children in any year group and they do not need to be choir members, just anyone who enjoys singing. We will be singing songs that we already know and sing in worship. We would really appreciate your support. If you would like your child to take part, please fill out the following google form and further information can be found on my previous post. https://forms.gle/sahNa3JH1UFz88Vu6 A polite reminder to please park considerately to our neighbours. This morning a white car parked on one of our resident’s drives to drop off, which meant the resident’s visiting family couldn’t park on their drive. Wishing you all a fantastic weekend and thank you for your continued support, Mrs Ham

Whole School CO Safety Worship

Steph visited us to talk about how we can stay safe at home. We watched a video of Safety Seymour and the CO crew and learned about the dangers of CO - Carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas that can’t be detected by our senses alone. We have to be careful if we have gas fires or log burners and check them yearly to make sure they are clean. If we suspect there is a CO leak, then we must contact the gas emergency services to come and check. We must also check our boilers and gas cookers for any changes - if the flame turns floppy and orange it means CO is being produced and a gas safe engineer needs to look at it. Always get an adult to turn it off straight away. If we breathe in CO we might feel unwell and it can be very dangerous so we must remember the 3 safety steps: have our appliances tested regularly, look for signs and symptoms of feeling unwell and install a CO alarm at home.

The Little Craft Club

After school today, Becky, the owner of Fred and Pearl, ran ‘The Little Craft Club!’ at our school for the first time. It was a huge success and the children created some amazing crafts. The theme for this week was vehicles and the children made a boat, hot air balloon and car. They used a range of colours and materials and they all looked incredible. Well done to the EYFS and KS1 children that attended this week for being so creative in their designs.

Rev Matt’s Worship: God’s Great Creations

Rev Matt began his worship this week with a challenge for us all to vote for “the best one for the job”. He showed two people or animals and asked which would be the best runner, the best fire fighter, the best world leader etc. He then read a poem from the Bible about nature and how precious God’s creations are. We spent some time discussing our favourite creations and how we could take care of them.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning in celebration worship, we started by signing the trinity and discussing a very busy first week back after the half-term holidays. This week, we have had a worship about St Barnabas, the encourager and how St Paul was originally called Saul and how he changed his behaviour, a worship from Rev Ben about Jesus being a compass and helping us to find the way when things become difficult and a wonderful Father’s Day Stay and Play in Reception Class. This week also saw a group of our Year 6 children taking part in The Darwen Primary Schools Netball Finals event at Darwen Vale and coming away with joint first but second on goal difference, a group of our Year 6 children for taking part in a BwD cricket competition at Darwen Cricket Club and coming an overall 8th and Year 5 class for being the class who walked to school the most in May. This week, we also said a huge well done to Haydn, Carter, Bluebelle, Miles, Elsie, Ruby and Isaac who were awarded as our value award winners this week for always striving to do their best and showing respect and kindness and we also congratulated Year 1 and Year 4 on being our attendance winners and Darwen Tower as our overall value award winners this week with 275 points. We then moved on to hearing about what great things our children at St Barnabas have been achieving outside of school. Well done to Charlie for achieving his brown belt in martial arts, Ella-Grace for being awarded with a trophy for demonstrating fantastic football skills, Callie for working extremely hard and showing amazing skill in her gymnastics, Carter for achieving his silver award at swimming, Amelia for running 5k in the Race For Life and raising £600 for Cancer Research, Olivia for being an amazing Brownie, Daisy for achieving 2nd place at a recent gymnastics competition, Finn for achieving ‘Player of the Week’ at football, Lyla for achieving 10m in her backstroke, Isabella for achieving her brown belt in martial arts and 20m in her swimming, Eliza for achieving ‘Player of the Season’ in her football and being invited back to Blackburn Rovers after trialling out for their girls team, Leonora for swimming amazingly for the centurions and achieving both ‘The Funkiest Hairstyle’ and ‘Heart of Gold Award’ from the club she went to while on holiday, James for achieving a silver medal at Jiu Jitsu for demonstrating very powerful kicks and punches, Maggie for achieving a fantastic 50m in her swimming, Edward for being a super reader and achieving 100% in his reading eggs quiz, Tristen for achieving yet another impressive kick-boxing belt, Miles for achieving 3rd place in a recent football tournament, Annabel for being an incredible tap dancer and achieving her first steps certificate and Summer for achieving a first class medal for demonstrating incredible skill in her gymnastics. Finally, we ended our worship with two beautiful prayers from Jack and Leonora thanking all of our amazing staff for all that they do and praying for those who are in the midst of war and conflict. We also sang, ‘Build Up' as this week we have been thinking about how we can be like St Barnabas and encourage each other and build each other up. Thank you as always for those who could attend celebration worship today and we send an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for their continued support. We wish you all a lovely weekend when it arrives and we hope all of the Dads and Grandads have a wonderful Father's Day on Sunday.

Year 2 - Computing

This week in computing, we began making our own mini movies. We selected characters and decided on a sequence of events for our movies. We put them all together and when we pressed play, we had our own mini movies with the storyline we had chosen.

Year 2 - Science

We started our new science topic this week which is looking at different life cycles and stages of development. To begin with, we explored the 5 main stages of human development. We ordered them and discussed what changes we see as we move through these stages. We created a list of things we can do now in the child stage of development that we couldn’t do in the baby stage of development.

Rev Ben’s Worship: Jesus is Our Compass

This week, Rev Ben joined us for worship to talk about seeking the truth. He began with a true or false quiz in which the options become progressively more difficult. We discussed why sometimes it’s hard to know what’s true and how it feels to feel lost. We learned that Christians believe that Jesus will always guide them to the truth if they put their trust in him.

St Barnabas Day Collective Worship

It was wonderful to welcome our school family back again this morning after the half term break. Tomorrow it is St Barnabas day so we focused on St Barnabas, the Encourager this morning in our Collective Worship. We also looked at how St Barnabas and St Paul became friends and we thought about how Rev Ben is the vicar at both St Barnabas and St Pauls in Hoddlesden. We learnt how Paul was originally called Saul and he was mean and didn't like followers of Jesus. One day Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and after that Saul became a good person, changed his name to Paul and spread the word of God. Barnabas met Paul and encouraged others to listen to him and to give him another chance as he always saw the good in others. Barnabas and Paul went on lots of missionaries together to spread the word of God and the good news of Jesus. We reflected on how we could be like St Barnabas and encourage each other in the coming weeks. We discussed the bible quote 'encourage one another and build each other up' and had some wonderful answers. We thought about how our vision 'achieving great things through learning and growing together in a love-filled family' can only be achieved if we encourage each other and build each other up. We then finished with a prayer and sang 'Build up one another'.

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

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and talking about our extremely busy week in school. This week, we saw The Little Voices after school club showcase their amazing learning over the last six weeks, Year 1&2 visit BeWILDerwood in Cheshire, Year 2&4 visit St Barnabas Church to learn about the symbols of the church with Rev Ben, amazing learning in computing, music and French through our Junior Jam sessions, and two wonderful worships with Mrs Wilkinson about mental health awareness and Rev Matt about Pentecost. We then presented Percy, Isabella, Euan, Hamza and Archie as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for demonstrating an amazing attitude to their learning. Miss Flynn then presented all of Year 1 as value award winners this week for challenging themselves to try new activities at BeWILDerwood and representing school amazingly well by showing an amazing amount of courage, friendship and teamwork and Mr Norris presented all of Year 2 as value award winners for approaching their recent tests with amazing smiles on their faces and a huge amount of perseverance as well as being amazing on our trip to BeWILDerwood yesterday. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, Whitehall Park as the overall value award winners this week with 329 points, Annabelle, Mason, Jenson and Elsie for achieving ‘Rock Legend’ status for being able to rapidly recall their timetables and to Lily-May for achieving her pen licence for amazing handwriting across all of her subjects. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Callie for being awarded a certificate and trophy for demonstrating high standards of courtesy, respect and a black belt attitude at martial arts, Leonora for her certificate of recognition for her effort in working towards an award in her gymnastics, Iris for achieving her stage 1 grading at gymnastics and all of her hard work that has gone into achieving this, Ella-Grace for being a super football star and being selected as the manager’s player in her football team, showing amazing commitment to her training at Manchester United and achieving 20m in her swimming, Ed for achieving 25m in his swimming, Isaac for playing for being voted as the players’ player in his football team, Archie for running 2km in the Winter Warmer at Witton, Maggie for being awarded Olivia at Rainbows for being a superstar and always being kind, caring and showing wonderful behaviour, Lyla for her commitment to Rainbows and achieving lots of badges, James for achieving his Stage 2 swimming certificate, Annabelle for achieving an incredible gold award in swimming, Sofia for achieving her Stage 1 gymnastics award and Lucy for being awarded the manager’s player of the year. Her manager said although she’s younger than the other players, she certainly makes up for it on the football pitch. To end our worship, we had a message about Barney’s Got Talent from our heads and deputies. They told us that auditions for this will be W/C 10th June and the showcase of these amazing talents will be on Friday 21st June. Finally, we had some lovely prayers from Sofia and Olivia in Year 3 and we sang ‘Our God is a Great Big God.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful half-term holiday.

Happy half term

Good afternoon parents and carers, I can't believe that we only have a half term left in school and it feels like this year has flown by. We have had a brilliant last week of the half term and the highlights have been: *Year 1 and 2's visit to BeWILDerwood in Cheshire. All the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/year-1-2-bewilderwood-trip-may-2024 *Year 2 and 4's visit to our church For all of the news from each class, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news Our Heads and Deputies told our whole school about the Barney's Got Talent show that they will be hosting on Friday 21st June. If children would like to enter, they have the next two weeks to practise their talents and auditions will be held the first week back. A reminder that our FOSB are selling Father's Day breakfast in bed boxes that can be collected on Friday 14th June. These can be purchased through parent pay until Monday 10th June. They will not be able to accept orders after this date as the boxes will need to be prepared. As Thursday 4th July is now a General Election, we will be closed on this day for all staff and children as our school is used as a polling station. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. I would like to say a huge thank you to our staff team for their support and dedication to our school family. I hope they all have a well deserved rest and chance to recharge. Thank you so much for all of your continued support and I hope that you all have a wonderful half term break. We look forward to seeing you all on Monday 10th June and I hope the weather is kind to us all, Mrs Ham

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.

Rev Matt’s Worship - Pentecost

Today Rev Matt came in to lead a worship all about Pentecost and being filled with the Holy Spirit. As a challenge, a group of children were chosen to blow up a balloon as large as possible in 30 seconds. He told us about the events of Pentecost and how the disciples received the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is considered the birthday of the church.

Mad Science After School club- Making slime

During our final after-school Science Club session, the children had a blast making slime with the Mad Scientist. They creatively mixed colours to make their slime unique. This half term, they have thoroughly enjoyed exploring various aspects of science. We definitely have future scientists among us!

Monday Worship: Mental Health

Last week was mental health awareness week and the theme was find your moments for movement. We began our worship by thinking about what mental health is. Isaac said it is about how you feel, Lucy said it was all about your emotions and Seb said it was about how you feel inside, not outside. We watched a video all about how people can look ok but actually may feel scared, worried or anxious and it is important to talk to someone, to exercise or to take time out for yourself. David told everybody how he felt worried about his SATs but he came into school smiling so people may not have known. Mrs Wilkinson led a mindfulness activity for everybody to really focus on their body. We then discussed how we can move more. The children suggested that we could play outside, go swimming, play football and dance. We then took part in a moodbuster get active workout where we all jumped, did star jumps, squatted and ran on the spot repeating affirmations. We then reflected on how we can move more and how we can promote mental health to ourselves and others. We ended our worship by singing Lighthouse to remind us that Jesus is always there to listen to us.

Forest school club

This week the children had a great time building dens which opened so much up for their imaginative play. The children created leaf tickets to enter the den. They gave each other different roles within the game. It was great to see the children all playing cooperatively together and using brilliant team work.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and talking about our extremely busy week in school. This week, we saw Year 6 showing an amazing amount of courage as they faced their SATs, Year 5 having a wonderful 3 day PGL residential at Winmarleigh Hall and lots of amazing lunch time and after school clubs such as Cricket, Little Voices, Mad Science, Choir, Netball and Story and Craft. We also congratulated our wonderful Year 4 tennis team (Jenson, Summer, Annabelle and Quinn) for performing amazingly on Wednesday afternoon and coming in 2nd place out of 8 schools in BwD. What an achievement! Thank you to Mr Foy for training up the tennis team in his lunch times and Miss Baxendale for taking them to the competition. We also congratulated our Year 5/6 Netball team who competed in the DPSSA Netball League on Thursday night. We are hopeful that they will qualify for the final in a few weeks. We then presented Lenny, Archie, Rosie, Layla, Neve and Millie as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for impeccable manners, an amazing attitude to learning and working extremely hard across the curriculum. Mr Bloomfield then presented all of Year 5 as value award winners this week for challenging themselves at PGL and showing an amazing amount of courage, friendship and teamwork and Mr Prescott presented Year 6 for approaching SATs with amazing smiles on their faces and a huge amount of perseverance. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 6 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Darwen Tower as the overall value award winners this week with 208 points. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Summer for being an incredible gymnast, Grace for achieving Star of the Week at Little Voices after school club, Annabel for achieving a Certificate of Excellence from Butterflies After School Club for pushing herself out of her comfort zone by trying new things, Isaac for achieving an amazing 25m in his swimming, Teddy for achieving his red stripe belt at kickboxing, Sofia for achieving an honours in her musical theatre and being highly commended, Lottie for showing incredible swimming talent and achieving her level 4, Archie for achieving his black shirt in darts, James for starting Beavers this week and being awarded Beaver of the Week, Archie for demonstrating a wonderful attitude at football, Oscar for being a super scientist and taking part in various science (biology, chemistry and physics) investigations, Elliott for demonstrating an amazing attitude and wonderful behaviour during his football training and Darcy for being an incredible gymnast. To end our worship, we heard from Rev Ben who congratulated our wonderful Year 6 team for completing their SATs, Year 5 for an incredible few days at PGL and a lovely prayer thanking God for being with us and giving us the love, strength and power we all need. We then sang, ‘My Lighthouse’ with lots of enthusiasm and thanked all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely weekend. 

Year 2 - Maths

Today we carried on looking at different units of measure. We have moved on to measuring volume. Today we were using millilitres to measure volume. We explored how different containers can hold more water so they have a larger capacity. After solving problems in our book we got hands on and began measuring out different amounts of water in our measuring jugs. This helped us to visualise how much water 100ml actually was. We took some water away and created a calculation on our whiteboards to show what we had done with the water.

Reception, Year 1 and Year 2- Story and Craft Club

Today in Story and Craft Club, our school librarian Matthew chose the story, ‘A SUPERPOWER LIKE MINE’ by Dr Ranj and Miss Flynn read it to some of the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children. The story was all about a little girl called Femi who discovers all the special powers that her, her friends, and the incredible people around her, bring out in one another every day. We had a great discussion about the superpowers that we all have such as being creative, imaginative, kind, caring, amazing at solving problems, loving, helpful and an extremely good friend and then the librarians helped the children to make their own superhero mask.

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!

Little Voices after school club

Our Little Voices after school club had lots of fun playing games to develop their confidence and they then practised the song that they will be performing to their parents next week.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and talking about how we have lived life in all its fullness this week. We kickstarted the week on Tuesday with Rev Ben and his worship about the ascension and we’ve enjoyed a variety of lunch time and after school clubs such as Cricket, Little Voices, Mad Science, Choir, Netball and Story and Craft. We also congratulated our wonderful Year 5/6 netball team for performing amazingly on Wednesday night in the DPSSA Netball League and winning both of their matches. As it stands, they are unbeaten and look forward to competing against St Peter’s next week. We then presented Millie, Molly, Cassidy, Nevaeh, Seb, Daisy and Lucy as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for always their amazing attitude to learning and consistently demonstrating the 4Bs and our Christian Values. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park as the overall value award winners this week with 143 points. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to sisters Lydia and Naomi for getting Olivia at Rainbows for being superstars, Callie for being awarded Bruno Bear at Stagecoach for being a super brave performer, Cici for being this week’s Little Voices after school club superstar, Archie for achieving a certificate for the level of bravery that he showed whilst getting his bloods taken at the hospital, Lyla for achieving highly commended in her Musical Theatre exam, Bluebelle for achieving a fabulous 25m in her swimming, Evie for being awarded with a trophy for her wonderful gymnastics, Olivia for achieving her Stage 5 at swimming, Bindi and Elsie for swimming an amazing 50m, Jenson for being able to swim a phenomenal 800m and his Bronze swimming award, Nevaeh for achieving level 4 in her gymnastics, Tristen for gaining his orange belt in kickboxing and we congratulated Lucy for winning the East Lancs Final whilst playing for her football team Lammack. To end our worship, we had some beautiful prayers from Darcy, Oscar and Harry who prayed for people who are less fortunate and those in countries that are currently faced with war and uncertainty. We then sang, ‘Sing a New Song to the Lord.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely (and hopefully sunny) weekend!

Glorious Golden Time

This afternoon our children have enjoyed a glorious golden time outside. We are so lucky to have such large grounds to explore and play in. We have had some children playing sports on the MUGA, some on the outdoor gym and trim trails, some building and playing in the sand, some getting creative and some playing Jag Tag. The children work their socks off in class each week, follow our Four B's and complete their reading and homework to earn their golden time each Friday. What a fantastic afternoon!

Mrs Ham's Weekly Highlights

Good afternoon parents and carers, we hope that you all had a lovely bank holiday weekend. We have had another short but busy week of living life in all its fullness at St Barnabas. The highlights have been: *Reception class farm animal visitors from Nightingales Farm * Year 1's mock Baptism and party at our church with Rev Ben * Two more brilliant wins for our netball team * Our WOW group leading our KS2 class worships * Continuing learning how to play the keyboard in Junior Jam * A glorious golden time outside in the sun this afternoon Coming up next week: *Our Year 6 children are very much looking forward to their free breakfasts as we have the KS2 SATs. We know that they will try their very best and make us all proud. We also know that our children have been blessed with skills and qualities that SATs don't test. *Our Year 5 class are very excited as they are going on their three day PGL residential to Winmarleigh with Mr Bloomfield, Miss Kachwalla and Rev Ben. We are sure that they will make some amazing memories. *Years 1 and 3 have road safety officer workshops. *Year 2 have a visit from the fire service. *The Year 3/4 mini tennis competition. * Years 4, 5 and 6 have a PSHE RSE session from Coram Life Education *Our netball team have more matches. As the weather is warming up, please ensure that your child has a water bottle in school each day and that they put on all day sunscreen before coming to school. Sunhats would be brilliant too for playtimes and lunchtimes. Thank you for your continued support to our school family. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend in the sunshine with your loved ones, Mrs Ham

Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 Story and Craft Club

Yesterday lunch time, the school librarians led a story and craft club for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. The children listened to ‘No-BOT The Robot With No Bottom’ and then did some robot crafts. The children came up with some wonderful names for their robots such as Rainbow, Simon, Love-Bot and Pow-Bot.

Year 2 - PE

In PE this week we have continued to work on our bat and ball skills. We have been practicing skills in isolation over the past few weeks. This week it was time to see if we could implement these skills into a competitive game of tennis rounders.

Year 2 - Junior Jam Computing

This week in computing the children created digital images to show emotions. This involved designing their own emojis and adding various objects that can make them feel a certain way. For example we had an amazed face with fireworks in the background. The children really enjoyed making their own emoji.

Mad Science After school Club- Magnetic Magic

This afternoon, the future scientists embarked on a magical journey exploring the wonders of magnets. They learned about how magnets work in everyday life and did tests to see how magnets make things move. Then, they used what they learned to conduct experiments that seemed like magic, like making things levitate!

Rev Ben’s Worship: The Ascension

Rev Ben spoke about the exciting events between Jesus’s crucifixion and his ascension. Many see Jesus’s ascension as a sad time, but Rev Ben explained that Christians believe that, although Jesus helped many people whilst he was here on Earth, he can help all of us from heaven. We also spent time thinking about when someone was helpful to us and how we can be helpful to others.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and talking about how we have lived life in all its fullness this week. We kickstarted the week on Monday with two amazing science shows, had a wonderful worship about ‘The Road to Emmaus’ with Rev Matt on Tuesday and enjoyed a variety of lunch time and after school clubs. We also congratulated our wonderful Year 5/6 netball team for performing amazingly on Wednesday night at the High 5s Bee Stinger Qualifiers. They will be attending the grand final in a few weeks. We then presented Alessia, Ella, Bobby-Ray, Desmond, Edward, Jacob and Sophie as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for always working exceptionally hard and demonstrating great enthusiasm, respect and kindness. We also congratulated Reception and Year 3 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and River Darwen as the overall value award winners this week. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Alessia for achieving her stage 1 swimming certificate, Hayden for winning ‘The Little Darreners’ Player of the week,’ James for also achieving ‘Player of the Week’ as a goalkeeper for his football team, Elsie for achieving a fabulous 25m in her swimming, Annabel for showing both generosity and courage to complete a swimathon to raise money for Marie Curie and Cancer Research, Marley for being awarded with the Rainbow Bronze award, Harry for achieving his green stripe at kickboxing, Molly for being awarded her green belt at jui jitsu, Darcy for achieving her Stage 4 at gymnastics, Daisy for participating in a gymnastics competition in Lancaster and taking 2nd place, Grace for achieving an honours in her classical ballet exam and we congratulated Archie for winning the East Lancs Cup alongside the rest of his football team. We then presented all of the children in school who have achieved their WOW badges this month. Well done to these children for their efforts in walking to school. Finally, we ended our celebration with a wonderful prayer from Rev Ben and a sing along to ‘Shine from the inside out.’ Thank you to those who attended celebration worship and we wish our whole school family a lovely and restful extended weekend.

Mrs Ham's Weekly Message

Good afternoon parents and carers, we have had a short but busy week due to the school being used as a polling station yesterday. We hope all of our school family had an enjoyable day in the sunshine. This week the children have continued to achieve 'great things' and have lived life in all its fullness. The highlights of the week were: * The fantastic Science shows on Monday. Thank you Miss Kachwalla for organising them. * Our high fives netball team won their Bee Stinger qualifier by winning every game so are through to the grand final. Thanks Mrs Gardner for training the team and supporting at the matches, even on your days off. * Year 2 visited Four Seasons Garden Centre to learn more about plants and growing. * We had great fun learning about perseverance by trying to keep two giant inflatables off the floor in Worship with Rev Matt on Tuesday. * We've had some fantastic clubs such as Little Voices, Cricket, Jag Tag, Netball, Forest Schools and Mad Science. Miss Flynn and our librarians also ran a wonderful lunchtime story and craft club too. * Year 5 and 6 had another brilliant Jag Tag session each this afternoon. For all of this week's news from each class, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news On Monday we won't be in school as it is bank holiday Monday but we look forward to welcoming our school family back to school on Tuesday. Wishing you all a wonderful bank holiday weekend and thank you for your continued support, Mrs Ham

Reception and KS1- Story and Craft Club

At lunchtime today, Miss Flynn and the school librarians led a story and craft club for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. They read ‘Room on the Broom’ and then led a craft activity which involved the children decorating their own witches hat. Both the school librarians and the children in the infants really enjoyed themselves.

Forest school club

What a lovely day for forest school, today we went foraging for natural materials. The children made spring crowns, where they stuck their flowers, leaves and sticks to a strip of card to make their crown. The children also made some natural paintbrushes and then tested them out using watercolours.

Mad Science After School Club- Lights, Colour, Action.

Today at the club, the budding scientists explored what's hidden in regular light and witnessed cool chemical reactions. They also tried on special glasses that made rainbows look awesome. Plus, they had fun making drawings on black paper light up by shining a torch on them.

Rev Matt’s Worship - The Road To Emmaus

Rev Matt asked us to participate in the story of the disciples walking to Emmaus and talking about the sad events of Jesus’s death. We learned about the stranger who joined them and later revealed himself to be Jesus resurrected. Rev Matt involved all of the children in an activity in which they had to work together to keep an inflatable off the floor. He used this to explain the importance of believing, especially without proof, in God and His Son, and that it is this that keeps faith going.

Year 2 - Science trip to the garden centre

This week for science we visited Four Seasons Garden Centre. This was a brilliant trip out for the class as we were able to build on our existing knowledge of plants. Sonia at the Garden Centre was amazing and shared her knowledge with the children. We looked for flowers that we had written in poems in English. It was lovely to see the children excited about seeing their learning in the real world.

Reception, Year 1 and Year 2-Science Show

This morning, Reception and KS1 had a special science assembly about light and sound led by Adrian. First of all, we started by learning about shadows. We learnt that the closer that we get to the light source, the bigger the shadow gets and the further away that we get from the light source, the smaller the shadow gets. Some volunteers came up the front to show us this using puppets and the projector. Adrian then asked us to predict whether we thought that one person could make two shadows and most of us said no. However, Adrian showed us that this is in fact possible by using two light sources. We were amazed! Adrian then asked us to think about a window. He asked us whether a window lets light through or not and we said no because it is made from glass. From this, Adrian then showed us the shadow for a magnifying glass and how the plastic on the outside made a circular shadow but the glass in the middle made no shadow. We then explored colour mixing. Adrian chose a volunteer to come and colour a bottle of clear water. Yellow and blue were added and then Adrian asked us to predict which colour they would make once they were mixed together. Most of us predicted green and we were correct. Adrian explained that these colours had been mixed in water so we couldn’t undo them. However, he showed us how we can mix colours using a spinning propellor controlled by a motor and undo the colour mixing by stopping the motor. We had great fun predicting what colours would be made when the motor was turned on and the colours were mixed together. Then Adrian wowed us all by making a rainbow on the ceiling using light and water. This was definitely one of our favourite parts. For the second part of the assembly, we learnt all about sound. We started off by listening to same rain shakers. We then thought how we could make a rain shaker louder. The children predicted that we can either shake it harder or add more objects into the rain shaker e.g. peas. We then listened to the difference between a shaker with 1 pea, 10 peas and 100 peas and found out that our prediction was correct. Wow the 100 peas were loud! Adrian then showed us how you can make quiet objects louder by scraping them against hard materials, by using our mouth or by adding more force. Lyla demonstrated adding more force to make things louder by hitting a drum with a tube. We then explored high and low sounds using the keyboard. We listen to Adrian’s sound on the keyboard in a high pitched voice and a low pitched voice using different sides of the piano and we also listened to Adrian making high and low pitch sounds by changing the length of the straw whilst blowing into it. Finally, Adrian left us with two challenges. He asked us to think about the following questions next time it is sunny: How can you make your shadow not touch your feet for a moment? How can you make your shadow disappear? If any of the Reception, Year 1 or Year 2 children complete any of the experiments themselves at home to show you, please send any pictures via Class Dojo as we would love to see them.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and talking about how we started our week on Monday by celebrating World Earth Day and having a special worship with Willow the guide dog. Some other highlights from the week have been our wonderful worship about forgiveness with Rev Ben on Tuesday, Leonora and David attending the RE conference and our wonderful Year 5/6 netball team for performing amazingly last night and winning their match against St Edwards 13-0. We then presented Thomas, Evie, Martha, Miley, Brodie, Bella, Jake and Jay as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for consistently demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning, always showing kindness and respect to their teachers and friends and working incredibly hard across the curriculum. We also congratulated Reception and Year 3 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park as the overall value award winners this week with an a wonderful 226 points. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Callie for achieving 3rd place out of 28 people in her recent gymnastics competition on the vault and beam, James for taking part in the St George’s Parade as a Beaver and achieving the chief scout’s special bronze award, Lyla for trying incredibly hard in her dancing, Charlie for achieving the ‘Little Darreners’ Player of the Week award, Renee and Carmen for being brave and challenging themselves on the high rope and the zip wire at Go Ape, Carmen for being very thoughtful at Little Voices after school club, Archie for concentrating and working extremely hard towards achieving his red belt at martial arts, Noah for achieving a trophy for demonstrating incredible skills in his football, Finn for being awarded a certificate for showing skill in his football, Tristen for achieving his orange belt at kickboxing, Luke for being awarded ‘Man of the Match’ in his most recent football match, Jack for achieving his Stage 4 and Stage 5 swimming certificates, Lola for achieving several medals for her dancing including one for completing a recent exam in her acro and another for her commitment to dancing, April for achieving her 200m swimming certificate after working extremely hard to progress to that level, Elsie for attending Brownies for a year, Daisy for her commitment to Brownies by attending for 2 years and achieving lots of badges such as her recent aviation and Scarlett for demonstrating amazing concentration in her jiu jitsu. To end of our celebration worship, we had some lovely prayers from Seb, Lilly, Darcy and Mrs Ham for those caught in war, prayers of thankfulness and prayers about protecting our planet and we sang ‘We Can Make a Difference.’ Finally, we thanked 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.

Year 1 and 2- Hop, Skip and Jump for East Lancs Hospice

This afternoon, Year 1 and 2 hopped, skipped and jumped 1k (18 laps around the infant playground) to raise money for East Lancs Hospice. They showed lots of perseverance to complete all 18 laps- well done to them all! If you haven’t yet donated, please consider donating to this very deserving charity.

Mrs Ham's Weekly Message

Good afternoon parents and carers, we have had another wonderful week of living life in all its fullness. The highlights of the week have been: *Celebrating World Earth Day through crafts at lunchtime and special class worships * A visit from Willow, a guide dog for the blind, as part of National Pet Month * WOW group members David and Leonora represented our school at the Pupils' RE conference * Our netball team won their first match of the league 13-0 against St Edwards * All of our children took part in the hop, skip and jump event today to help raise money for East Lancs Hospice. They all received a chocolate treat too. Donations to this very worthy cause can be made via parent pay. To hear about all the great things we have achieved this week in Celebration Worship, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news/2024-04-26-friday-celebration-worship For all of this week's news, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news A quick reminder that school is CLOSED on Thursday as our school is used as a polling station. Thank you for all of your support and dedication to our school family. Wishing you all a lovely weekend and I hope the sun shines for you all, Mrs Ham

Year 2 Performance Poetry

Mrs Ham had the privilege of teaching Year 2 for a performance poetry lesson. In English the children have been exploring a poem called The Fight of the Year by poet Roger McGough which imagines the transition from winter to spring as a boxing match. Roger reads the poem like he is a commentator at a boxing match to help build excitement. We had lots of fun adding expression and actions to the poem first as a whole class and then in pairs. Some children showed lots of courage by performing the poem in front of the class and we had some wonderful encouraging comments and ways to improve from the audience. Great work Year 2!

Year 2 - Maths

This week in maths, we have moved on to length and height. First we measured in centimetres using our rulers. When an object became too big to measure in centimetres we need to measure in meters. Today we chose objects from around the classroom and estimated if they would be longer or shorter than 1 meter. As a class we used out meter ruler to measure these objects and check our estimations.

Year 2 - Class Worship

Today we had our class worship! As it has been World Earth Day this week, we used resources from Sir David Attenborough and Children in need. This has linked nicely with our Geography topic of Hot and Cold Places. At the end of the day we watched highlights of Planet Earth III. The episode we chose was narrated by children as anyone can have a voice for nature.

Collective Worship-Forgiveness

This morning in Rev Ben’s worship, we started with a challenge. Dougie and Jake had a minute each to catch as many fish as possible using a rod and transfer them to another bowl at the other side of the room. The whole school gave them lots of encouragement which spurred them on enormously. This then led us on to a story of a fisherman called Peter. In the story, Peter realised that Jesus was more than a friend, he was God as he did such amazing things such as save him from drowning and heal his mother. When Jesus told Peter that he would betray him by not knowing him three times before the cockerel crowed, Peter didn’t believe him. Peter told Jesus that he would never betray him as he was his best friend. However, later in the story Peter did in fact betray Jesus when he denied knowing him three times. Then, the cockerel crowed. This is when Peter had the realisation that he had betrayed Jesus after all and he was extremely upset with himself. He wasn’t sure if Jesus would ever forgive him but Jesus did because Jesus loved him very much. Peter became a forgiven man and he spent the rest of his life telling everyone about Jesus and how amazing he was. He spread the word of God. Rev Ben asked us about the story and what we could learn from this. A lot of our Year 6 children shared their views and said that making mistakes can be good as you can learn, grow and improve and that Jesus will always forgive you for the mistakes that you make. We ended our worship with a lovely prayer and a sing along to ‘Jesus Strong and Kind.’

Whole-School Worship - Guide Dogs

As it is National Pet Month, Mrs Ham invited some special visitors from the guide dogs charity into our collective worship. They came to tell us all about how guide dogs are selected, how they are trained and how they support blind people in their daily lives. Keith asked us to put our hands over our eyes in order to imagine what it must be like to be blind. Haydn said you might not see things on the floor so might trip up and Cici said you wouldn't be able to see where you were going. We were also introduced us to Willow, a working guide dog, and he showed us how to spot a guide dog by their harness. He also showed us how to spot if a blind person is in need of help. The children asked some great questions about blindness and about the charity. They were especially shocked to learn that each guide dog costs around £55,000! Two of our children have already sponsored a guide dog puppy and hopefully more families might choose to do the same. We ended our worship talking about Earth Day and how we can look after God’s creations. We all agreed that everyday should be Earth Day and we finished by singing 'I can make a difference in this world of ours'.

Earth Day- EYFS and Key Stage 1 Lunchtime

The children enjoyed celebrating Earth day this lunchtime as a reminder to look after our planet by making their own Earth creation using collage materials.

WOW Badge and Class Winners for March 2024

A huge well done to all 120 of our WOW badge winners for March 2024. What a super effort everyone has made. We have all tried really hard to either walk or park and stride once a week in the month of March which was a little taster session as we did it over the 2 weeks! A big congratulations to Year 5 as they have the most badge winners. We look forward to seeing who has earned a badge for April in a couple of weeks.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today,  we started our celebration worship by talking about why we are all wearing blue today which is for Autism Awareness Day at St Barnabas as part of Autism Awareness Month. Finn very bravely stood up in front of the whole school and told us a little bit about his brother Declan who has Autism. He told us that Declan doesn’t like walking in the rain as he doesn’t like the sensation and he told us that he doesn’t like very loud noises and will therefore sometimes wear his ear defenders. Despite this, Finn said that Declan leads an amazing life and it’s wonderful having a brother with Autism. Harvey, who has autism, also came to the front to show everyone his t-shirt which spread awareness for Autism and he loved blowing the worship candles out. We heard a little about how Harvey loves to sing rhymes and songs just like many of us. We then thought about how we’ve lived life in all its fullness this week with our wonderful worships led by both Mrs Ham and Rev Matt and all of our wonderful after school clubs including Little Voices, Mad Science Club, Forest schools and Cricket and Rounders Club. We then presented Hollie, Lydia, Frankie, Iris, Oliver, Olivia, Talia, Charlie, Betsy and Jake as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for consistently demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning, always showing kindness and respect to their teachers and friends and working incredibly hard across the curriculum. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, Jack and Sofia for receiving their pen licenses, Darwen Tower as the overall value award winners this week with an amazing 611 points, the children that completed the big plastic count for being super eco warriors, all of the children who have achieved their badge as part of the WOW initiative which involves walking to school or from school at least once a week and we said a special well done to Year 5 who have won the schools walk to school challenge by completing the most walks or park and strides so far. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Lenny for achieving his starfish swimming badge, Ella-Grace for achieving a trophy for coming first in her recent 3x3 football tournament, Sonny, Charlie, Leo and Desmond for winning the cup in their recent football tournament,  Iris for being a wonderful gymnast and swimming several lengths to raise awareness for diabetes, Sofia for achieving her level 4 in gymnastics, making her promise at Brownies, being part of Brownies for two years and achieving an award at musical theatre, Betsy for being awarded a medal for amazing ballet, Isaac for being awarded a merit in his swimming, Lyla for achieving her Stage 4 certificate at swimming, Eliza for achieving several rosettes in her horse riding, Alexis for making her Brownie promise and achieving 100m in her swimming, Alice and Grace for achieving their Brownie Promise badge, Annabelle for gaining her silver certificate for demonstrating several skills at swimming, Lydia and Ella for achieving their Level 1 at swimming, Leonora for achieving her 100m freestyle and 100m backstroke in her swimming, Harry and Eli for being awarded their 100m certificate at swimming, Archie for getting Man of the Match during his semi-final football match, Eden for attending Brownies for a year and achieving her Brownie Eid badge, Mila for achieving her badge for visiting the Fire Station at Rainbows, Marley for getting Olivia doll at Rainbows for being kind, Thomas for getting his 15m swimming certificate, Callie for achieving Stage 4 in her swimming and Cassidy for making her Brownie Promise and being awarded her badge. Wow, what a busy week of celebrations that we had! Rev Ben then led us in prayer and to end our celebration worship, we thanked all those who attended and we wish the the rest of our school family a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support too. 

Mrs Ham's Weekly message

Good afternoon parents and carers, it has been another wonderful week at St Barnabas! It was brilliant to hear in Celebration Worship about how each class has lived life in all its fullness and about all the great things that have been achieved this week both in and out of school. Please click here to read all about it: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news/2024-04-19-friday-celebration-worship Thank you to everyone for your support for autism awareness today by dressing in blue. A special thanks to Finn for being courageous by telling us all about his big brother Declan, who has autism and to our Harvey who loved showing us his special blue autism awareness t-shirt and how he loves to blow out our worship candles. This week we found out that 30 new children will be joining our school family in September and we can't wait to welcome them. Next Friday we are looking forward to our Hop, Skip and Jump in support of East Lancs Hospice. Donations can be made via parent pay. For all of this week's news, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news Thank you for your wonderful support and in particular with our walk to school initiative, which saw lots of children being awarded with their first WOW badge this morning. I would like to wish you all a fabulous weekend and I hope the weather is kinder to us next week. Take care and God bless, Mrs Ham

Year 2 - Maths

For the last 4 weeks, we have been learning our 2 , 5 and 10 times tables. Within this, we have learnt how to times numbers by 2 , 5 and 10. We have also been learning about doubling, halving and dividing. This week we have been focusing on dividing by 5. We used counters to make an array. From these arrays we have been able to split the total amount up into 5 groups. Then we can see how many is in each group and work out the answer. Maths in year 2 has been quite tricky lately but the children have tried so hard and have acquired new maths skills as a result.

Little Voices After School Club

What a super first session with Little Voices! Our little superstars played several games that helped to develop their confidence and they learnt and performed an amazing song! Well done everyone! There are still places available if you would like your child to take part for the next five weeks on Tuesday evenings. CONTACT HAYLIE: Email: [email protected] Mobile: 07717 711715

Forest school club

In forest school we have been discussing the birds coming back from migration and what we could do to help them. We decided to make bird feeders using pipe cleaners and cereal. We then went on a walk around school to decide which trees were the best to hang the bird feeders in.

Year 2 - PE

This week in PE, we practised our catching skills. Sometimes when there are lots of distractions in games it can become difficult to focus on the catch. We practised catching with different partners and with different distractions. In our game, we remembered if the ball came our way to not panic, get ready and catch the ball.

Rev Matt’s Worship: The Resurrection

Rev Matt came in to lead our worship today and tell us about the biggest surprise in the Bible: the resurrection. Rev Matt began with a mystery box game in which children had to feel an object in a box and guess what it was. He talked about how, even though we may worry about what’s coming, the surprise can often be the best thing. This is how the women felt when they visited Jesus’s tomb after his death. They were worried when they noticed Jesus was missing and the ground began to shake, but were overjoyed when Jesus appeared and spoke to them.

Mad Science After School Club- Optical Illusion

The Science after-school club got off to an exciting start as the young scientists dove into optics, reflection, and sight! They had a blast learning about light and vision, even using mirrors to draw pictures and understand how things reflect.

Year 2 English

As we continue to explore our new book Winter’s Child, we gathered a range of vocabulary. We used vocabulary from the book and our own vocabulary to describe the different settings in the book. Once we had created our bank of vocabulary, we then put them into sentences. We tried very hard to make sure every sentence had capital letters and full stops. The setting descriptions that we wrote are amazing. They are full of expanded noun phrases and similes to really help the reader imagine the setting.

Collective Worship- Road to Emmaus

This morning in our Collective Worship, we watched the latest Worship Together video from Blackburn Diocese. Lisa asked us to think about a time that we have run to share some exciting news with our friends or family. Archie said when he received a darts contract, Ella-Grace said when she won in a football 3x3 competition, Seb said when he won a dance competition, Luca said when he got a 171 in darts, Scarlett said when it was her birthday, Lyla Grace said when she got a fish and Alfie said when his team scored a goal. We then heard about the story of Jesus appearing to some of his followers on the road to Emmaus and how they ran back to tell the disciples. We then delved deeper into the story by watching a cartoon of the story to help us visualise what it must have been like for Jesus' disciples when he appeared to them and then disappeared. Bishop Philip explained how the disciples were happy as they knew that Jesus would always be with them and He is with us all the time. Lisa led us in a running prayer today and we all joined in with lots of enthusiasm. To finish our Worship we sang 'Let me walk beside you', said Jesus one day, which helps to explain how Jesus is with us when we are walking, sitting, standing and resting and we had some wonderful volunteers to show the younger children the actions. We then reflected on how we have lived life in all its fullness this week and Annabelle shared that she volunteered to be pushed into the freezing cold water during the Year 4 residential, Charlie said he jumped into the water twice, Jenson said he was brave in the water which felt like -25 and Isaac shared that he took part in some filming which pushed him out of his comfort zone. I wonder how we will live life in all its fullness this week?

Thank you parents and carers!

Thank you to everyone who attended parents’ evening last night. We had 85% of our parents attend which was great, especially with it being the first day back after the Easter holidays. It was lovely to welcome you back into school again and we hope you enjoyed hearing how your child has progressed since the last parents’ evening in December. Thank you for your patience when waiting for appointments and for your ongoing support. If you weren’t able to attend last night, please contact class teachers via class dojo to arrange a 5 minute phone call. There will be NO Celebration Worship tomorrow morning sorry due to the shorter week and Year 4 being on their residential trip to the Anderton Centre. A quick reminder that parents and carers are always welcome to join us for our Family Celebration Worship on Friday mornings, which will start next Friday. Refreshments will be available from 8.55am and worship will start at 9.05am. We look forward to seeing you and thank you for your continued support.

Easter Reflection Worship

It was wonderful to welcome our school family back after our Easter break. In our collective Worship we reflected on the events of Holy Week and joined in with a rhyming Bible story about when Jesus appeared to his disciples and we watched 'The Awesome Easter Surprise' video. We reflected on how Jesus must have felt telling his friends that he would be leaving them but we discussed how this was all part of God's plan and how God sent his son Jesus as a rescuer and saviour. We looked at our God's Big Story canvases and identified that the Easter story came in the salvation part. We then thought about how Jesus asked his disciples to love one another and live life in all its fullness. We talked to our partner about how we can live life in all its fullness, which is our school vision, and make Jesus proud of us. We had some really thoughtful answers such as: show love and respect to everyone including your pets, neighbours and parents, look after our world by picking up litter, donate clothes, toys and food to those who don't have as much as we have, challenge yourself, go outdoors and look at God's creations, be happy, play nicely with your friends and be grateful for everything we have. We finished our Worship with a prayer and sang Give me oil in my lamp to sing Hosanna to Jesus.

Easter Church Service

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Easter Service this morning. I’ve added some videos and photos to class dojo for parents who weren’t able to join us. Thank you to our Heads and Deputies for leading the service with me and to our KS2 classes for leading the singing. A special thanks to Rev Ben too for leading us in a special Easter prayer. We’ve had a wonderful few weeks in school in the lead up to Easter. Please click here to see all the Easter fun we have had: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/easter-2024 Thank you so much to our children for the amazing walking they have been doing both in and out of school for our Big Lent Walk challenge. As a school family we have walked a fantastic 2383km and raised £215 so far to help fight global poverty! Sponsor money can still be paid in on the following link: https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-big-lent-walk A quick reminder that we break up early today at 2.00pm and return back for the Summer term on Wednesday 10th April.

Amazing Attendance Winners - Spring Term

A huge congratulations to all of the children who received an Amazing Attendance certificate today for achieving great things by being in school for 96% of the time or over for the Autumn and Spring terms. We are so proud of you all!

Rev Matt’s Worship: Good Friday

Rev Matt’s worship this week began with a drawing challenge. A Year 4 child was shown a picture and they had to draw the picture on the back of a Year 5 child. This child then had to draw what they thought the picture was on the back of a Year 6 child, who had to attempt to draw it on flip chart paper. Rev Matt then explained that messages sometimes become distorted when we don’t see the full picture, but it is important to stay hopeful. This mirrors the sadness of Jesus’ death on Good Friday. We must remember that it was all part of God’s plan to save mankind.

Year 2 - Whitehall Park

This afternoon we visited the Rose Garden in Whitehall Park. As a school, we have turned the rose garden into an art exhibition full of the whole school’s Easter artwork. The children loved seeing all their art being displayed for the public to see. It is definitely worth a visit to the Rose Garden this Easter.

Collective Worship- Salvation

This morning in Worship we learnt about Palm Sunday with Mrs Ham and then we watched the Easter Worship Together across the Diocese video with Lisa and Bishop Philip. We looked at our school timeline of God's Big Story and found where salvation was in the New Testament. We then learnt all about Jesus being our salvation, our rescuer and saviour. We looked at our sorry tree and Mrs Ham read out some of the things we are sorry for (sins) and we asked for God’s forgiveness. We finished with an Easter prayer and Years 3 & 4 performed the songs they will be singing in our Easter Service on Thursday morning.

Mad Science After-School Club- Magnetic Magic

Our future scientists had a blast using paper clips, strings, and a magnetic board for hands-on exploration. They immersed themselves in the world of magnets, conducting experiments and discovering the fascinating properties of magnetism in a fun and engaging way.

Easter Artwork Trail in the Rose Garden

The St Barnabas Easter trail is now ready for visitors! Our whole school family has worked hard to represent a different part of the Easter story through art and we have selected some for our community to enjoy when they visit the Rose Garden at Whitehall Park. Our pictures have brought a lovely splash of colour to the garden to celebrate this joyous time in the Christian calendar. We hope that they will bring joy to all visitors.

Inter House Dodgeball Event

The Inter House Dodgeball competition was a huge success. Every single child across school took part and represented their house teams. It was fantastic to see the children getting involved, working as a team and having lots of fun. A massive thank you to the Sports leaders who ran the event and congratulations to both of our winning houses which were the yellow and green team - Whitehall Park and Darwen Tower

Friday Celebration Worship

Today, we started our celebration worship by thanking our whole school family for wearing odd socks yesterday for World Down Syndrome Awareness Day and all of our children who have contributed to our Big Lent Walk this week including Year 6 who have walked all over London and Year 1 who walked 3 and a half miles around Darwen on their local history walk. We then presented Fletcher, Maggie, Ella-Grace, Isabelle, Edward, Brooke and as the value award winners this week. Well done to those children for consistently demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning and demonstrating all of the 4Bs. Then Mr Prescott presented all of Year 6 as value award winners this week for representing the school amazingly well in London. Mr Prescott said that they all got along amazingly well, were incredibly well mannered and showed a genuine interest in all of the places they visited and things that they got to see. Well done Year 6. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 6 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, River Darwen who are our overall value award winners this week and our amazing swimming gala team made up of children from Year 3,4,5 and 6 for coming 3rd place overall and also achieving lots of individual placings. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Holly for achieving both her Stage 3 and 4 swimming certificates, Callie for being awarded the special teddy at stage coach for amazing singing, dancing and acting, Ella-Grace for being being successful in getting into the Man United Girls Football Team, Grace for receiving a letter from the King regarding her letter about the closing down of Waddow Hall, Maggie for showing wonderful commitment to Rainbows by attending for two years, Lola for showing generosity and raising money for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital by completing 50k in March, Annabel for completing her promise at Rainbows, Betsy for achieving a gold medal for ‘throwing herself into the deep end’ in her acro dancing, Scarlett for showing wonderful commitment to Rainbows by attending for two years, Marley for showing wonderful commitment to Rainbows by attending for one year, Arabelle for working hard to achieve her Stage 4 at swimming, Vienna for being awarded her water safety certificate, Harriet for achieving her Stage 4 in swimming, Thomas for being awarded his Level 1 First Aid certificate, being a super chef and a brilliant builder, Annabelle for achieving her Blue Peter Badge for reading and taking part in an orienteering competition, Leonora for completing seven swimming events in a 50m pool last weekend. To end of our celebration worship, we heard from Rev Ben who reminded us all about the Palm Sunday Church Service this weekend where our school choir will be singing and an Easter egg hunt that the church have organised on Good Friday. Mrs Wilkinson also reminded us about the Scholastic Book Fair which is running tonight, Monday and Tuesday after school. We also sang along to ‘Gospel Medley.’ 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.

Mrs Ham’s Weekly Message

Good evening parents and carers, well what a busy week it has been at St Barnabas and we sure have been living life in all its fullness! The highlights have been: *The Year 6 London trip *Odd Socks day for Down Syndrome Awareness Day *Year 5 class releasing the trout they have grown into River Darwen *Reception class visits from a firefighter and two dentists *Year 1 Victorian history walk *Inter-house dodgeball led by our Sports Leaders today Each class has been busy creating wonderful Easter artwork and a selection of it will be displayed in the Rose Garden in Whitehall Park. Each class will have the opportunity to visit it and it will be there over the Easter holidays if you would like to visit it as a family. For all of this week’s news from each class, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news On Sunday everyone is welcome to Rev Ben’s Palm Sunday service at 11.00am and our choir will be singing. Any of our school children can also join in too. Next week we will be celebrating Holy Week in school and everyone is welcome to our Easter Church Service on Thursday morning at 9.15am. We break up early for the Easter holidays on Thursday at 2.00pm. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend with your loved ones and I hope our Year 6 children rest and recharge after a busy couple of days in London, Mrs Ham

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 2 - History

After the Battle of Hastings, William I built many castles across England. This week, we explored the different types of castles we might find in this country. We compared different castles from different time periods. Then we drew our own castle which included many of the features we identified. The children made sure their castle had lots of features so it could defend itself against a potential invasion!

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 2 - English

Before we begin writing our sequel to ‘The Journey’, we needed to ensure we have a good understanding of the story. We created a storyboard to recall all of the important events that had happened in the story so far.

Year 2 - RE

In Year 2, we have produced artwork that will go on display in the Rose Garden at Whitehall Park. Our class created the last supper scene using painting and stamping. The children took real pride in making sure their artwork was exactly how they wanted it to look. The final results are wonderful and we can’t wait to visit our artwork in Whitehall park next week!

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

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.

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.

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!

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!

Year 2 - History

This week in History, we continued our learning looking at Monarchs. In previous lessons we learnt about our current monarch King Charles III. This week we went back nearly 1000 years to 1066 and the Battle of Hastings. We looked into the Norman Conquest and the events that occurred leading to William of Normandy becoming king. We then looked at the Bayeux Tapestry which shows scenes from the Battle.

The W.O.W. Group: Messy Church

This week was our final week of Messy Church and the W.O.W. Group have thoroughly enjoyed planning and delivering these interactive sessions. Our final week was based on creation again. The children watched a video about God creating the world and then chose, from a range of activities, to create something with a partner. All sorts of materials were available so that they could let their imaginations run wild.

Rev Matt’s Worship: The Story of Zacchaeus

This morning Rev Matt began our worship talking about soft and hard materials and how some materials can be softened. This led nicely into the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector who had a hard heart and did not treat people very well. However, when Jesus called Zacchaeus to Him and requested to go to Zacchaeus’s house, Zacchaeus changed and had a softer heart. The story taught us that those who struggle are the ones who need our kindness most.

Year 2 - English

This week in English we are continuing to work with our new book ‘Journey’. Today we used our previous learning of how to use speech and new learning of subordinating conjunctions. The children created conversions the characters in the book could have. Within their speech, the children were challenged to include subordinating conjunctions. The speech the children wrote was brilliant!

Mad Science After- School Club-Watts-Up!

The future Scientists had a blast this afternoon: They learned about static electricity, exploring its properties and involvement in natural phenomena. They also created indoor lightning and conducted hair-raising experiments with an electrostatic generator.

Year 2 - Art

In Art this week, we created more rubbings from interesting textures we could find around the classroom. These rubbings were cut or torn to create a collage. This process of using rubbings to form the basis of a piece of artwork is called frottage. The end results were amazing!

Values Points House Team Winners - Spring 1 2024

A huge well done to our Values Awards Winners for Spring Term 1 2024 - Team Whitehall Park. Today they celebrated their win with a special non- uniform day, sweet treats and a disco. It was lovely to see each and every one of them dancing and having lots of fun! Well done Team Whitehall Park on another successful half term win!

Friday Celebration Worship

Today, we started our celebration worship by wishing all of the wonderful women in our school family a Happy International Women’s Day. We then thought about how we’ve lived life in all its fullness this week with a lovely Mother’s Day breakfast hosted by FOSB, a special Mother’s Day celebration in Reception class, a fantastic author visit from R.K. Alker, an amazing day celebrating World Book Day, a visit to King George’s Hall Let’s Go Sing concert for our amazing choir and lots of amazing extra curricular clubs. We then presented Vienna, Charlie, Archie, Carter, Declan, Grace, Bobby and Sienna as our value award winners this week. Well done to those children for consistently showing our Christian Values and working incredibly hard across the curriculum. We then had a phenomenal performance from our incredible choir of ‘Dancing on Air’ which was one of their songs at Let’s Go Sing concert. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week, our Year 5/6 football team who attended the Football Festival on Tuesday evening, our amazing librarians for all of their effort and enthusiasm on World a book Day and Grace, Annabelle and James in Year 4 for designing badges for the launch of the WOW initiative. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Jenson for achieving his 400m at swimming, Daisy for getting Emily the doll at Rainbows for being incredibly kind and thoughtful, Eliza for being awarded player of the match in her football match at the weekend, Skye and Rosie for demonstrating incredible skills in their horse riding lessons, Isaac for achieving a 100m medal in a swimming competition, Cassidy for being awarded gymnast of the session and Scarlett for achieving her ‘World Thinking Day’ badge. To end our worship, we had a lovely prayer from Rev Ben, sang happy birthday to those children who are celebrating birthdays today and this weekend and we had a sing along to ‘We Have a King Who Rides a Donkey.’ Mrs Ham also reminded us that it is dress in red for Comic Relief next Friday 15th March. 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.

The Big Plastic Count

THE BIG PLASTIC COUNT We're excited that our school is joining the Big Plastic Count initiative from March 11th to 17th. The issue of plastic waste affects us all, and our young ones must have a say in finding solutions. Click on the link below for more information. https://youtu.be/x0nQHO7Mw-k?si=76vpk8Hf9wXOKqn1 During this initiative, your children will play a vital role in gathering evidence about what happens to our plastic waste. This information will be used to advocate for change at national and global levels, urging UK ministers, supermarkets, and major brands to take action towards phasing out plastic production. In the coming days, your child will receive a ‘Let’s count tally sheet’. Count as you throw from Monday 11th March morning until Sunday 17th March! Simply mark every piece of plastic package as you throw it away on the tally sheet. We encourage you to support them in this activity, and they can then input their findings at home using the unique class link provided on their class page between 18-31 March. Once all the results are in, we'll create our class footprint and share it with the children. We appreciate your continuous support in involving our pupils in these significant initiatives. Thank you, Smart School Council and Miss Kachwalla

Mrs Ham's Weekly Message

Dear parents and carers, wow, what another busy week of 'achieving great things' and 'living life in all its fullness'! The highlights have been: *Choir Let's Go Sing concert at King George's Hall *Reception class firefighter visit and Mother's Day Worship *Years 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Big Lent Walks *Year 5 and 6 football festival *An author visit- RK Alker *FOSB Mother's Day Breakfast- Thank you FOSB! *Year 3 visited by a baker and made apple crumble * World book day- the word costumes were amazing! *International Women's Day girls football tournament *Whitehall Park house team winners non-uniform day and disco *WOW walk to school launch Next week we have a slightly quieter week but are looking forward to: Monday: Launch of the Big Plastic Count Wednesday: Rhyme and story time for Reception class and younger children Thursday: Cross Country competition for our cross country team Friday: Dress in red for Red Nose Day, Comic Relief Darwen Swimming gala for our swimming squad. Thank you so much for your donations and support towards our Big Lent Walk. We have now walked 1088km. Please keep sending in your walks and sponsorship money can be donated here: https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-big-lent-walk For all the latest photos in our gallery, please click here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-gallery-category/our-gallery For all of the latest news from each class, please click here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news or see our facebook page. I've attached a photo of the upcoming church Easter services and your child should come home with an invitation today. We are looking forward to our choir singing on Palm Sunday 24th March and everyone is welcome to come and support. Happy International Women's day to all of our wonderful Mums, Grandmas, female staff and young ladies in our school family. We hope that all of our Mums and Grandmas have a wonderful relaxing day on Mothering Sunday. Rev Ben is leading a special church service at 11.00am on Sunday and everyone is welcome. Wishing you all a fabulous weekend and thank you for your ongoing support, Mrs Ham

WOW Initiative Assembly Launch

Today we had our WOW assembly in which we learned all about our new walk to school challenge and how we need to try to walk to school (or find an active way) at least once a week. We met Dan who is from Living Streets. He told us how we can earn badges every month by taking part. It’s so important to walk to improve our mental wellbeing, get fit and decrease pollution. We look forward to practising with the Travel Tracker next week with our newly appointed WOW Ambassadors.

World Book Day- Dress as a word

Happy world book day! The children have loved seeing all of our staff team dressed as different words and have had great fun guessing their lords. We have had some brilliant challenging vocabulary from onomatopoeia to metamorphosis! Can you guess the words?

Forest School Club

In forest school club we have been making stick people. The children found the sticks they wanted to use and thought about how they wanted their stick people to look. We learned how to do a square lashing to hold the sticks together. When we finished our stick people the children chose to have a game of stick in the mud.

KS1 Wellbeing Club

Today at wellbeing club, our Year 1 and 2 children made Mothering Sunday cards. Their cards doubled up as hanging decorations so that their mummy’s could remove these from the cards and continue to display them even when the Mothering Sunday cards are taken down.

World Book Day- Reading for Pleasure

As part of our World Book Day celebrations, all of our teachers and teaching assistants swapped classes and read to a group of children in a different year group. The children loved being read to by a different adult to usual and our teaching staff thoroughly enjoyed promoting reading for pleasure.

KS1 World Book Day Assembly

Thank you to our wonderful KS1 children for their fantastic enthusiasm and excitement in this morning’s World Book Day assembly. Mrs Ham introduced the worship by telling the children all about the word that she had come dressed as which was ‘onomatopoeia.’ The children then joined in with a picture book quiz. During the first round, the children had to identify the title of a book by looking at the front cover. This included book titles such as The The Smartest Giant in Town, Elmer, The Squirrels Who Squabbled, Who Pooed in my Loo, My Dad is a Grizzly Bear and The Highway Rat. The second round consisted of playing emoji Pictionary with books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Giraffes Can’t Dance, The Gruffalo and The Tiger Who Came to Tea. All of the books that were on the quiz were books that we have in our library so we are hoping that our children now feel inspired to sample a book that they haven’t yet read. Our librarians also awarded Emily and Molly with their book tokens as they were the KS1 winners of our ‘Design a Bookmark with Your Favourite Book Title’ competition.Molly’s bookmark showed her love of the ‘Who Pooed in my Loo?’ picture book and Emily’s showed her love of ‘Stickman.’

Year 2 - World Book Day

We had an action packed World Book Day. Here we are enjoying our book tasting towards the end of the day. This was a nice opportunity to relax and enjoy a good book. We had a selection of books for the children to choose from whilst enjoying juice and biscuits. Any books the children liked, were added to their book shelf of favourite books.

FOSB Mother’s Day Breakfast

A huge thank you to our members of FOSB and staff who supported at our special Mother’s Day breakfast this morning. Thank you to everyone who came and we hope you enjoyed it. Wishing all of our school family Mums and Grandmas a wonderful relaxing Mother’s Day on Sunday. All of the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/fosb-mother-s-day-breakfast

KS1 Author Visit

This morning, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 had a visit from children’s author, R.K.Alker. He told us that he hadn’t always been an author but he had also worked in many other professions. Whilst working as a paramedic, he had hurt his leg and could no longer do this anymore so he was suddenly struck by the idea of becoming a children’s author. He believes that God has called him to become a children's author. It was something that he’d dreamed of for 30 years and became incredibly excited by the idea. He told us that he writes a story by writing it and then going back to edit and improve it by making sure that he’s told the author who, what, where, when, why and how, using his his five senses and re-reading his writing to check it makes sense. He then read chapter 7 of his story, ‘My Grandad Vs the FangaZOO’ and we met a mischievous little boy called Zac who set off the emergency alarm on the aeroplane. Rich then did a question and answer session. Renee asked how many books Rich had published, Jack asked what Rich’s favourite part of his story was, Isaac asked how long it took Rich to write a book, Cassidy asked where Rich had got his inspiration for writing from, Lottie asked how long Rich had been writing books and Elijah had asked what Stretch the Dragon (who features in Rich’s story) likes to do at the weekend.

World Book Day Competition

A few weeks ago, our school librarians set a whole school competition. This was to design a bookmark with their favourite book and explain why. Today, the school librarians and our English link governor have been judging our World Book Day competition ready to announce in our World Book Day assembly tomorrow.

Year 2 - Maths

Today in maths, we continued our learning with multiplication. We made equal groups of counters which we added together. From this we were able to write our multiplication sentence with the multiply symbol. Once we had created our groups, when then moved the counters into stacks. This is called unitising, it made it easier to see that 1 group does not always have a value of 1.

Big Lent Walk: both targets achieved!

Wow! We have achieved both of our targets already for the Big Lent Walk. A huge thank you to our wonderful children and families for taking part to help us to travel 385.4km (so far!!) Thank you to everyone who has sponsored us so far- our families, friends and the community. Your generosity means so much. We still have just under 4 weeks of Lent left so I am sure we can continue to add more km to our distance travelled and raise more money for this wonderful cause. You are not too late to get involved so please send your pictures and total km walked to either myself or Mrs Ham. Donations can still be made here: https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-big-lent-walk?utm_medium=email&utm_source=PostOffice&utm_campaign=DS_EVENTS-LFC_Trans_NthDonation Thank you for your kindness and generosity,

Rev Ben’s Worship- Jesus welcomes the children

This morning in Collective Worship Rev Ben started with a fun game where we all had to touch our nose, then stand on one leg, then whilst hopping, then whilst turning around and finally whilst shouting 'Good morning Mrs Ham'. We discussed how the busier you get, the harder it can be to do things. He then read us a story from the Bible about how everyone wanted to see Jesus and how his disciples thought he was too busy and important to see the children. However, they were wrong as Jesus welcomed the children and said that adults could learn from the example of children and that he is never too busy. We reflected on how we are sometimes so busy but it helps us to know that Jesus is never too busy to listen to us. We finished by singing Jesus strong and kind and My God's the King of Giants. Thank you Rev Ben for another brilliant Worship!

Year 2 - Big Lent Walk

This afternoon, Year 2 set off to Whitehall Park to do our bit for the Big Lent Walk. We added 2.5 kilometres to the school total.

Year 2 - Art

In art this week, we were looking at rubbings. To get an interesting pattern, it was important to look for objects with interesting textures. We used various objects from around the classroom and found objects/surfaces from Whitehall Park during our Big Lent Walk.

Mad Science After- School Club- Optical illusion

Today, the children in the science club observed changing images firsthand through a camera obscura while delving into the fascinating realms of optics, reflection, and sight.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today, we started our celebration worship discussing the ‘Big Lent Walk’ challenge that we are currently participating in as a school to fundraise for CAFOD to help to fight poverty globally and boost our mental health and well-being. At present, we have exceeded our 200km target and we are confident that we can double and maybe even triple it so please get involved and send your pictures through to Mrs Ham or Mrs Wilkinson. We also thought about how we’ve lived life in all its fullness this week with the help of our amazing science, running, well-being and messy church clubs and all the wonderful learning in our classes. We then presented Olivia, Renee, Roman, Penelope, Isaac, April, Luca, Ella, Joshua and Oliver as our value award winners this week. Well done to those children for consistently following the 4Bs and demonstrating a wonderful attitude to learning. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, River Darwen who are our overall value award winners this week and Tristen, Daisy and Desmond for achieving their pen licenses. We also said a huge well done to Carter, Ivy, Rio, Molly, Luca, Daisy, Charlie and Matthew for participating in our SIG5 times tables competition and pushing themselves out of their comfort zone. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Eliza and Carmen for showing commitment and achievement in their keyboard lessons, Eliza for demonstrating fantastic skill in her football, Tristen for a achieving his yellow belt in kickboxing, Mila for getting Olivia at Rainbows for showing lots of kindness and being both helpful and creative, Marley and Maggie for achieving their ‘World Thinking Day’ and some other badges for their commitment to Rainbows, Elsie, Eden and Grace for completing their promise at Brownies and achieving lots of badges for attending Brownie camp and completing several challenges and also to Elsie for working exceptionally hard at her English tuition lessons. We then ended our worship by saying the grace altogether and listening to a song called ‘You’ve Got to Sing’ by the choir that they will be performing at KGH next week. Just a reminder that it is the Mother’s Day Breakfast run by FOSB next Wednesday 6th March at 8.15am-8.45am. The cut off for purchasing tickets will be Monday. It is also World Book Day next Thursday 7th March and we have asked the children to dress up as a word for example courageous, athletic, mythical and disciplined. We can’t wait to see what you come up with. 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.

Wellbeing Club

Mrs Wilkinson really enjoyed spending time with some children from Years 1 and 2 for the start of their wellbeing club. They discussed why it is important to look after ourselves and how we can be kind to ourselves. We then made friendship bracelets and looked at affirmations and coloured in some affirmation posters.

CAFOD: Lent Big Walk Update

Wow, we have already met our target of 200km!!Well done to everybody who has contributed so far! Who thinks we can double our distance by the end of Lent? If you are up for the challenge, please continue to send your photos in to either myself or Mrs Ham . So far we have raised £94. Please ask your family and friends to see if they will sponsor us so that we can reach our target of £200 for a worthwhile cause. Donations can be sent here: https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-big-lent-walk Thank you so much, Mrs Wilkinson

Rev Matt’s Worship: Perseverance

Rev Matt’s worship began with a balloon challenge this morning. The aim was for the children to persevere and keep the balloon up in the air for as long as possible. All three contenders did extremely well. He then shared the story of the man through the roof, in which the sick man’s friends had persevered in seeking help for him. After bringing their friend to Jesus they discovered the house was overcrowded, but they refused to give up. Instead they made a hole in the roof and lowered him in so that Jesus might heal him. We spent time reflecting on how we could help our friends, and those in need.

Year 2 - Science

In Science this week, we investigated if we could change a material’s properties by melting and combing 2 materials together. We looked at how John McAdam designed roads and that he said a mixture of large rocks, small rocks and gravel was the best way to make the road strong. We put this to the test and made 3 roads. A chocolate road, a chocolate and raisins road and a chocolate and biscuit road. We made sure to use the same amount of chocolate for each road to keep it a fair test. After the roads had set, we placed cars on each road until it broke. We were able to place the most weight on the chocolate and biscuit road making it the strongest road.

Easter Singing Worship

What a joyous start to the week! This morning we practised some of our Easter songs ready for our Easter church service in a few weeks. Each class took a turn to show our Reception and Year 1 classes the actions. We sang 'When I think about the cross', 'Give me oil in my lamp', 'This is the story of the cross' 'We have a King who rides a donkey' and our favourite Easter song 'Lord of the Dance'. Well done everyone for your amazing actions, beautiful singing voices and wonderful enthusiasm!

Year 2 - RE

We continued to learn about the Easter story in RE, in particular the resurrection of Jesus. After Jesus had risen, in the book of John, he told his disciples that seeds must be planted so new life can shoot up. In class we planted flowers that will grow from the darkness of the soil and in to the world as beautiful, bright flowers. Just like Jesus rising from the darkness of the tomb. It will be lovely to have a reminder in class of new life being brought into the world at Easter.

Mad Science After-School Club. We made slime!

The scientists picked their favourite colours in today's session and had a blast making slime. They learned about cool stuff like polymers and how mixing two liquids can turn into gooey slime. They were excited to take it home to show their parents and carers.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our worship by signing the trinity and discussing our week in school. We reflected on our wonderful Lent worship with Rev Ben and the launch of our Big Lent Walk to fundraise for CAFOD to help to fight poverty globally and boost our mental health and well-being. At present, we have walked 129.7km and raised £91. We are confident that we can exceed our 200km target and raise even more money so please get involved and send your pictures through to Mrs Ham or Mrs Wilkinson. We then presented Olly, Charlie, James, Iris, Charlie, Lola, Neve, Rosie and Molly as our value award winners this week. Well done to those children for consistently demonstrating our 4Bs, working hard and participating whole-heartedly in class discussions. We also congratulated Reception and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week with 619 points. The Year 6 Heads and Deputies announced that over the past two weeks, we have collected 2067 values points as a school-how amazing! We also said a huge well done to Luca in Year 4 who achieved his pen license this week, our Year 5/6 Sportshall Athletics who achieved 4th place in BwD just before the half-term, our KS2 gifted and talented gymnastics team who attended a competition at St Bedes before the half-term and demonstrating wonderful skill and sportsmanship and our Year 3/4 Sportshall athletics team who came 4th place last night at St Bedes. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Charlie and Isabella for being awarded their green belt in martial arts, Grace for achieving several medals in her song and dance and improv dancing, Jacob for achieving his water skills stage 3, Lyla for achieving a medal for her incredible ballet, Finn for achieving 2k Winter Warmer running challenge, Isaac for achieving a medal for great leadership in his performing arts and taking part in some wonderful fundraising, Archie for being awarded a trophy to be proud of for exceptional darts, James for achieving his stage 1 in his swimming, Annabel for her successes in achieving stage 2 in skating and being star of the week at dancing, Naomi for being awarded her Stage 3 at swimming, Mila for achieving her ‘World Thinking Day’ badge at Rainbows, Cassidy for achieving her ‘World Thinking Day’ badge at Brownies, Annabelle for showing commitment and achievement in her keyboard lessons, Eden for achieving her ‘World Thinking Day’ badge at Brownies and Heidi for being awarded her First Aid Badge at Rainbows. We then ended our worship with a lovely prayer about being generous, especially during Lent and sang ‘Build Up.’ We thank our children for another wonderful week and we look forward to next week. Just a reminder that ‘The World Book Day competition’ entries need to handed in by next Friday 1st March so please get your entries in by then and also the Mother’s Day Breakfast that FOSB are running on Wednesday 6th March. You can find further details on Class Dojo. 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.

Year 2 History

We began our new History topic of Monarchs by looking at what a monarch actually is and what they do. We discussed our current monarch King Charles III and his roles and responsibilities. We designed a crown with symbols that represent what a Monarch’s job is. For example, writing a speech, money to show wealth, handshakes to show him meeting with other people and a bible to show their faith.

Year 2 - The Big Debate

This morning, we began our day by having a debate in class. This week's topic was ‘should all children be given pocket money?’. We had various points of view in class. We listened to each side of the debate and then voted. As a class the majority of us thought that all children should not be given pocket money. The main reason for this is we thought parents might have more important things to spend their money on.

Year 2 - PSHE

FOSB Disco

A huge thank you to everyone who attended our FOSB Disco. It was lovely to see all of the children dancing and having lots of fun. A huge thank you to our FOSB members for giving up their time to prepare and stay for the disco- you are all superstars! A massive thank you to DJ Dunn, one of our parent governors for providing the music and games! For all the photographs from the EYFS and KS1 disco, please look here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/fosb-eyfs-and-ks1-school-disco For photographs from the KS2 disco, please look here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/fosb-key-stage-2-disco

Rev Ben’s Worship- Jesus chooses his disciples

This morning in Collective Worship, Rev Ben started with a fun game where we had to guess the superpowers that our wonderful volunteers, Walter, Lottie, Isabella, Charlie-Rose and Matthew acted out. We guessed the superpowers of speed, strength, sports, invisibility and flight. We then followed on from Jesus' 40 days in the desert and we watched a story from the Bible that showed what happened next. We watched as Jesus chose his followers, called his disciples. They didn't have superpowers and were very ordinary and often made mistakes, just like us. Rev Ben told us that the best followers of Jesus don’t have super-powers and God works today through ordinary people who love Jesus and admit it when they get things wrong. He then told us about Ash Wednesday and how that is a time to ask God for forgiveness for the things we have done wrong. Wilson, our Head Boy, volunteered to have an ash cross put on his head. We then reflected on what we can do when we get things wrong and how God will always forgive us. We finished by singing My Lighthouse and My God's the King of me. Thank you Rev Ben for another wonderful worship.

Year 2 - Science

This week in science, we continued investigating the properties of materials. This week we investigated which materials were waterproof. We looked at how the first Macintosh was made by binding two materials together which together made a waterproof layer. Then it was time for us to carry out our own experiment, to see which materials were waterproof. We recorded our results in a table so we could see which materials would be most suitable for a waterproof coat.

Mad Science After -School Club- Missions Nutritious

Today, in our after-school club led by a scientist, the young children investigated the energy content of food by burning a stale crisp and using the released energy to heat water. We discovered that one crisp equals 6 calories. This was super exciting to watch. The young scientists also measured their energy expenditure by jogging on the spot. For our final experiment, the children filled a bottle halfway with water and then poured in about 100ml of oil. They then observed the oil float on the water. They were fascinated by this observation. We also estimated the length of a child's intestine during the session, adding to our exploration of the human body. They're eagerly looking forward to next week's experiment with slime.

Whole-School Worship: Understanding Lent

In worship today, Mrs Ham explained that Lent is a time in the Christian calendar in which we observe Jesus’ time in the wilderness and prepare for Easter. We discussed what we could do to observe Lent. Some of the children’s suggestions included giving up sweets, chocolate, crisps, time on devices, or giving back by helping at home or making an extra effort to show kindness to others. We also learned more about THE BIG LENT WALK and how each member of our school family can contribute by walking a few kilometres over the Lenten period and raising money that will go towards ending global hunger. More information is available on Class Dojo.

The Big Lent Walk

During Lent, our school are currently fundraising for CAFOD. We are taking part in the big Lent walk where we are collectively trying to walk 200km. Please help us to raise as much money as possible by sponsoring our whole school family. If you have been on a walk, please either sponsor and leave a message with how many km you have walked or send me a message and I can update our page. We will also be walking during the school day in our classes to achieve our target so any sponsorship will be greatly appreciated. Your sponsorship can change lives. Every £1 raised through the Big Lent Walk will help fight poverty globally in countries like Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. This year, CAFOD’s Lent Appeal is helping fishing communities feed their families in Liberia, and SCIAF’s Wee Box Appeal is focused on women and girls in Rwanda facing gender-based violence. Also in Ethiopia, CAFOD and SCIAF are working together to respond to the devastating food crisis there. Years of drought caused by the climate crisis means families are no longer able to cope, but your support means we are working with people right now, providing them with water, emergency food and healthcare. With your hard work and sponsorship this Lent, we can change families’ lives for good and tell poverty to take a hike. Please access our page here where you can sponsor your child: https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-big-lent-walk Thank you for your kindness, Mrs Wilkinson

Celebration Worship- Dress to Express Day

Today, we had a very special worship to celebrate Children's Mental Health Week. We all ‘Dressed to Express’ and danced our way into the hall. We discussed the theme for this year which is ‘Our Voice Matters’ and we watched a video that told us all about the rights and responsibilities that we have such as being free to choose to think what we like and have our own opinions and ideas. Mrs Ham then showed us some pictures of people that have been influential in the past for standing up for their belief. Ross and Wilson named Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parkes, Sonny named Ayanna all of whom worked to end black segregation. Darcy named Marcus Rashford who has been influential in helping to stop racism within football and Charlie added that he has also been helping to support children who are entitled to free school meals. We then heard from some children from each year group about how they’ve chosen to express themselves. Hamza expressed his love of football and fashion, Archie his love of darts, Isaac his love of BMX, Charlie-Rose her love of all things sports, Betsy her love of dancing, Mason his love of smart clothes and attending special occasions such as weddings, Archie his love of football, Grace and Lola their love of gymnastics, Sonny represented all those in the world who live with diabetes, Daisy her love of art and bright colours, Renee’s love of PJ Masks, Olivia’s love of the colour pink and Jewellery, Alfie’s love of playing and watching football, Ella-Grace’s love of dancing and sparkles, Isabella’s loves of wearing pyjamas because you can snuggle and be cosy in them, Naomi’s love of all things pink, Charlie’s love of football, Annabel’s love of Ariel, Joey’s love of Spider-Man and Elijah’s love of superheroes. Mrs Ham then asked some of our members of staff how they had chosen to express themselves. Mr Prescott and Mrs Norris chose to bring their golf clubs to express themselves as golfers, Miss Kachwalla and Mrs Lyons expressed themselves by wearing bright and bold colours to express themselves as creative and Mrs Hegarty wore an apron to express herself as a baker. What a wonderful way to end ‘Mental Health Week.’ We wish you all a restful and enjoyable half-term and we look forward to welcoming you all back on Monday 19th February.

Dress to Express 2024

What a fantastic day we’ve had celebrating Dress to Express! It was lovely to get together as a whole school to raise awareness for Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Every single member of our school family certainly dressed to express themselves and made themselves heard as we all have a voice. Well done to all of the children that spoke about why they had chosen their outfits and how it allowed them to express themselves.

St Barnabas Big Lent Walk

Good morning, Next Wednesday 14th February, is the start of Lent. During Lent, our school will be fundraising for CAFOD. We will be taking part in the big Lent walk where we will collectively try and walk 200km. Please help us to raise as much money as possible by sponsoring our whole school family. If you have been on a walk, please either sponsor and leave a message with how many km you have walked or send me a message and I can update our page. We will also be walking during the school day in our classes to achieve our target so any sponsorship will be greatly appreciated. Your sponsorship can change lives. Every £1 raised through the Big Lent Walk will help fight poverty globally in countries like Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. This year, CAFOD’s Lent Appeal is helping fishing communities feed their families in Liberia, and SCIAF’s Wee Box Appeal is focused on women and girls in Rwanda facing gender-based violence. Also in Ethiopia, CAFOD and SCIAF are working together to respond to the devastating food crisis there. Years of drought caused by the climate crisis means families are no longer able to cope, but your support means we are working with people right now, providing them with water, emergency food and healthcare. With your hard work and sponsorship this Lent, we can change families’ lives for good and tell poverty to take a hike. Please access our page here where you can sponsor your child: https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-big-lent-walk Thank you for your kindness, Mrs Wilkinson

Safer Internet Raps

*PROUD POST* A huge well done to Years 1-4 for their fantastic safer internet raps this morning & to Year 5 for introducing our safer internet worship. Please have a watch of the videos on class dojo. After the Safer Internet Day worship on Tuesday, Mrs Wilkinson set them the challenge of performing a rap to the whole school to advise them how to keep safe online. This week is also Children’s Mental Health week and the theme is My Voice Matters so this was a great opportunity for the children to use their voice. Some of the children were nervous about performing in front of the whole school but they showed lots of courage and did brilliantly. Over the next few years we are going to be involved in an oracy project with our Trust called Voice 21. This will develop our children’s oracy skills and develop their confidence when speaking in small groups and large groups. Well done, you are superstars!

Year 2 - Science

In science this week, we continued looking at everyday materials. We have been looking at their uses and properties. Today we explored if different materials could stretch, squash, bend or twist. The children found different objects from around the classroom made for varying materials. They then conducted their own tests to see if the shape of the object could be changed. We recorded our results in our own table and then compared results either our peers.

Year 2 - DT

In DT this week we finished our finger puppets! Last week, we; created the shape and size of our finger puppets, traced our shapes on to felt, cut the pieces of felt out and then stuck our pieces together using fabric glue. This week it was time to add the details of our finger puppets and make the characters come alive. This included googly eyes, mouths and some pointy ears for our wolves. The end results are superb and are definitely fit for purpose. The children should be very proud of the perseverance they showed to over come challenges.

Year 2 - History

We have loved learning about how we learned to fly over the past 5 weeks. From the Wright brothers first flight in 1904 to the moon landing in 1969. The children have been fascinated by how certain people were able to invent new ways to fly that hadn’t been thought of before. This week, we combined all of our learning and put it on a time line so we can see the events in chronological order.

Year 2 - Junior Jam

In Music this week, the children continued to work as a whole class with the boom whackers to create a song. In computing, the children created their own games learning how to add complications within them.

Safer Internet Day

This morning our whole school enjoyed a special worship, focusing on how to stay safe on the internet to celebrate Safer Internet Day. We discussed why it is important to raise awareness. We looked at what technology looked like compared to now. We then looked at what can happen online and how important it is that we know what to do if we come across something that makes us feel uncomfortable. The children discussed how we can speak to Mrs Ham, Mrs Wilkinson, our teachers, our sports coaches and our families if we feel we have seen something we shouldn’t have. We also discussed why our parents might check our devices and how our grown ups, including our teachers always want to keep us safe. We then joined lots of other schools from all around the country on a special assembly to discuss safe and unsafe things which may happen online. The importance of passwords, checking the settings so they aren’t sharing information with people they don’t know and also what to do if people they don’t know try to contact them online. Every Wednesday, we post guidance on how to keep safe online. Please have a look and discuss the National Online Safety posters with your children. The online world can be wonderful as long as we know how to use it safely.

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.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our worship by signing the trinity and discussing our week in school. We reflected on our very joyous singing worship that we had on Monday with Mrs Ham and our wonderful worship with Rev Ben about ‘Turning To God’ on Tuesday. We then presented Edward, Ella, Joshua, Luke, Eden, Bella, Ivy, Archie and Isaac as our value award winners this week. Well done to those children for demonstrating kindness, compassion and an excellent attitude and commitment to learning. We also congratulated Year 4 and Year 1 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park who are our value award winners this week. We then moved on to our out of school achievers. Well done to Holly for achieving her Stage 3 at swimming, Sofia for working hard to achieve lots of new badges at Rainbows including her performance badge, Archie for giving 100% during his football training, Dougie for achieving his white belt at jiu jitsu, Isaac for celebrating his successes in drama and performance with achieving a part in Waterloo Road, Tristen for working hard to achieve his yellow belt in kickboxing, Grace for demonstrating incredible talent in both her acro and lyrical dancing, Jack for achieving Stage 4 in his swimming, Scarlett for getting Rainbow Bear at her netball sessions for demonstrating incredible footwork, Matthew for being awarded with a huge celebratory gold cup for his commitment to a recent tournament whilst representing Manchester United U10s football club, Finn for being elected as the sixer at cubs, Ivy and Betsy for their commitment to both lyrical and acro dancing and also performing an incredible duet together. We then ended our worship with a lovely prayer from Rev Ben and a sing along to ‘Build Up.’ We thank our children for another wonderful week of achieving great things and we look forward to next week. Just a reminder that it is our ‘Dress to Express Day’ next Friday 9th February. 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.

Aladdin Pantomime

This afternoon our whole school family enjoyed a wonderful production of Aladdin by M&M productions. Oh no they didn't! Oh yes they did! It was fabulous to see all of the children joining in through cheering, booing, singing and dancing along to the songs. They particularly enjoyed Mr Prescott and Mr Norris' dancing! The cast said they had never had a school who joined in so well and who all stood up and danced at the end! Thank you so much to our FOSB for their donation and to all of your parent contributions, as without your support, we wouldn't be able to provide such exciting enrichment activities.We hope this has inspired some of our children to audition for our upcoming Barney's Got Talent show next half term. What a fabulous way to end a brilliant week of 'achieving great things' at St Barnabas!

Year 2 - PSHE

This week in PSHE, we are still looking in particular at rights and respect. We read the book ‘My mouth is a Volcano’ by Julia Cook, in the book, a boy struggles to keep his emotions regulated. We thought about when we can be in similar situations at school. Recently, it has been difficult to remain calm on the playground when games don’t go the way we wanted. We spoke about different strategies to use to help us regulate emotions in those difficult situations.

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.

Year 2 - English

As we continue learning with our book Traction Man, today we got into the role of Traction Man. We took turns being interviewed as Traction Man where we had to answer various questions posed by a partner. We wrote our responses into pieces of dialogue written in the first person.

Year 2 - DT

During DT this week, we continued learning about different types of puppets and how they are made. This week it was time for us to have a go at making a finger puppet. The children showed determination to complete the first steps of their puppet despite challenges along the way. Next week, we will add details to our puppets and evaluate our designs and making.

Songs of Praise Worship

We had a joyous start to the week with our songs of praise singing worship. We practiced a selection of our favourite songs including My Lighthouse, Build Up, Jesus Strong and Kind, the School Rule song, May you find peace and Sing a new song to the Lord. Each class got the chance to choose a song and perform the actions at the front for our Reception class to copy as some of the songs are new to them.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our worship by signing the trinity and discussing our week in school. We reflected on our ‘Mad Science’ assembly which was amazing and also discussed our learning about Jesus being special in collective worship. We then presented Samuel, Piper-Jo, Emily, Peyton, James, Grace, Austin and Wilson as our value award winners this week. Well done to those children for working exceptionally hard , consistently demonstrating the 4Bs and demonstrating our Christian Values. We also congratulated our Year 5\6 football team who represented Darwen in the County Football Finals last Friday and made it to the semi-final, our Year 5\6 Sportshall Athletics squad who represented our school amazingly well at St. Bedes on Wednesday evening and celebrated a win ready to compete in the final, Summer, Grace and Charlie-Rose for achieving their pen licenses, Reception and Year 3 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and India Mill who are our overall value award winners this week with 322 points. We then moved on to our out of school achievers. Well done to Charlie for achieving 10m in his swimming, Leonora for achieving her honours swimming challenge for swimming 40 lengths in under 20 minutes, Desmond for being awarded with his 25m in swimming, Jacob for being Player of the Week at Judo, Seb for being awarded with a trophy for Darreners Player of the Week at football, Olivia B, Olivia R and Darcy for getting through to the final of their football competition, Cassidy for achieving two new additions to her Rainbow badge collection and moving up to Brownies, Vienna for sponsoring a dog called Sage to become a guide dog, Harriet for being awarded with Morris Dancer of the Week for incredible marching and Lola, Summer and Quinn for wonderful gymnastics. Lola has been working extremely hard to perfect her backwards roll, Quinn has been persevering to achieve a cart wheel and Summer has been using her fantastic gymnastic skills to guide others. We then ended our worship with a lovely prayer from Rev Ben and sang along to ‘My Lighthouse.’ We thank our children for another wonderful week and we look forward to the next two weeks of this half-term. We have some exciting things planned such as a pantomime of Aladdin next Friday 2nd February and ‘A Dress to Express Day’ on Friday 9th February. 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.

Mrs Ham's Highlights

Good afternoon parent and carers, what another busy week at St Barnabas! The highlights have been: * the super Science show yesterday, * Year 5/6 Sportshall Athletics team winning their heat and getting through to the finals, *Creating terrific tie-dye t-shirts in Year 3, *Playing on the outdoor gym, *A money matters session in Year 5 and some of their trout eggs have hatched! Next week we have our Aladdin Pantomime to look forward to on Friday afternoon. We kindly ask for a small donation of £3.00 which can be made on parent pay. Thank you to our FOSB for their contribution in order to keep the cost down. For all of this week's news from each class and this morning's celebration worship, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news For all of the upcoming events, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/events I would like to wish you all a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support. Take care and God bless, Mrs Ham

Mad Science Show

This morning our whole school family had a super Mad Science Show led by Scientist Sarah. The focus was on energy and she showed us all some really exciting experiments that create different forms of energy. A huge well done to our chosen volunteers James, Annabelle and Archie!

Year 2 - P.E.

This week, we combined our knowledge of shapes from our maths work and our superb P.E skills. After warming up, we jumped into shapes and out of them ready for our landings. The children loved showing off new shapes they jumped into. Some shapes made it more difficult to land so it was important to be quick in and out of the shapes.

Year 2 - Maths

We have moved onto from 2D shapes to 3D shapes. This week we have been counting faces, edges and vertices on 3D shapes. It can be difficult to count without losing count or counting the same one twice. We have found strategies to make sure our counting is accurate.

Year 2 -History

Over the past 3 weeks, we have been looking at famous explorers. In particular, explorers who helped us learn how to fly. From the Wright Brothers flight in 1903 which lasted 12 seconds, to Amelia Earhart’s brave mission across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We have found this very interesting and are looking forward to exploring the next step in aviation.

Bee Yourself: A brilliant online platform designed to promote mental health and wellbeing for young people living in Blackburn with Darwen

Bee Yourself: We've just been made aware of a brilliant online platform designed to promote mental health and wellbeing for young people living in Blackburn with Darwen. It offers a range of resources and activities to help young people feel good and have fun while providing information and support for parents, carers, and practitioners working with young people. The platform is divided into several sections, including the ‘5 Ways to Wellbeing’ section, which provides information on local activities and opportunities linked to the 5 Ways to Wellbeing. The 5 Ways to Wellbeing are a set of evidence-based actions that promote wellbeing and include connecting with others, being active, taking notice of your surroundings, learning new things, and giving back to the community. The Parent/Carer Area – Honeycomb – offers health and wellbeing information for parents, carers, and families by topic. It includes links to support and resources for further information on topics such as managing stress, dealing with anxiety, and building resilience. Bee Yourself offers The Big Ask section for young people with questions or concerns. This area provides answers to questions generated by young people through various focus groups, supported by health and wellbeing partners. The section aims to help young people understand and manage their mental health and wellbeing. The Worries Away area is another section that provides health and wellbeing information by topic. It aims to help young people understand and manage common concerns such as anxiety, stress, and depression. The section includes information on how to recognise the signs of mental health issues and what steps to take to get help. Bee Yourself is a valuable online platform that offers a range of resources and activities to promote mental health and wellbeing for young people in Blackburn with Darwen. With sections for children, parents and carers, practitioners, and young people themselves, Bee Yourself has something to offer everyone. It’s an excellent resource for those who want to learn more about mental health and wellbeing and take steps to promote it in their own lives and in the lives of those around them. www.bee-yourself.org

Collective Worship- The boy in the temple

We started our Monday morning worship by singing Jesus strong and king and then by signing the trinity and the lighting of the candles. We then watched a video from the Worship Together Collective Worship led by Lisa from Blackburn Diocese. We heard the story ‘the boy in the temple’, which taught us about a twelve year old Jesus who went missing and was found in the temple. He said to Joseph when he was found “ you should have known I was here, it is my father's house after all.” Bishop Philip told us how in this story Jesus tells us who he is and what he has come to do. We then watched an animation of the story and discussed how Mary and Joseph must have felt when Jesus was missing for three days and how Jesus was a little child, just like us. We then finished our worship by singing and signing to two of our favourite songs about Jesus, Waymaker and My Lighthouse.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our worship by signing the trinity and discussing our week in school. We reflected on our learning about courage and Martin Luther King in collective worship and how much fun we had in the snow on Tuesday. We then presented Ida, Fletcher, Bindi, Harriet, Annabelle, Alice, Alfie and Sophie as our value award winners this week. Well done for being extremely conscientious and hardworking. We also congratulated Maliki, Alfie, Zac and Rio for representing our school amazingly well at a Bowling Competition this week on Monday morning, Ruby, Daniel, Jessica for being rewarded with their pen licenses, Year 1 and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week with 287 points. We then moved on to our out of school achievers. Well done to Isaac for achieving Player of the Match for showing an immense amount of courage by taking the role of goalkeeper in a recent football match for the first time, Arabelle for being extremely generous and sponsoring a dog called Crumble by donating money that she has raised through her swimming to support Crumble in becoming a guide dog, Cassidy for achieving a trophy for showing wonderful perseverance in her bar work at gymnastics, Eliza for achieving a trophy for showing lots of courage and hard work during her football training and matches and Annabelle for working extremely hard towards her bronze award in swimming. We then presented all of our teachers with their first aid qualifications. Finally, we heard some lovely prayers from Jacob, Olivia and Ivy who prayed for peace in our world. We thank all those who attended celebration worship- it is always lovely to see so many of our families attend and we wish the the rest of our school family a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support too.

Year 2 - Music

In music this week, we used boom whackers to create different sounds. We created patterns with these sounds as a class. The children love using different instruments and are very lucky that they get the chance to play different instruments.

Year 2 P.E- Explorers Dance

This week in our P.E lesson, we started our dance unit for this half term. We are putting together a dance routine using the theme of adventure. In History we are looking at Explorers and the History of flight so we used movements and pauses that an explorer might do, if they travelled to an unexplored place.

Where has Darwen Tower gone?

We can’t see Darwen Tower this morning as there is so much snow in the sky. Thank you so much to all of our parents and carers who took extra time and care this morning on the school drop off. Everyone got into the warmth of school safely and sensibly. Please take extra time and care during pick up at hometime.

KS1 having fun in the snow

Year 1 and 2 had great fun in the snow during their break time today.

Friday Celebration Worship- Spring 1 Week 1

This morning, we started our worship by signing the trinity and discussing our first week in school of 2024. We reflected on our learning about The Epiphany in collective worship, how much fun we’ve had exploring the new outdoor gym and all of our learning during the Life Education sessions with Harold the giraffe. We then presented Skye, Seb, Alfie, Jack, Walter, Tilly, Daisy, Lucy and Amelia as our value award winners this week. Well done to these children for being incredible role models. We also congratulated Oscar and Ivy on achieving their pen licenses and Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week with 436 points. We then moved on to our out of school achievers. Well done to Ella for achieving the Christmas Cup for being an exceptional team player at football, Charlie for achieving Stage 3 and 25 meters in his swimming, Eliza for achieving several badges at Pony Club including learning how to groom horses and provide them with first aid, Marley for achieving 10 meters in her swimming and a badge at Rainbows, Scarlett for getting Olivia at Rainbows for being a team player and doing wonderful tidying up, Sophie for achieving a trophy for Athlete of the match and several medals for representing Blackburn Harriers as part of Lancashire, Annabel for achieving Skate Excel’s grade 1 in her ice skating and Daisy for being a wonderful gymnast. We then heard from Rev Ben who finished our worship with a lovely prayer. We thank you all again for your continued support this week and we wish you all a lovely restful weekend.

Year 2 - History

Our new History topic for this half term is Explorers! We began by looking at what an explorer is? What do they do? Why are they important? We also discussed the equipment that explorers may need in order to go on long, hard journeys. We touched on famous explorers that we will look in more detail at such as Christopher Columbus and Tim Peake. To finish we thought about where we would like to explore in the world. We had many ideas such as The African deserts, Antarctica and Mountains in Norway. We discussed what we might find in these interesting places. We then drew our rucksack full of the equipment we would need on our adventures.

Year 2 Science- Material Hunt

In Science this week, we began our new topic looking at Materials. We explored materials we are familiar with and also looked at some materials we hadn’t seen before. We discussed which objects are made out of which material. In groups, we set off on a material hunt around school. We had a list of materials and we needed to find an object made out of these materials.

Year 2- New Outdoor Gym!

This afternoon, we were excited to explore our new outdoor gym. There are lots of machines that we needed to learn how to use. The children loved learning how to use each machine and learning new exercises. We will definitely be visiting our outdoor gym in future P.E sessions, lunch time and golden time.

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.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Good afternoon parents and carers, what a fantastic last week we have had at St Barnabas celebrating Christmas. Each class has visited the Rose Garden in Whitehall Park to see the lovely Christmas art work and enjoyed singing Christmas carols. Our Christmas parties were great fun and the infants got a special visit and gift from Santa & the children in KS2 were left special presents from him too. This morning we had our Christmas church service and this afternoon we presented our amazing attendance winners with their certificates and had a singalong to our Christmas video. To see all of our latest news from each class, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news I’m delighted to let you know that Sean Dunn is our new parent governor and you should be able to spot him in our Christmas video along with some of our other governors, our staff and children. It wouldn’t be Christmas at St Barnabas without our special Christmas video to wish you all a merry Christmas from our whole school family. Here it is: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EaMCS8bGFvc On behalf of our whole staff team, we would like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and we hope that it is filled with moments of peace, love and joy. Thank you so much for your kind words, cards and gifts. We look forward to seeing you all next year when the Spring term starts on Monday 8th January. Merry Christmas and best wishes to you all, Mrs Ham and the St Barnabas staff team

Year 2 Santa Visit

Year 2 had a special visitor in class today. Santa told the children they were all on the good list. The children told Santa what they would like for Christmas. Santa brought every child a present, what a special treat!

Whitehall Park Values Winner Disco

Well done to all of the children in Whitehall Park as they collectively received the most values points this half term. As a treat, they were rewarded with a disco! They had a super time and all enjoyed a chocolate lolly too.

Year 1 and 2 visit to Whitehall Park

Yesterday, Years 1 and 2 went to the Rose Garden at Whitehall Park to admire the Christmas artwork created by some of our children as part of the Home Bargains competition. We then had a play on the playground equipment as an end of term treat.

KS1 Christmas Cracker

We are so proud of our Year 1 and 2 children for their fantastic Christmas Cracker performances. To see all of the photos, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/ks1-christmas-cracker Here is the video of the dress rehearsal : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NtkPAWaaymw Please see class dojo for the secure links to the videos. Thank you so much to everyone who came along to support and for the wonderful Christmas clothes that you provided for your child. A huge thank you to our KS1 team, Miss Flynn, Mrs Hegarty, Miss Baxendale and Mr Norris for all of their efforts to create such an amazing show! Our children certainly brought lots of joy to everyone who watched and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Well done Year 1 & 2, you are little singing superstars!

Friday 15th December- Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our worship by lighting our advent candles and reflecting on this week’s theme for advent which is joy. Mrs Ham said that our choir brought lots of joy to Darwen Market Hall yesterday and how this week we have also taken part in the Christmas Fayre and Christmas lunch which have also brought lots of joy to us all. We then presented Elsie, Marley, Arabelle, Sonny, Talia, Charlie-Rose and Molly as our value award winners this week. Well done to these children who have been displaying an incredible amount of kindness, respect and trying incredibly hard with their learning. We also congratulated Tyler, Bobby, Ella, Jenson and Talia who have achieved their pen licenses and Reception and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week. Whitehall Park are our overall value award winners this week and are also this half-terms overall winners. We then said a huge well done to four of our Year 2 children who attended a Curling competition. Unfortunately, they just missed out on achieving medals but they represented school amazingly - well done to Isaac, James, Emily and Olivia! We then said well done to our out of school achievers. Well done to Olivia for being an incredible mascot at the weekend during the Ladies’ Blackburn Rovers Football game, Isaac for achieving a medal at performing arts, Ruby for attending Brownie Camp and achieving a gold award in Brownies which is the highest award that a Brownie can achieve and also lots of medals and a trophy for her survival skills in swimming, Alexis for achieving 50m in her swimming, Isaac for achieving 50m in his swimming and his younger brother Teddy for achieving Ducklings stage 3 in his swimming, Alfie for swimming 5m backstroke, Grace for attending Brownie Camp and trying lots of new activities such as caving, zip wiring and climbing, Betsy for achieving a medal in her ballet, Callie for swimming 5m, Carmen for achieving her stage 4 in swimming, Thomas for achieving stage 2 in his swimming and Eden for achieving the bronze award at Brownies and attending the Brownie Camp at the weekend. We then said a huge thank you to our Friends of St Barnabas who continue to run lots of events in school, such as our Christmas Fayre on Wednesday, to fundraise money for school to purchase lots of new and exciting things for our children. We can’t wait for our new outdoor gym. We then heard some lovely prayers from Sofia, Elijah and Mrs Ham and listened to our amazing choir who sang to us all. We thank you all again for your continued support this week and we wish you all a lovely festive weekend.

Whole School -Design Technology- Christmas Fayre

This term in Design and Technology (D.T.), children from every class have been busy creating special things with a purpose. They showed off their creations at our school's Christmas fayre. Reception made cute Christmas decorations, Year 1 made Christmas-themed characters that move from a book, Year 2 put together yummy fruit kebabs, Year 3 crafted pouches, Year 4 made stockings, Year 5 created comfy cushions, and Year 6 invented their own steady hand game. Everyone should be proud of what they made because when parents and visitors saw the products, they were amazed! Each class did a fantastic job turning their creativity into awesome projects.

Year 2 - Fruit Kebabs

Today was the day we got to make our fruit kebabs for our Christmas fair! We had a very exciting afternoon as we created our healthy masterpieces. The children loved designing their kebabs in previous weeks and now using their plan to create a yummy and healthy snack for the Christmas fair. There was a lot of temptation to eat them before the fair but we managed to hold off so we could show everyone our amazing culinary skills. The children put a lot of thought into the colour and shape of the fruit they chose so they were suitable for the Christmas fair. They should be really proud of their final results.

Christmas Lunch 2023

We had a fantastic Christmas lunch together as a school family! A huge thank you to Mrs Norton, Mrs Beech and Miss Norton for the meal. Thank you so much to our staff team for all of your help. It was wonderful to see all of our children eating and having festive fun together. We loved your singing too!

Year 2 - Curling Competition

This afternoon, children from year 2 took part in an inter schools curling competition at St Bede’s. This was a new sport for our children and they certainly enjoyed it. We played 9 games against other schools from Blackburn with Darwen with some very close games along the way. We have some excellent curlers in year 2 and importantly they represented our school superbly showing true sportsmanship throughout. We just missed out on the medals in 5th place but the children should be really proud of themselves.

Friday 8th December- Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our worship by lighting our advent candles and reflecting on this week’s theme for advent which is peace. Mrs Ham asked us to reflect on how we can create peace both at home and in school. We had suggestions such as helping around the house, helping out with younger siblings, making our own bed, tidying up after ourselves and showing kindness to everyone. We then presented Leila, Alice, Chay, Elliott, Quinn, Mason, Harry and Oscar as our value award winners this week. Well done to these children who have been working incredibly hard and showing impeccable manners. We also congratulated Year 1 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week. We then said a huge well done to four of our Year 4 boys who attended a Boccia competition. Unfortunately, they just missed out on getting to the final but they represented school amazingly - well done boys! We then said well done to Ella for achieving her puffin award at swimming which includes swimming 5m, James for becoming the captain of his football team, Tristen for being awarded the best newcomer at kickboxing, Leonora for swimming her first ever 100m and achieving several PBs in her swimming, Desmond for attending his first ever session with Darwen Centurions, Grace for achieving several badges at Brownies, Maggie for a badge at ar Rainbows for attending the ‘Magical Christmas Experience’ and achieving Stage 2 in her swimming, Annabel and Scarlett for also attending the ‘Magical Christmas Experience’ at Rainbows, Sofia for achieving a medal for her incredible dancing, Jacob for attending a magical Christmas experience at the North Pole, Matthew for achieving Student of the Year at Organised Chaos Kickboxing club, Jessica and Amelia for achieving lots of rosettes and certificates for demonstrating amazing talent in their horse riding and Ivy for demonstrating fantastic talent in her gymnastics talent. We ended our worship by saying the Grace and singing ‘We Three Kings’ and ‘Ding Dong.’

Year 2 - PSHE

This week during PSHE, we continued to look at how words and actions can be appropriate or inappropriate. Today we looked at how sometimes physical touch is nice and loving. Physical touch should either be from a friend or trusted adult and if it makes you feel uncomfortable then it is not appropriate. We thought of different occasions where we are touched in a nice way by special people in our lives.

Year 2 - Maths

Year 2 have been working extremely hard with their maths work over the past couple of weeks. Today we moved onto subtraction across 10. This can be really tricky but using our number bonds to subtract definitely helped us with our new learning. We played a maths game where we started with 20 counters on our tens frames and slowly subtracted either 1, 2 or 3. We will continue to build on our subtracting skills in our upcoming lessons.

Year 2 - RE

This week, we started our Christmas learning in RE we are going to be looking how good news about the birth of Jesus spread and how it made the world feel. We began by looking at what is the news and how do we find out about it. We read our happy newspapers from our library and watched Newsround. We made a note of the various ways we can consume the news and the impact it has on our lives.

Year 1&2- A Christmas Cracker Concert

Year 1 & 2 have been busy learning the songs and actions for their ‘Christmas Cracker Concert’ which they will be presenting to our whole school and their families in a few weeks. How exciting!

Whole School Peace Chain

During our second week of Advent, we are focussing on praying for peace. Throughout the last week, all classes have created a whole school peace chain. Continuing from yesterday’s worship, we discussed different ways that we can find peace. Ruby said that she had listened to her mum this morning to create a peaceful home environment. Darcy said she had shown peace to her younger sibling. Isaac said he had helped his parents and Percy said he had gone to bed earlier. We will continue to focus on peace throughout this week and the whole of Advent. Our peace chain is displayed in our school entrance for you all to see.

Foodie Friends Club- Christmas shaped biscuits

The Foodie Friends Club had a fabulous time today baking Christmas-shaped biscuits. Despite a bit of dough sticking to the table, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Using various cutters, they created biscuits in the shapes of stars, Christmas stockings, snowmen, gingerbread men, and Christmas trees.

Year 2 - Science

During our previous learning in science, we have looked at habitats and microhabits in our local area. This week we moved onto world habitats which included Desert, Rainforest, Artic and Ocean. We sorted animals depending on which habitat you would find them in. We also added the conditions of these habitats and thought about why these animals would prefer these habitats to others.

Year 2 - RE

This week, we completed our RE topic looking at Holy books from different faiths. We have been learning about the Bible and understood that different faiths have their own book which they follow. We looked in more detail at the Jewish Torah and the Islamic Qu’ran. We spotted similarities between how religions see their holy book as special and one that should be looked after. We also found that each book contains rules and stories which are used to help people be good citizens.

Celebration Worship- 1st December 2023

This morning in celebration worship, we started our worship by lighting a candle of hope to represent the first week in advent. We then presented our value award winners with their certificates for showing an exceptional work ethic and demonstrating the Christian Values. Well done to Teddy, Heidi, Isaac, Daisy, Alice, Lily-May, Jake and Rio. We then said a huge well done to River Darwen who were our overall value award winners this week and Reception and Year 5 for being the amazing attendance winners this week. We then moved on to our wonderful out of school achievers. We said a huge well done to Tristen who achieved his red and yellow belt at kick-boxing, Lydia who has got Olivia from rainbows for super tidying up, Seb for achieving his 5m without armbands in his swimming, Elliott for achieving a trophy for incredible football, Evie for being awarded a medal for demonstrating incredible skills in her gymnastics, Grace for achieving a medal in her lyrical dancing, Alby for achieving 50m in his swimming, Ed for achieving 20m in his swimming, Betsy for working extremely hard in her ballet lessons and working hard towards achieving her point shoes and Summer for achieving 20m in her backstroke. To end our worship, we had some beautiful prayers from Lilly, Wilson, Isaac and Sofia and a prayer from Mrs Ham about remembering the true meaning of Christmas. We also sang ‘Come and Join the Celebration’ and ‘Little Donkey.’ Thank you for all of your support this week and we wish you all a lovely weekend.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

All of our children helped to decorate our real Christmas tree today at lunch time. It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Rev Ben’s Worship- Jeremiah : Down in the well

This morning Rev Ben led our Worship about God's Compassion. We started with a fun listening game where Rev Ben blind folded some children and the rest of us had to make the animal noise of the animal on the screen. The children who were blindfolded were able to realise what it was like to not be able to see, just like the person in this week's Bible story, Jeremiah. We listened and joined in with the Old Testament Bible story all about Jeremiah being stuck in a deep, dark well. We loved joining in with the repeated refrain and we learned that God helped Jeremiah get out of the well. We reflected on how God can help us when we are feeling stuck or in a dark place. We then thought about how God sent His saviour, Jesus to rescue us all and how at this time of Advent, we are thinking about the special birth of Jesus. We finished our Worship singing 'Jesus, strong and kind'.

First week in Advent- Hope Collective Worship

This morning in our collective Worship we focused on Hope as it is the first week in Advent. Lucy and Charlie lit the first candle on our advent wreath and we said special prayers of hope. We watched a lovely video showing how God promised to send his special son Jesus and people had to wait in hope a very long time for Him but 'Good things come to those who wait'. We then discussed with our friends what we were hopeful for in the future and we had some wonderful answers such as 'For there to be peace across the whole world and for everyone to show kindness to each other.' Over the next four weeks we will be focusing on the hope, peace, joy and love that Jesus brought to the world and how we can show that to others too. We finished our Worship by singing a number of Christmas songs to remind us of the importance of Christmas, when baby Jesus was born. Thank you to our wonderful singers who volunteered to model the actions to the younger children.

Foodie Friends Club- Making chocolate apples

Today, in our foodie friends club, we made chocolate apples. After melting the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, the children pushed a stick on their apple and dipped it into the melted chocolate. The children had a choice of coating the apple in dark or white chocolate. To give that extra touch, the children decorated it with marshmallows and sprinkles. And, of course, there was plenty of chocolate licking.

Celebration Worship - 24/11/23

This morning in celebration worship, we started our worship by presenting our value award winners with their certificates. Well done to Joey, Archie, Olivia, Ivy, Ella, Esme, Wilson and Ross for consistently demonstrating an exceptional attitude to learning and always showing respect, kindness and friendship. Mrs Ham also awarded a special bravery award for Sonny in Year 3. Today marks one year since he was diagnosed with diabetes. This past year, he has taken all of the hospital trips and disruptions to his usual routines in his stride and shown an immense amount of courage. We are so proud of you Sonny! Our head and deputies then awarded Darwen Tower as the overall value award winners this week and Mrs Ham announced Reception class and Year 6 as the amazing attendance winners this week. We then celebrated lots of children who have been achieving great things out of school. Well done to Mila for achieving her drawing badge at rainbows, Eliza for being a superstar horse rider, Annabelle for achieving her drawing badge at rainbows and the rainbows theme award for expressing herself, Desmond for being a super swimmer, Marley for showing kindness, Archie for achieving 20m front crawl swimming, Callie for achieving her stage 3 award at swimming, Penelope for achieving a rosette in her horse riding, Poppy for achieving a trophy for being a fantastic footballer and Skye for displaying lots of new skills in her horse riding lessons. We then applauded Alice in Year 3, Poppy in Year 5, Wilson, Charlie, Lucy and Jacob in Year 6 for their successful entries into the ‘Happy News competition’ which was launched in school a few weeks ago. Mrs Govan then launched our current competition. Mrs Govan explained that Home Bargains are accepting entries into a Christmas card competition that we would love our children to enter into. The winner of the competition will get their Christmas card printed and sold in Home Bargains and the money raised will go to Alder Hey Hospital. What a fantastic cause to support. Finally to end our worship, Rev Ben then said a beautiful prayer and Mrs Ham reminded us about non-uniform day next Friday in exchange for chocolate or a toy for our FOSB School Christmas Fair on Wednesday 13th December. We thank you all for your continued support and we wish you all an enjoyable weekend.

Christmas Card Competition

This morning in our Celebration Worship I shared the details of our Christmas Art Competition in Aid of Alder Hey Children’s hospital. The competition is for the children to design their own Christmas Card on a square piece of paper (please see the image above for more details and last year’s winners!) All entries will be submitted to the competition, and if selected, the winning entries will be sold as Christmas cards in Home Bargains stores across the UK, with all proceeds going to Alder Hey. School can also win a craft hamper and £100 voucher for resources too! We will also be selecting a handful of amazing entries to copy and display in the Rose Garden at Whitehall Park for our Christmas ADVENTure trail, so any Nativity related entries would be lovely to see. Please can we ask that all entries be handed to class teachers by no later than Wednesday 13th December. We are able to provide squared paper for entries if needed, please just ask your class teachers. If you have any further questions then please ask. We look forward to seeing some wonderful designs! Thank you, Mrs Govan

Year 2 - Computing

During Junior Jam this week, the children have been building on their knowledge of Blockly from previous learning. The children had a really fun session this week as they explored logical thinking and how algorithms work to create software such as games. They really enjoyed playing games and seeing how those algorithms worked to create fun, engaging and exciting games.

Rev Ben’s Worship: Samuel and David

This week in Rev Ben’s Worship, we learned the story of Samuel, Jessie and David. We talked about the qualities God looks for in a king and the importance of having a kind heart.

WOW Group Worship: Respect and Tolerance

Well done to our fantastic WOW Group, who led their first whole-school worship this year today. In recognition of Inter Faith week, they talked about respecting each other’s differences and they taught us about tolerance and how we can show it to one another.

Year 2 - Maths

This week in maths we continued to practise our addition. Today we consolidated our work on adding through 10. This can be tricky when you have to add past 10 but our games help us to keep practicing. We discovered the key to making it easier is ensuring we know our number bonds to 10. We will move on to subtracting next week.

Foodie Friends Club- Pitta Pizzas

Our after-school club was a success today! The children had a blast chopping peppers and tomatoes to prepare the sauce for their pitta pizzas. It was an adventure for some as they tasted olives for the first time, and reviews were mixed. I was extremely proud of them for embracing something new. Not only are they fantastic chefs, but they also excel at keeping things neat. The excitement does make them a bit giddy, but it adds to the fun they have.

Year 2 - PSHE

During anti-bullying week, we have been looking at the impact our words and actions can have on others. We have been reflecting on times where we have shown kindness to others and how that made us feel. Some children said they get a funny feeling in their tummy when they are kind to their friends. We continued to look at bullying and if someone is unkind towards us, what should we do next? We discussed various people the children would tell if they're upset or worried. These included family members, friends, school staff and other trusted adults. We wrote these people onto our helping hands to help us remember all the people that can help us.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our worship by ‘Making a Noise’ as that has been our focus this week during anti-bullying week. We did this whilst dressing in spots and all things Pudsey in support of Children in Need. We then said a huge well done to our superstar value award winners this week who were Iniya, Eli, Lyla in EYFS and KS1 and Sofia, Summer, Lola, Tyler and Archie in KS2. We were also exceptionally pleased to present Millie, Annabelle, Matthew and Bella for getting their pen licenses and Charlie for being a Times Table Rockstars Champ. We then said a huge congratulations to our Year 5/6 football team who achieved the title of Darwen Schools league football champions last night, Whitehall Park for winning the Inter-house dodgeball competition last Friday, our KS1 sports team who attended the multi sports skills festival at QEGS last Friday, India Mill who were overall value award winners this week with 283 points and Year 1 and Year 4 for being our amazing attendance winners this week. Our Well-Being Warriors then presented Edward, Molly, Lottie, Elliott, Grace, Betsy and Isaac for having the best odd socks and shoes on Monday to launch anti-bullying week and we celebrated the achievements of our out of school sports award achievers. Well done to Cali for her ice skating, Albie for achieving his 10m swimming award, Arabelle for being awarded her 50m in swimming, Lyla for achieving a medal for incredible ballet dancing, Sofia for super concentration and accuracy in her dancing, Peyton for achieving her white belt in kickboxing, Quinn for his commitment to tennis, Molly for achieving her fourth belt in martial arts, Betsy for achieving medals for incredible ballet and commercial street dancing, Grace for achieving a medal for her lyrical dancing and Lola for showing improved steps in her acro dancing. Finally, Mrs Ham reminded us about the Scholastic Book Fair being open after school next Monday and Tuesday after school. We then heard from Rev Ben who ended our celebration worship with a beautiful prayer about compassion and kindness. We wish you all an enjoyable weekend.

Scholastic book fair

Our Scholastic Book fair will be back in school on 20th and 21st November after school. Children will be visiting the fair over the next few days and will bring home a wish list of potential books they’d like to buy at the fair. You can purchase books at the fair from 3.30-4.30pm next Monday and Tuesday (20th and 21st). It is the perfect time to purchase books ready for Christmas! Card payments will only be accepted, we unfortunately cannot accept cash.

Year 2 - Microhabitat Walk

During science today, we went on a walk to find different microhabitats in our local area. We explored grassland and woodland areas looking for logs, rocks and streams where animals could live. We identified a variety of insects such as woodlice, snails, spiders and millipedes. We took clipboards so we could record our findings in a table. When we arrived back at school, we wrote up our findings and wrote a short summary of our investigation.

FOSB Christmas Fayre Stalls and Raffle Prize Donations

St Barnabas CE Primary Academy will be hosting an Annual Christmas Fayre on Wednesday 13th December 3.30-5.30pm. We are looking for stall holders and local businesses to donate raffle prizes so please email if you are available to help in any way: [email protected] If you would like a stall, they are priced at £10 plus a donation to our raffle. If you would like to help by donating a raffle prize then that would be very much appreciated! It will be a wonderful event for our community, any support would be really appreciated. Thank you.

Year 2 - DT

We had a brilliant afternoon, making our healthy sandwiches we designed last week. We prepared our ingredients by practising our cutting skills. Some of the vegetables were difficult to cut but using the bridge and claw techniques we were able to cut them up into nice sizes for our sandwiches. The children loved making their sandwiches and they were proud of their end results.

Whole-School Worship: Odd socks day to launch Anti-Bullying Week

Today, to mark the start of Anti-Bullying Week, we were all invited to come to school in odd socks and shoes to express our individuality. We learned how to spot the signs of bullying and what to do if we think someone is being bullied. We saw some brilliant acting skills from some of the children who acted our some bullying scenarios. We talked about the Christian and British values we should be showing to each other at all times. At St Barnabas, bullying is not welcome so we made a noise by shouting that out in different year groups and we loved joining in with Andy and the Odd Socks 'Make some noise' song.

Foodie Friends Club- KS1

Today, the children had a blast creating their delicious chocolate chip cookies. We started the baking adventure by measuring the flour and sugar separately. Some children took turns cracking the eggs and skillfully blending the ingredients until the mixture became light and fluffy. After we mixed the dough, we made little balls and baked them in the oven for 10 minutes. They were very giggly when they saw that some of the cookies had stuck together.

KS1- Anti-bullying week lunch time crafts

Today at lunch time we decided to set up on station for children who wanted to get creative. We created our own odd socks to follow on from this morning’s worship about anti-bullying week and Odd Socks Day.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning we started our worship by thinking about remembrance. We put all of the people who serve us each and everyday with great strength and courage in our thoughts. Our heads and deputies said some some lovely prayers for all of those who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice their lives to fight in the wars and all of those who are caught in conflict at the moment. We then observed a two minute silence. Following this, we presented our value award winners for this week. Well done to Lucy, Freddy, Elsie and Alfie in the Juniors and Lennox, Evie and Harvey in EYFS and KS1. We also said a huge well done to River Darwen for being our overall value award winners this week and Year 1, 2 and Year 4 for being our amazing attendance winners. We then moved onto celebrating our Year 5/6 football team who are through to the finals of the Darwen schools league next week after playing exceptional football through the league and we also celebrate our out of school achievers. Well done to Issac for being a super scout and swimmer, Sofia for being a wonderfully creative brownie and designing and making her own t-shirt, Annabel for working extremely hard in her ballet lessons and being a wonderful ballerina, Grace for being a fantastic gymnast, Poppy for achieving athlete of the week and ‘man of the match’ in her most recent football game, Ivy for pushing herself out of her comfort zone in her dancing and achieving a medal and Amelia and Jess for showing super courage and talent in their horse riding lessons. Finally, we ended our celebration worship by singing happy birthday to Alice, Elsie and Sophie and singing ‘A Song of Peace.’ Please remember that we are wearing odd socks and shoes on Monday to celebrate the launch of Anti-Bullying week. Our Well-Being Warriors announced that there will be a winner per class for the funkiest choice of odd shoes. We wish you all a wonderful weekend.

Year 2 Inter House Games

Today Year 2 took part in the Inter House Games, led by our Year 6 sports leaders. They all took part and were super excited to play a game of bench ball together. They listened to instructions well, showing both our sports leaders respect and each other respect while taking part. Well done Year 2!

KS1 Multi-Skills Festival

This morning a group of super stars from KS1 took part in a multi-skills festival at QEGS in Blackburn. We were so impressed with how well the children represented our school as they behaved brilliantly and really got stuck into every activity. Our head boy Wilson and head girl Lucy accompanied them and encouraged and supported them throughout the morning. A huge thanks to Miss Baxendale for coaching the children.

EYFS/KS1 Remembrance lunch time crafts

Our EYFS & KS1 children really enjoyed creating Remembrance themed crafts at lunch times. St Barnabas remembers!

Year 2 - DT

This week, we continued our new DT topic for this half term. Last week we looked at our favourite healthy foods and which food group they fit into. This week we designed a healthy sandwich using some our favourite fruits and vegetables. The children will be able to practise their culinary skills next week when we make our sandwiches.

Year 2 - Maths

In maths this week, we moved on from fact families to 10 and looked at fact families to 20. This was quite tricky but the children did really well and grasped the concept quickly. We used Rekenrek’s so we had a visual representation of the fact and then used it to write out number sentences which created the fact family.

Odd Socks Day

On Monday 13th November we will be launching Anti-Bullying Week with our usual ‘ODD SOCKS DAY’. After our weekly meeting our Wellbeing Warriors would also like to make it ‘ODD SOCKS AND ODD SHOE DAY’. They will be on the look out for the strangest, most unique socks and shoe combo and there will be a prize for a child in each year group. This will be announced in Celebration Worship on Friday 17th November when the team will be giving an overview of the day and how we have promoted Anti- Bullying Week in school.

Rev Matt’s Worship: God’s Compassion for Gideon

Rev Matt’s Worship this week was about victory against the odds and staying faithful to God. He told us the story of Gideon and how he defeated the Midianites, even though his army was small. He trusted in God and God showed Gideon compassion. We also discussed how we can show compassion to people who need our help.

Save the Date for our Christmas Fayre

Our wonderful FOSB will be hosting our Annual Christmas Fayre on Wednesday 13th December 3.30-5.30pm. Please save the date and come and enjoy lots of stalls, food and games. Our children’s Design and Technology products will also be available to purchase. FOSB are looking for stall holders and local businesses to donate raffle prizes so please email if you are available to help in any way: [email protected]

Whole-School Worship: Remembrance

With Remembrance Day fast approaching, Mrs Ham began the week with a worship about why and how we remember those who have died due to war and those who serve our country and protect us. She explained the significance of the poppy and we discussed which Christian and British values are shown by people in the armed forces. We ended our worship time with a prayer of thanks to those in the armed forces and prayed for peace around the world as we sang ‘A song of peace’.

Foodie Friends Club

Today, after school, the Year 1 and Year 2 children in our 'Foodie Friends Club' had a great time. They made yummy cornflake cakes. The best part was when they broke the chocolate bar into pieces and saw it melt in the microwave. They had so much fun licking the extra chocolate from the spoon and bowl. They've decided that next week, they want to make chocolate chip cookies.

Poppy Appeal 2023

From Monday our Heads and Deputies will be selling Poppy Appeal merchandise at break times. The suggested donation for zip ties and reflectors is 50p, standard wristbands £1.00 and slap bands £1.50. Poppies will also be available to purchase for a small donation. Next week we will be focusing on Remembrance Day in our Worships and our Year 6 Heads and Deputies plus some of our WOW group members will be taking part in a special Remembrance Service in Darwen Cemetery. We will remember them.

Friday Celebration Worship

Today we started our worship by lighting our very special candle for those in Israel and Gaza who have very much been in our thoughts this week. Mrs Ham reminded us that we will be focusing on remembrance next week. We will be thinking about all of the soldiers that have fought in the war past and present and all of those that have and are being affected by the war. The heads and deputies told us some of the things that they will be selling next week to support the Poppy Appeal. We then presented our value award winners with their certificates. Our winners this week were Callie, Mila, Alby, Carmen, Matthew, Seb, Layla and Sophie and we also said well done to Matthew, Layla and Will who gained their pen licenses. We then said a huge well done to our out of school achievers. Congratulations to Albie for achieving his 5m certificate in his swimming with no armbands, Annabel for getting Olivia at Rainbows this week for super tidying up and achieving super star status in her ballet and acro, Darcy for achieving stage 3 in her swimming, Daisy for achieving 2nd place in her gymnastics competition, Callie for achieving 10m in her swimming with no armbands, Cassidy for achieving 3 gold medals in her gymnastics vault, floor and all around routines and an additional overall gold medal, Iris for achieving 10m in her swimming and stage 1 in her gymnastics, Desmond for stage 4 and 10m in his swimming, Eliza for achieving girl of the game as goalkeeper in her football, Annabelle for entering in the 18+ category in orienteering and coming in first place, Alfie for scoring a hat trick in a recent football game, Bobby-Ray for achieving the brown and white belt in Karate, Finn for being a cricket superstar, Charlie for achieving the batter of the year in his cricket, Archie for achieving batter of the batter and fielder of the year in his cricket, Grace for achieving several medals and a trophy for her acro expertise and Elsie for achieving a certificate in her tutoring lessons. We said a well done to Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week with 407 points and Year 2 and Year 5 for being the amazing attendance award winners this week. Finally, we ended our worship with some lovely prayers for those in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza and a song about peace. Thank you to those who could attend our celebration worship this week and we wish you all an enjoyable weekend.

Year 2 - Science

We have begun our science topic for this half-term which is looking at animals including humans. This week, we looked into how we know we are alive and how do we know when things are dead. We discussed our ideas of things we thought are alive such as farm animals and humans. We then went further to talk about how plants are alive because they grow and reproduce. This was very tricky but the children tried really hard to challenge their thinking. We then went outside to find things that are alive, dead and things that have never been alive. We then came back into class and created a list of things we had found or other ideas that were alive, dead or have never been alive.

Whole School Worship with Rev Ben

Rev Ben taught us all about the value of thankfulness this week. He told us the story of the Jews being freed from slavery and how they lost sight of the good things God had given them, so they were left to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. The children loved interacting with the story and shared their ideas on how we can focus on the good.

Year 2 - Maths

This morning in maths, we recalled our number bonds to 10. The children used ten frames and counters to represent their number sentence and wrote it alongside. We then applied our knowledge of number bonds to 10, to answer questions that were trying to trick us. However there was no fooling us as the children knew exactly what they needed to do and solved the problems. We will be moving on to fact families to 10 and 20 in our upcoming maths lessons.

Year 2 English

This morning, we introduced our new book for English this half term. We are reading Jack and the Baked Beanstalk. The is a classic fairytale with a twisted plot. We revealed the front cover and generated questions using our question hand. This encouraged us to use a range of openers for our questions such as ‘Who, What, Where, When, Why’. The children had lots of different questions based on their initial reactions to the title and cover.

Whole-School Worship: Allhallowtide & Praying for Peace

This morning Mrs Ham reminded us of the Christian season of Allhallowtide starting with All Hallows’ Eve tomorrow - Hallow means Holy and it is a time to be mindful of the good we can do in the world, All Saints’ Day on Wednesday - when Christians remember the good the saints have done, and All Souls‘ Day on Thursday - when we think of those who have died and are in heaven. We discussed Remembrance day which is coming up shortly, where we remember soldiers who have died in the wars. We also thought about the conflict in Israel and Gaza and prayed for those who are suffering in this war. We watched some newsround videos to learn about how children in Gaza and Israel are being affected and we thought of some ways that we can be like saints and help. Peyton said we can pray to God for them and Darcy, Jack and Naomi said we can donate money, clothes and toys to the children who have lost their homes and belongings. To finish we sang a 'Song of Peace' where we wished for a world where hate and war would cease and the everyone in the world could live in peace.

Harvest Church Service 2023

A huge well done to our WOW (Worship our Way) group and our choir for leading our Harvest Church service and to Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 for their wonderful contributions. Thank you so much for your generosity shown towards Darwen Food Larder and DARE (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise). All of the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/harvest-church-service-2023 and the videos are posted on classdojo.

Year 2 PE- Parachute

Mrs Ham had the pleasure of teaching Year 2 PE this afternoon. The children started off by discussing why it is important to warm up and we had some great answers such as, so that we don’t pull a muscle and so that we get our heart beating fast, so that lots of oxygen can go to our muscles. We played a fun game of monkey tig to warm up and felt our hearts afterwards and noticed they were beating much faster and we were breathing harder and taking in more oxygen. We then had lots of fun playing several parachute games such as cat and mouse, swapping places underneath the parachute, flying animals and a team game where each team had to get the ball off the opposite side of the parachute. We cooled down at the end tucked up under the parachute and did some cool down stretches as we had been using our arms so much. Well done Year 2, what superstars!

Whole-School Worship: Moses Saves God’s People

This week, Rev Ben led our worship, teaching us all about the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, and how that was all a part of God’s great rescue plan. The children loved acting out the story. We also spent some time reflecting on God’s generosity towards the Israelites.

Week 5 - Sports Club

For our final week at Sports Club, we combined all of our skills learnt over past half-term. We hopped, balanced, threw, jumped, side stepped and curled. A fun last week for our sports stars!

Year 2 - Art

This afternoon, we combined our knowledge of pattern making and handling clay to create our clay tiles. This required lots of steps and skills which we had practised last week. We had to; roll the clay out (this needed some strong arms), cut the tile to an accurate size, ensure our tiles had straight, sharp edges, etch our names onto the back and score lines onto the back. Once we had completed all of these steps, it was time to create our patterns. We used various objects to create shapes that repeated or alternated. Some children decided to to use their hands as tools by creating their own shapes with craft knives. It was fascinating to see how each child chose their own patterns and had such diverse ideas.

Whole School Celebration Worship

To start our celebration worship this morning, we reflected on another busy week. We talked about a couple of highlights such as our ‘Hello Yellow Day’ to celebrate World Mental Health Day, A Let’s Sing Together workshop and library visits for years 3 and 5. We then presented our value award winners for this week. Well done to Harry, Eva, Scarlett, Arabelle, Darcy, Reuben, Will and Isaac for demonstrating the 4Bs. We then said congratulations to India Mill for achieving the most value points this week and an even bigger congratulations to River Darwen who are our overall value award winners for this half term who will celebrate with something of their choice next Thursday. Our well-being warriors then announced the six winners for our ‘Hello Yellow’ self affirmations poster competition who were Molly, Mila, Summer, Lucy, Lilly and Alice. Also, we said a huge congratulations to our Y5/6 football team for their superb talent and sportsmanship last night as they won both matches, Reception and Year 5 for being the super attendance award winners this week and Jake in Year 5 for getting his pen license. We then celebrated our out of school achievements. Well done to Marley for her drawing certificate that she achieved at Rainbows, Harriet for achieving 75m in her swimming, Grace for achieving a special honours award in her Jazz, Poppy for getting player of the match in her football, Layla for her football award that she achieved by attending Blackburn Rovers, Alby for reading 6 different books as part of the summer Reading challenge and Vienna for achieving 20m in her swimming without armbands. We ended our worship with a lovely prayer from Rev Ben and a reminder about our Harvest Celebration at St Barnabas Church next Thursday 19th October at 9.30am. Everyone is welcome and we would really appreciate some donations for the local food bank. Thank you for your continued support and we wish you all an enjoyable weekend.

Week 4- Sports club

This week we worked in teams to create our own obstacle courses for our team and the rest of the club to try. Each group got the same set of equipment and had 5 minutes to create a fun and interesting obstacle course for the rest of the teams to try. We had so much fun!

Year 2 - Local History

This afternoon, Year 2 set off on a local history walk to explore the events that happened when Gandhi came to visit Darwen in 1931. We visited the lodges that were home to mill workers and this was also the place that Gandhi stayed during his visit. The children learnt why Gandhi was invited to Darwen by Percy Davies the owner of Greenfield Mill. We walked past where this mill used to be and there is now a stone in place to show where it once stood (see photo). Mill workers wanted to speak to Gandhi to discuss his campaign for Indian independence from the British Empire which resulted in the cotton boycotts. One Darwen lady said ‘your boycott is putting us into poverty’. I’ll let the children tell you how Gandhi responded. The walk was really enjoyable in the sunshine, we ended with a story in Jacks Key. The story explores the remarkable life of Gandhi and the interesting events of his life.

Year 2 - Science

This week in science, we continued our topic of ‘Animals including humans’. After investigating the importance of hygiene we investigated the importance of exercise. We discussed what exercise we do and how we could increase the amount of exercise we do each day. We explored the impact exercise has on our heart, lungs and flexibility. It was then time to see if we could see the effects exercise had on our body by getting outside and working hard. After participating in various exercises we observed the effects it had on our bodies. We decided that our breathing got heavier and our heart started beating faster. The children then reflected on their investigation and recorded why exercise is important .

Whole-School Worship: Jacob and Esau and God’s Forgiveness

Rev Matt joined us for worship today. He talked about good and bad, and then read the story of Isaac’s sons, Esau and Jacob. We then reflected on how God taught Jacob to be truthful and how He showed forgiveness.

Whole-School Worship: Hello Yellow Day

Today we are celebrating Hello Yellow Day for World Mental Health Day by dressing in yellow. In worship, our Heads and Deputies dressed as Mrs Ham's Minions and they explained all about Hello Yellow Day. We learnt that we all have mental health and there are things we can do when we don't have good mental health. We made each other smile and feel happy by dancing and singing together with the minions to 'Happy'. We then joined a special live assembly with lots of other primary schools in Blackburn and Darwen, which was led by the Mental Health support team. We talked about our worries and how we can shrink them using mindfulness techniques. Thank you to everyone for dressing in yellow to raise awareness of mental health and remember that it is good to talk to our friends, parents, teachers and other trusted adults if we are worried about anything.

Year 2 - Art

This afternoon we continued to develop our Art and Design skills. We revisited pattern making from last week and discussed how we can make our own patterns. This week we used clay to add texture to our patterns. To do this we drew patterns with our craft knives and looked at different techniques to create alternative textures and patterns. Next week, we will hone our skills and create our finished tiles. Using other tools to create more intricate patterns.

Celebration Worship

This morning, Rotakids welcomed us into celebration worship as we came in dressed in the colours of the Moroccan flag. They thanked us all for supporting our non-uniform day to raise money for Morocco who have recently faced an earthquake. They explained that our money would go towards medical supplies and other essentials such as blankets, food and shelter for those who were affected in the earthquake on September, 8th. We then said goodbye to Mr Tierney for his 7 years of service as our fantastic site supervisor. It was clear from the children’s memories that they shared and the video that Mrs Ham had made that Mr Tierney has had a hugely wonderful impact on our whole school family and that he will be greatly missed, especially for the joy and humour that he spreads on a daily basis. The children absolutely loved your goodbye song dressed as Santa Claus… what a way to end your time here at St Barnabas! We also said thank you very much to our amazing choir who sang at The harvest Festival on Sunday. We then said well done to Cici, Phoebe, Renee, Scarlett, James, Grace, Matthew and Charlie who were our value award winners this week and Isaac, James, Mila, James, Naomi, Lydia and Layla for being our out of school sports achievers. Well done to Isaac for showing good sportsmanship at football, James for being beaver of the week, Mila for attending rainbows for one year, James for achieving his stage 4 in swimming, Naomi for being extremely kind at rainbows and getting Olivia, Lydia for joining in and being a superstar at rainbows and Layla for being a wonderful footballer. We then congratulated River Darwen who are our value award point winners this week, Reception and Year 5 who are our amazing attendance award winners this week, our Year 5/6 football team for wonderful sportsmanship last night and winning all 3 games, our play leaders for completing their training and Eden and Esme for achieving their pen licenses. Finally, we ended with some lovely prayers wishing Mr Tierney all the best at his new job at Blackburn college and for those who are facing hardship in Morocco due to the devastating impact of the recent earthquake. Just a reminder that next Tuesday 10th October is Hello Yellow Day so all children are asked to wear something yellow to celebrate World Mental Health Day. We wish you an enjoyable weekend and thank you for all of your support this week.

Super sports club- Week 3

Week 3 was all about football. We learnt a very important word “control”. We learnt how to stop a moving ball, passing with the correct part of our foot and learning to dribble with control.

Year 2 - Library visit

We had an amazing time during our visit to Darwen Library. We were lucky enough to spend time with Ursula Hurst as she delivered a workshop for us. Ursula is a fabulous illustrator known for her book illustrations and murals of which many can be found in local primary schools. The children loved listening to her stories and seeing how she made words come to life. Then the children had their chance to become illustrators as they learnt how to draw different characters with different emotions. Ursula showed us some simple tricks to really emphasise our characters expressions. It was a brilliant opportunity for the children which they engaged really well with and had a lovely afternoon!

Year 2 - Pattern Making

During our Art lesson this week, we looked at how to create patterns. We spotted any patterns around our classroom and predicted what comes next in other patterns. It was then the children’s turn to create their own patterns. We created symmetrical patterns and alternating patterns using different shapes and colours. Next week, we will continue learning about patterns and design new patterns on different mediums.

Week 2 of super sports club

Our second session at sports club we looked at the correct hand position, the ‘W’ position. Then we moved onto using the correct hand position whilst passing the ball. Then we looked at a chest pass followed by a bounce pass. They worked really hard on these two passes before moving on to a game of netball.

Year 2- P.E

This week we worked on the perfect egg roll, forward roll and pencil roll. They all tried really hard to perfect their rolls.

29th September- Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our celebration worship by congratulating our value award winners this week for always demonstrating the the 4Bs, wonderful manners, an incredible attitude to learning and working extremely hard across the curriculum. Well done to Eddie, James, Finley, Jack, Jenson, Evie and Beau. We then said well done to River Darwen for being our value points winners this week putting them in 1st place and Year 1 and 3 for being the amazing attendance award winners this week. Our well-being warriors then told us all about World Mental Health Day 2023 on the 10th October to raise awareness for mental health. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. These were Annabel for being very sensible at rainbows and her character work as Rapunzel, Noah being this week’s player of the match at football, Mila and Cassidy for being extremely creative and drawing wonderful pictures at Rainbows and Layla for getting player of the match at football. We then followed by congratulating our play leaders on completing their play leader training yesterday. They learnt how to set up and manage lots of practical activities that they can lead on the infant yard with the infants. We ended today’s worship by singing happy birthday to Marley, Bobby-Ray, Noah and Beau and with some lovely prayers from Seb, Darcy and Noah. Darcy and Seb prayed for the people facing hardship in Ukraine and Morocco and Seb said a prayer of gratefulness to say thank you for everything that we have. Thank you for all of your support this week, and your very kind donations to our MacMillan coffee morning. Thank you to those that could also attend. We wish you an enjoyable weekend.

Year 2 - Report Research

Our report writing continued this morning as we researched minibeasts. We used different sources such as non-fiction books and the internet. The children collected lots of interesting facts that they will be able to include in their non-chronological report. Did you know most caterpillars have 12 eyes?

Year 2 - History

Our History topic this half term is exploring the history of our local area. This lesson we concentrated on the history of our school. It was fascinating to look at the log books dating back to the 19th century. The children loved looking at the different sources that helped us to understand how our school got here. We found out that our school was originally called Culvert School until 1978 when it was reopened as St Barnabas. We created a list of similarities and differences between how our school use to be and how it is now. We really enjoyed exploring the history of our school!

Year 2 - P.E

This afternoon, the children had a dramatic P.E lesson in which they were trusted with looking after Zog’s gold star and returning it to him. The children had to endure an escape mission which took them through zig zig mazes and swamp stepping stones. If they managed to make their escape they had to throw the gold star (gold beanbag) as far as they could when Zog was flying past so he could catch it. We had some impressive overarm throws and Zog got his gold star back! ⭐️

Year 2- English

Our English objective this morning was to identify features of a non-chronological report. We looked at various reports and found similarities and differences between them. They had lots of features in common which we highlighted so we could clearly see them. We created a list of features that a chronological report must include. When we write our own report we will use our list as our own checklist to ensure we have all the features to create a superb report.

Year 2- Science

Let’s just say our science lesson was lots of fun! Today we investigated the importance of hygiene and how having good hygiene can keep us healthy. To demonstrate how being clean keeps germs and bacteria away from our bodies we carried out an investigation. We used sprinkled pepper on water which represented bacteria on a surface. We dipped our finger in and when we looked closely it was covered in pepper. Next, we put soap on our fingers and then dipped them back into the soap. We observed what happened to the pepper and recorded our results in our science books. I’ll let the children tell you about their results…

Year 2 - Art

Our Art lesson saw the children build on their knowledge of tones and shades. The children took inspiration from Nancy McCroskey’s 1992 work ‘Suite in Black, White and Grey’. The children used their own imagination to design tiles using various lines and shapes. Using different shading techniques, they were able create texture and depth in their work. It was lovely to see the children become passionate about their work and proud of their end result.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started saying thank you to our teachers for starting their after school clubs this week. We have had choir, football, foodie friends, performing arts, netball and an infant sports club and the children have thoroughly enjoyed them. We still have a few places left in choir so please sign up if your child is interested. We then said well done to our value award winners this week for always demonstrating the Christian values particularly friendship, respect and courage and working exceptionally hard across the curriculum. These children were Lottie, Leo, Eden, Daisy and Alfie. We then congratulated River Darwen for gaining 250 value points this week putting them in 1st place, Year 1 and 5 for being the amazing attendance award winners this week and David, Archie, Carlton, Skye, Daisy, Ruby, Leonora, Annabelle, Luca and Grace for being our new WOW group members for this academic year. We look forward to you all taking a lead in various worships and helping to organise events in the Christian calendar. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Annabelle for her blue Peter badge for her music, Jenson for achieving his 100m in swimming, Scarlett for lots of amazing rainbow badges and a swimming badge, Archie for achieving 20m in his swimming and ‘smashing it’ at Go Ape, Isaac for his perseverance over the last 5 years at Scouts, Oliver for demonstrating lots of new skills and achieving a new belt at kickboxing and Annabel for gaining a certificate for always working hard on many new skills at acro. We ended our worship with a lovely prayer centred around thankfulness from Rev Ben and a singalong to ‘If I was a butterfly.’ Please remember that we will be having our MacMillan coffee morning next Friday 29th September after celebration worship and you would be all very welcome. Cake donations would be very much appreciated and a donation to Macmillan can be made on parent pay. Thank you for all of your support again this week and we wish you an enjoyable weekend.

Year 2 - Storyboards

This week in Year 2, we have continued our hard work in English. We have been looking at the short film ‘Caterpillar Shoes’. I’m sure the children will be able to tell you all about the events in the short story. The children became experts at recalling the different events of the story. This allowed us to create our own storyboards retelling the ‘Caterpillar Shoes’ story. The children recalled each event, wrote their sentence describing the event and drew a picture to show what was happening. A key focus of our storyboards, was to ensure we included time conjunctions at the beginning of each sentence. By using a variety of time conjunctions such as ‘Firstly, After that and Finally’ it allowed us to write in chronological order. The end results are superb! The children have produced great examples and should be very proud of their hard work.

Year 2’s - Fantastic Friday

A great way to end the week! In Year 2, we had a Fantastic Friday full of exciting activities. We had a very tricky maths lesson where we looked at flexibly partitioning numbers. To partition numbers in different ways was difficult but the children made great progress. We will continue our work with partitioning at the beginning of next week. Before lunch, we enjoyed our daily handwriting and our focus now is to transfer our improving handwriting skills into our other work. The afternoon consisted of a great P.E lesson where we recreated movements from the story ‘Zog’. This was great fun and the children became very competitive. We saw who could jump the furthest whilst being able to land and balance with two feet. A lovely day to round off the week!

Year 2- Computing.

In music this week Year 2 have been creating their own piece of dance music by using app “garage band” on the iPad.

Multi skills sports club

Our first week of multi skills club and what a great time we had! We had lots of different stations set up to practice our fundamental skills followed by a very exciting game of bench ball.

Year 2- Music

For our music lesson today we learnt how to change the pitch on our ukulele.

Year 2- Jack and the beanstalk.

Following on from Fridays P.E lesson linking our story ‘Jack and the beanstalk’. Our skill today was climbing. We had to climb the apparatus just like Jack climbs the beanstalk.

Year 2- Handwriting

What a bunch of fantastic handwriters!

Collective Worship with Rev Ben - Noah’s Ark

Today, we started with a fun game of floating and sinking in our collective Worship with Rev Ben. He then told us the story of Noah and his Ark and his mission to rescue God’s creation. We considered how we could help to take care of God’s world.

Collective Worship- In the beginning

This morning in Collective Worship, we continued learning about God's Big Story with Worship across the Diocese. Today we started right at the beginning of the Bible and focused on God's creation. This built on our Worships with Rev Ben and Rev Matt as we have been focusing on God's generosity in creation. After watching and joining in with the Worship across the Diocese video, we also watched a cartoon about God's creation. We then reflected on our favourite creations and Mrs Ham threw the inflatable earth and asked us to share our favourite creations with the whole school if we caught it. We shared so many of our favourite wonderful creations such as trees, flowers, people, food, fish, mountains, the sea, the sun and the sky. We then sang one of our favourite songs about creation, 'If I were a butterfly' where we thanked God for all of his wonderful creations.

After school clubs- Autumn 1

Good morning parents and carers, here is a reminder about the after school clubs for this half term. Some of the clubs are nearly full but there are still places at several clubs. If your child will be attending a sports based club, they will need to bring sports clothes to wear and suitable trainers or football boots for football club. If the club is on their PE day, they can stay in their PE kit. A reminder that the children in Years 1 and 2 need to be collected from the circular infant yard at 3.20pm and children in Years 3-6 need to be collected from the circular infant yard at 3.30pm. If you give them permission to walk home, please message the club leader. A quick note that the performing arts club is for Year 6 at the moment to give them priority for the end of year production and to cast the main parts. However, if we have low numbers then it will be opened to older year groups.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our celebration worship by saying a huge well done to our value award winners this week for showing the Barney’s 4B’s, hitting the ground running in their new classes and always having a positive attitude to their learning. Well done Albie, Naomi, Walter, Daisy, Walter, Annabelle, Leonora and Seb. We then said a special well done to Whitehall Park this week who were our award winners this week, Reception and Year 5 for being the amazing attendance winners this week and Hamza, Harry and Daisy in Year 5 for gaining their pen licenses. We then moved on to say a huge congratulations to our out of school superstars. Well done to Alice for achieving 20m in her swimming, Alexis for achieving lots of badges at Rainbows, completing the Summer Reading Challenge and achieving 25m in her swimming, Carmen for completing the Summer Reading challenge and even reading an extra 9 books than she needed to, Renee for completing the Summer Reading Challenge, Frankie for completing the Summer Reading challenge and achieving stage 2 in his swimming, Annabelle for being awarded a special badge for her keyboard playing, a Blue Peter Badge for her musical talent and and a ‘Swim England’ award and medal, Summer for being awarded 50m in her swimming, Elijah for achieving 100m in his swimming without armbands, Eliza for achieving 4 rosettes in her horse riding, Jack for achieving 5m, 10m and stage 3 in his swimming, Ruby for participating in a 2 week swim and lifeguard camp and achieving her level 1 and 2 in snorkelling and her bronze and silver awards at Brownies and Charlie for achieving his 5m at swimming. We ended our worship with a lovely prayer from Rev Ben and a singalong to ‘Our God is Great Big God.’ Thank you for all of your support this week and we wish you an enjoyable weekend.

Year 2- Place value

In maths this morning, we continued to learn about place value and this morning we put our tens and ones into place value charts. To finish we played a card sorting game where we matched numbers to their correct base 10, tens and ones and addition sentence.

Year 2- Music

This week we’ve been introduced to a new instrument. Year 2 have been so excited to play the ukulele and they did an amazing job!

Tuesday Collective Worship with Rev Matt

Rev Matt came to lead our worship and told us the story of Adam and Eve, and how God showed his generosity, staying with them even after they disobeyed his orders. We also discussed how we can show generosity this week.

Monday Collective Worship- God’s Big Plan

We started our worship by paying respect to all of the victims who lost their lives 22 years ago in the devastating 9/11 terrorist attack in New York. We lit a candle and said a prayer. Mrs Ham then reintroduced God’s Big Story to us and we looked at each concept and discussed what they mean: Creation (the beginning of the world), Fall (when people started to sin) , People of God (People in the Old Testament of the Bible), Incarnation (Jesus was sent to create peace on Earth), Gospel (spreading the good news of Jesus), Salvation (Jesus is crucified and appears as a spirit) and The Kingdom of God. We then watched a video which started with creation. We talked about our favourite things that God created. Rio said’ The sun and the moon to create light and dark,’ Sienna and Elliott said ‘The people’, Maliki said ‘The animals’ and Sonny said ‘The food.’ Followed by the Fall when people started to destroy the world. Then God gave us the People of God such as Moses and Abraham who were sent to teach us how to be good people. However, people didn’t listen so God sent Jesus to us in the flesh and this is what incarnation means. Bishop Philip explained that incarnation means that Jesus came as one of us, to share our life and so that we could share in his life and learn from his actions, stories and explanations. Bishop Philip then explained the definition of Salvation as Jesus coming to save us from a place of danger (the fall) by dying on the cross. As Jesus died on the cross and came back to life, he was our rescuer. He died for all of us brought us to a place of safety. We all look forward to learning more about God’s Big Plan in our collective worships and our RE lessons this academic year. Finally, we ended our worship by singing, ‘Our God is a Great Big God.’

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our first celebration of the year by reminding ourselves of our 4 B’s (Be ready, be kind, be respectful and be safe). We then talked about some highlights of the week including the production of the Jungle Book. We talked about our favourite parts. Daisy said, ‘When the lion fought the tiger and defeated him,’ and James said, ‘When Mowgli burnt the tiger's bottom off.’ We then celebrated the wonderful out of school achievements that our St Barnabas children have achieved over the summer holidays. We said well done to James for swimming 5m, Tristen for his red belt in kickboxing, Carter for being a fantastic fox at football and achieving stage 1 in his swimming, Eliza for being amazing at football and winning a football competition during the holidays and for wonderful horse riding, Poppy for running for Blackburn Harriers, Annabelle for being an amazing archaeologist, completing the summer reading challenge and achieving her stage 7 at swimming, Leonora for her super swimming, Grace for coming 3rd in her song and dance and completing the summer reading challenge, Jenson for achieving his 50m at swimming, Isaac for coming 4th in the British Championships in Derby for his BMX racing, Betsy for achieving the most points at Sports cool summer club for helping out with the younger children and always showing kindness, Finn for his trophy at football and achieving his 100m at swimming, Molly and Annabel for completing the summer reading challenge, Annabel for finding her brave and skydiving in the summer holidays with her brother and Renee for completing the summer reading challenge and achieving her stage 4 at swimming. We then congratulated Reception and Year 4 for being the amazing attendance winners this week and introduced Neve, Eden, Annabelle and Ella as our well-being warriors for this academic year. Finally we ended our worship with a beautiful prayer from Rev Ben and a sing along to ‘Shining From the Inside Out’ as a whole school. Thank you to those parents who could join us for celebration worship this week and we wish you all a lovely weekend when it arrives.

Year 2- English

Year 2 have been busy applying capital letters and full stops in the correct places.

The Jungle Book

Years 1-6 have had an amazing morning watching The Jungle Book production. They joined in so well and were transfixed throughout. Our Year 6 children got to take part in a special workshop afterwards where they learnt about the different roles that are needed in a theatre production as they will be performing The Jungle Book at the end of the year. A huge thank you to our FOSB for their generous donation towards the cost of the production and a massive thank you to you all for supporting our FOSB events. Without your generosity we wouldn’t be able to provide these sort of memorable opportunities for our children, as our school budget is very tight. For all of the photos, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-gallery-category/our-gallery

Celebration Worship Begins

Dear Parents and Carers, You're very welcome to join us for our first Celebration Worship of the year tomorrow morning at 9.05am. Our class teachers will be letting our children know how impressed they are with how well they have started the year. We have had a fantastic start so far and we are proud of all of the children. We have seen wonderful walking, legendary lining up and the children have been following our Barney's Brilliant Behaviour Be's (4B's)- Be ready, Be Kind, Be Safe and Be Respectful. As ever, if your child has an award from out of school, they are very welcome to bring it into school so we can present it to them on the golden podium. From next week our Heads and Deputies will be counting up the Values points from each class and the Values Winners will be awarded in Celebration Worship on Fridays. Parents will be informed on Wednesdays if their child is the values winner. However, you are all welcome to attend our Celebration Worship every week or whenever you are free.

Year 2- Computing and Music

Our first week back has been great so far. We started off our morning with computing. In computing this week we’ve been looking at creating our own music production by using the iPads.

Year 2- P.E

What a beautiful day to do P.E outside!☀️ We had a go at rounders today a first time for most children but we had so much fun!

Collective Worship with Rev Ben and Rev Matt

In worship today, Rev Ben got us all thinking about being creative and our greatest and most generous creator - God. We enjoyed watching two teams of children compete to create the best animal from just sticky tape and newspaper. We also reflected on how we can be generous with our creations in school this week.

Monday Collective Worship-Welcome Back to School

This morning, we all met for our first collective worship of the academic year and it was lovely to all be back together again after the summer holidays. First, we reminded ourselves of our vision, our Christian values and our British values. Then, Mrs Ham then introduced our four golden rules. These are: To be ready, to be kind, to be safe and to be respectful. We then discussed what these key phrases meant. Be Ready: Jack said having a smart uniform, Miles said looking at the speaker, Ella-Grace said being at school on time, Alice said being prepared with the correct equipment and Sonny said being ready and following instructions if the fire alarm goes off.  Be Kind- Freddie said helping each other, Daisy said supporting others such as charities and refugees, Alice said encourage others to join in your games, Wilson and David said look after the environment such as not littering and making bug houses, Renee said sharing your toys and equipment.  Be Safe- Chay said always staying where an adult is, Molly said keeping safe with our equipment such as walking with scissors upside down, Charlie Rose said walking to places within school and Jack said following the instructions of the teacher.  Be respectful- Bella said let adults through the door first, Dougie said show respect towards the environment including animals, Darcy said do not talk over the teacher. Mrs Ham reminded us that we need to line up smartly so she wanted to see 'legendary lining up' and 'wonderful walking' around school by walking sensibly, smartly, safely, silently and smiling at the same time.  Mrs Ham then explained our new behaviour system. All children will start every lesson on green (ready to learn) with the aim of moving up to yellow (time to shine) throughout the day for showing good behaviour , demonstrating our Christian values and a showing positive attitude to learning. However, there will also be pink which means time to think. If a child is not demonstrating a positive attitude to learning or making the right choices then they will be given two warnings. If the behaviour still persists after these warnings then the child will move to pink and will be asked to reflect on their behaviour by filling in a pink reflection sheet during their break time. We hope that this time to reflect will allow a child to move forward positively and make better choices.  We are all looking forward to another super year at St Barnabas and are aiming to achieve great things through learning and growing together in a love-filled Christian family!

Back with our friends

We have had great fun in the sun with our friends. It’s been great to catch up and reconnect after the Summer holidays.

Legendary lining up

Today we showed Mrs Ham our legendary lining up after discussing our school rules this morning in Worship. We know that we need to line up sensibly and smartly to keep ourselves and others safe and to be ready to learn. We have also been showing our wonderful walking around school. Well done everyone!

First day back

We have had a fantastic first day back in school. Our teachers are so impressed with how well we have settled into our new classes and we have all been showing brilliant behaviour.

Year 6 Leavers Service

Congratulations to our amazing Year 6 class for being such superstars over the last seven years. It has been a privilege to have you as part of our school family and we are so immensely proud of you all. We wish you all the luck in the world as you all go off on your new adventure to high school and we know that you will achieve great things and shine from the inside out. I really hope today has made you realise how precious you are and that you from here with confidence. We also said thank you to our wonderful volunteers who support our school family so brilliantly. Thank you Carol, Fran and Glenda. We also said a huge thank you to Rev Ben. This time last year our WOW group interviewed Rev Ben and we have loved having him as part of our school family over the last few months. We sadly said thank you, good luck and goodbye to Miss Horsfall and Miss Wilkins, who have both been covering maternity leaves this year. They have been amazing and have fit right into our school family. We also said thank you and goodbye to Mrs Kay who is leaving her welfare role at the same time as her son leaves Year 6. Thanks for being a star Mrs Kay! We then said thank you to Miss Bentham who was with us short term and has secured a permanent role in another school closer to her home. Thanks Miss Bentham! Lastly but certainly not least, we said thank you, goodbye and good luck to Miss Ashworth, who has recently moved to Yorkshire. She has been an absolute star and we wish her all the luck in the world in her new school. We are sure she won’t miss the long commute to St Barnabas but we know that St Barnabas will always have a special place in her heart. Thank you so much to our parents and carers, you have been wonderful and we couldn’t do what we do without your support. On behalf of all of the staff I would like to thank you for your support, kind words and gifts. Finally, I would like to thank your truly amazing children for their huge smiles, enthusiasm and positivity. They have worked their socks off all year and it has been another brilliant year. I consider myself so lucky to lead such a wonderful school with the best staff team in the world, the most amazingly supportive parents and the most charismatic, delightful children who brighten up our days. Wishing you all a fabulous Summer holiday and we look forward to welcoming you all back on Monday 4th September. Take care and God bless, Mrs Ham

End of Year Awards Ceremony

This morning we had a very special awards Worship to celebrate all the great achievements of our children and our school this year. Quinn received an award for being our planet protector by looking after our world and God’s planet in so many different ways, thank you for your contribution Quinn! We were so proud (and some of us a bit emotional!) to present Ezmae with the Sharon Kay award for always showing kindness and generosity to her peers, what a credit to the school! For our Progress awards, we said a huge congratulations to Lola, Bobby, Tilly, Charlie, Jacob, and Eddie, who have wowed us with their progress this year. We also had our Star of the year awards where Sophie, Ruby, Sofia, Arabelle and Frankie shone like the super stars they are. Our Children’s champion awards were chosen by each class to reiterate the importance of Democracy. Well done to Lyla, Scarlett, Ivy, Lily-May, Joshua and Mason, who have clearly impressed their peers! Finally, we had our Amazing attendance awards. We can never expect children to have 100% attendance as we all get poorly sometimes or have big events in our lives, so our school target for attendance is over 96%. So many of our children achieved this target, well done! Well done to all the award winners and all our other children in school who have shone in their own way this year. We hope they are all as proud of themselves as we are!

Year 2 - Life Cycle of Bees

As part of our science unit - life cycles, year 2 were treated with a live demonstration of honey bees at work. The children learned all about the different jobs that honey bees do and why they are so important. We discussed each stage in great detail starting with the egg and how they progress into adulthood. Year 2 saw a real bee hive and spotted the Queen bee hard at work.

The WOW Group’s Messy Parables

This week, the W.O.W. Group finished off their Messy Parables workshops with our final two choices, The Wise and Foolish Builders and The Widow’s Offering. The children understood the stories well and had great fun making stained-glass style windows or a coin purse. Well done to all WOW members for leading exciting, engaging and thoughtful workshops.

Year 2 - Reading wish list for year 3

Year 2 have created their wish list of library books for Year 3. The children have selected their favourite books and designed their own poster and explained why they would like to read that book.

Year 2 - Explanation Texts

As part of our English unit the children wrote amazing explanation texts on hot and cold places around the world (linking with our geography unit) The children chose to compare the climate and tourist attractions of both Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Reykjavík in Iceland. The children loved comparing these locations and wrote explanation texts comparing the climates.

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning in celebration worship, Mrs Ham started by praising all of our children for their courage and positivity during our whole school transition day yesterday. All of the teachers were super impressed with the creativity, attitude to learning, behaviour and manners that all of the children showed in their new year groups. We then said well done to our Reception and KS1 value award winners who were Connie, Bobby-Ray, Jack and Eliza and our KS2 value award winners who were Edward, Alice, Oscar and Freya. We said a huge well done to our High 5 netball team who represented BwD at the Lancashire School Games at Stanley Park on Tuesday and got through to the quarter final. We also celebrated lots of out of schools sports award winners. Well done to Ruby and Archie for entering and competing the Iron Kids Competition, Daisy for being a fantastic gymnast, Lyla and Sofia for their ‘Going Places’ dancing trophy and Sofia for being outstanding at Musical Theatre, Eliza for demonstrating wonderful football skills, Isaac for his ‘potential and success in the arts’ trophy, Peyton and Cassidy for being superstars at rainbows, Summer for achieving stage 6 at swimming and level 2 at gymnastics and Grace for wonderful improvement in her ballet, a gold award in jazz and being the overall classical dancer of the year. We congratulated Reception and Year 6 for being the attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park for being the Value Award House Point Winners this week. Lastly, we heard some beautiful prayers from Hamza, Sofia and Jack and sang Sing a New Song to the Lord. Thank you to the those who could join us for celebration worship this week and we wish you all an enjoyable weekend.

Whole School Collective Worship- Archdeacon David

This morning in worship, we welcomed Archdeacon David who visited our school to lead collective worship. Archdeacon David asked us what we think it means when we say that Jesus is the light of the world. We had responses such as it means that Jesus leads us and guides us in the right way, that Jesus lights up the world and makes it a nicer place for us all to live and Jesus is the light of the world by encouraging us to be peaceful, respectful and kind. Archdeacon David told us that we also have the special power of being the light of the world too. He reminded us that Jesus said, ‘When I go back to heaven, I will leave you a special thing called the holy spirit. I want you to shine as a light in the world to make the world a better place.’ Archdeacon David left us to reflect on how we can achieve this. He said that next time he visits, he will give us the opportunity to tell him how we have been shining as a light in the world just as Jesus does and asks us to do. We finished our worship by singing 'Shine from the Inside out'.

Year 2-3 Transition Day

Soon-to-be Year 3 has been amazing. The children made their own personality swirls by showing their unique qualities and the things they like. It was a fun way for them to express themselves and be creative. They also made bookmarks for themselves, which they can use when in September. They felt very grown up when they sat on the big chairs ready for the next stage of their education. They also had a chance to explore the KS2 yard, which they absolutely loved. Lastly, the children talked about what they are excited about for September. They can't wait to learn new things and have new experiences at school. They are really looking forward to it!

Year 2-3 Transition Day- Creating Personality Swirls

They had a fantastic time creating personality swirls! It was a wonderful opportunity for them to express themselves and showcase their unique qualities. During this activity, the children wrote down words that described themselves, such as their hobbies and interests. Some of the words they shared were reading, walking, listening to music, playing games, and enjoying delicious food. It was wonderful to see them express their individuality through these words. Additionally, the children had the chance to colour their swirls using their favourite colours.

Year 2 - Creating Animations

Year 2 have been looking and creating a variety of animations that solve particular problems. They worked creatively to solve issues and using their ICT skills they created exceptional animations.

Year 2 - Bar Charts

During our statistics unit, Year 2 have been focusing on a variety of ways to display and represent findings. We have looked at tally charts, pictograms and now we have been focusing on bar charts. The children worked really hard to display their findings in a presentable way.

Monday Worship: St Barnabas and St Paul and Welcome to Rev Matt

Today, Rev Ben led our worship and we welcomed Rev Matt who will be working at St Barnabas Church too. We began our worship by thinking about a time where something happened to us and where we couldn’t wait to tell others about it. Amelia couldn’t wait to tell others when her Mum had a baby. Mason couldn’t wait to tell others that he had been on the television! We thought about how St Barnabas and St Paul were generous about the message about Jesus and how they told Jesus’ story to people for the first time. Rev Ben shared a video with the children about their story. On Saturday, Matt became Rev Matt and was ordained at Blackburn Cathedral. Rev Matt wanted to become a vicar because he wanted to spread the word of Jesus and to find out more about Jesus. Rev Matt spent three years at vicar school. He said he was most excited to learn more and for the children to learn with him. We gave Rev Matt a huge St Barnabas welcome. We ended our worship by singing ‘story of the cross’.

Year 2 - Stained Glass Windows

In R.E Year 2 have been exploring what makes a church a church. The children have been understanding the various aspects of the church and understanding their place within the church. The children have focused on stained glass windows and how they tell Jesus’ stories and teaching. The children then had a go at creating their own stained glass windows using lots of colours and materials.

Friday Celebration Worship

Wow! We have had another week with lots to celebrate both in and out of school. The Rotary Club came in to praise and thank our year 5 children for their contribution to the community, their school and the wider world. They were presented with a certificate for all of their fundraising for our school and supporting a number of charities this year including Cancer Research, The Teddy Trust and DARE (Darwen Asylum Seeker and Refugee Enterprise). They also raised money for Turkey, Nigeria and Ukraine. Well done Year 5! Also a huge well done to our value award winners this week who have been working hard across the curriculum and demonstrating a wonderful attitude to learning. These were Mila, Piper-Jo, Lennox and Carter in the infants and KS1 and Ruby, Daniel, Freddy, Isaac, Harlow and Louie in the Juniors. We also celebrated lots of in school sporting success. Our Year 5/6 boys and girls gymnasts for attending a competition as two separate teams at St Bedes High School on Tuesday. They were amazing! Our Year 5/6 cricket team who came 3rd overall at a recent cricket competition, our Year 6 tennis team who came 1st overall, the Year 4 football team who took part in a festival and won every game and the Year 3/4 and Y5/6 DPSSA cross country team for their determination and courage and coming 2nd place overall. We also congratulated our out of school sports award winners. Well done to Ella-Grace for trying her absolute best and getting Star of the Week during her football training and competition, Isabella and Charlie for getting their orange belts at martial arts, Carter for getting the Fantastic Fox of the day at football, Lyla for gaining level 1 in her tap dancing, Jenson for completing his stage 6 at swimming, Marley for her kindness at rainbows, Olivia for getting the managers player of the year trophy at football, Isaac for his trophy for demonstrating fantastic football skills, Charlie Rose for being a superstar gymnast and Ivy for being a superstar cheerleader, Georgie for taking part in her first competition for dancing, Harriet for completing her 10m in butterfly and 10m in breaststroke, Eliza for getting to the finals of her football competition at the weekend and Eva, Katie, Sadie and Charlotte for coming 1st place in their recent football tournament. We said a final well done to Reception and Year 3 for winning the amazing attendance this week and India Mill for achieving the Value Award Points Winners this week. Thank you to our parents and grandparents that could attend and we wish you all a wonderful weekend.

Forest school week 3

We had lots of fun this week in our Forest School Club, we put up a shelter, continued to build our den and we also used some special tools. We spoke about how to use outdoor tools safely and what they can be used for, including using sticks to make tent pegs!

Year 2 - Music

During this lesson, the children worked really hard to listen and find the notes within a piece of music. They had to listen carefully and identify the notes and recognise the sounds that D, A and F made within a particular piece of music.

Year 2 - Facial Expressions

During this unit of art, Year 2 have been focusing on sketching facial expressions and how you can alter facial expressions by using very few lines. The children explored a variety of emotions and expressions linked to those emotions and then drew their favourite emotions within a setting.

Summer Reading Challenge

This morning, Angela from Blackburn and Darwen library service, came to talk to us all about an exciting Summer reading challenge and the wonderful prizes that can be won for reading 6 books over the holidays. Dear Parent / Carer, Your child has been invited to join Ready, Set, Read! the Summer Reading Challenge 2023. This is a national library reading game, which will introduce your child to the joy of reading for pleasure and help to develop his/her literacy skills throughout the summer holidays. Once enrolled each member reads 6 library books (or eBooks / eAudio), with stickers or a prize awarded for each book that is read and returned. Those who complete the scheme will receive a medal and a certificate. To enrol, simply come to your nearest Blackburn with Darwen library and complete an application form between 1st July & 30th September. Your nearest library is: Darwen Library, Knott St, Darwen, BB3 3BU. Website & map: www.blackburn.gov.uk/libraries/libraries-blackburn-darwen/blackburn-central-library Enrolment in the scheme is free of charge, and involves children borrowing books on a library card. If your child does not yet have a library card, we would encourage you to take this opportunity to enrol them as a library member. This is a quick process, and you will simply be asked to complete and sign another form. However, those children without library cards may still join the Summer Reading Challenge, and temporary arrangements will be put in place to allow them to borrow books. We look forward to welcoming you and your family to our libraries during the summer. Yours faithfully, Adele Karwat, Service Manager: Libraries & Archives

Year 2 - Exploring South America

As part of our geography unit hot and cold places. Year 2 have been exploring the continent of South America and looking at the climate in Rio de Janeiro. The children learned many facts, figures and reasons for why the climate is as it is. The children used their knowledge to write a section of their explanation text in English.

W.O.W. Group - Messy Parables - The Mustard Seed

Last week was the W.O.W. group’s first Messy Parables session. We read the Parable of the Mustard Seed, talked about how one little thought or belief can grow into something great, and made our own self-belief badges. All in all, a brilliant first session, with a few biscuits thrown in for good measure. This week, the parable is The Unforgiving Servant.

EYFS and KS1 Sports Day 2023

This morning, EYFS and KS1 classes competed in our annual sports day competition. The races included egg and spoon, sprint, sack race and an obstacle race. The children were fantastic at showing resilience and they were great supporters for their friends, cheering each other on and clapping! Each race winner received a medal and all children cooled off with an ice pop at the end as a treat. Thank you to all the parents and carers who attended and supported, it was a brilliant morning!

Whole School Multiplex Movie Night-

We would like to take this opportunity to thank parents, carers and staff for your incredible support and enthusiasm during our recent movie night. We are thrilled to inform you that our dedicated Rotakids, along with our smart school councillors, have fulfilled their promise and successfully completed their final project. Through their combined efforts and hard work, organising a successful multiplex movie night, together we have managed to raise an impressive sum of £580.60 after the cost of food! This significant amount will contribute towards the school minibus, which will greatly benefit our students by facilitating transportation to sports events, competitions, and other important activities. This achievement is a testament to the incredible community we have at our school. Your dedication and willingness to contribute have made a significant impact on our fundraising efforts. Together, we have not only created a memorable and enjoyable event but also managed to raise much-needed funds.

KS1 Forest schools- Week 2

What fun we have all had in Forest school this week! We walked up to Jacks Key, gathering sticks, leaves and grass as we went. Once we found a nice sheltered area the children started to create their nature pictures and faces. Once our art was finished we explored, climbed trees, jumped into lovely mud and washed our wellies in puddles.

Monday Collective Worship with Rev Ben

This morning, Rev Ben led our Monday Collective Worship. Our theme for this worship was St Barnabas and his generosity. We started off by playing a game called, ‘Guess the Value.’ We had two teams at the front who had to guess the price of various items such as a tin of beans, a playstation 5, a loaf of bread, a car and Harry Kane. The audience then had to say whether they thought that the cost was higher or lower. This gave us all an insight into the value of various items, big and small. We learnt that all the first Christians were generous but St Barnabas was especially generous. He owned a field and sold this to give to the church and therefore to other people. He did this because he wanted to do as Jesus had done and give to others. Rev Ben asked us how we could be generous just as St Barnabas was. We said that we can give something that we don’t want or use anymore to charity such as clothes and toys, do a sponsored walk, run or a bake sale to raise money for charity or buy an extra item when we go shopping to give to someone less fortunate. Generosity is one of the fruits of the spirit so this is the song that we sang to end our worship.

Year 2 PE - Piggy in the middle

During our new unit in PE, year 2 have been looking at invasion games and more particularly piggy in the middle. Year 2 have been developing their throwing and catching skills, movement off the ball and to work hard to anticipate the direction of the ball in order to intercept play. The children worked on their stance and how to move quickly from one area to the next to reduce the time the opposition had on the ball during the games. Outside players looked and were encouraged the throw the ball quickly and accurately to a teammate to ensure the middle player does not get the ball.

Year 2 - Position and Direction

In maths, year 2 have been looking at describing the position and direction of objects. During the lesson the children were focusing mainly on describing how an object has moved. They used to the terms clockwise and anti clockwise and described how much the object has turned and it what direction.

Friday Celebration Worship

Wow! What a busy first week back into our final half term of this academic year. Our theme this week has been encouragement and Mrs Ham asked us to reflect on how we have encouraged each other this week, and how we will continue to focus on this as we enjoy the last few weeks of the school year and support each other as we transition into our new year groups and up to high school for our Year 6 class. We had lots of out of school stars to celebrate this week. Well done to Ella-Grace, Ivy, Leo, Olivia, Sonny, Charlie and Jack and Desmond for their wonderful football skills, Jake, Will, Bobby and Austin for coming runners up in a football tournament in St Anne’s, Manni and Bobby for their attendance and skill at a recent football tournament, Matthew for his recent success in the Premier League writing competition, Harry for his swimming and cricket success, Lyla for her musical theatre singing performance, Isaac for his piano playing, Iris and Leonora for being fabulous gymnasts, Finn and Ruby for running the race for life and Ruby for also completing the couch to 5k, Grace for performing on the main stage at Darwen Music Live, Mila for showing kindness at Rainbows and Mason for his sensational kickboxing. We also celebrated lots of success in school. As always, we heard from our teachers who presented their Value Award Winners. Well done to Eve, Isabella, Miley, Euan, Ruby, Charlie, Katie and Elsa. We also said a huge well done to our group of our Year 4 children who attended a Quad Kids competition and came second place out of 17, our Year 5/6 cricket team for excellent participation and sportsmanship on Wednesday, our Year 5/6 Netball team who came 2nd place out of all the schools in BwD, Reception class and Year 6 for the best attendance this week, India Mill for being the award winners this week and to Lola, Jake, Esme, Harry, Mathew, Daisy, Freddie and Bobby for gaining their pen licenses. We ended our worship with some lovely singing and dancing to ‘Build Up.’ What wonderful way to end the week!

Latest Newsletter

Good afternoon parents and carers, we have had a super busy week back at St Barnabas. Please see our newsletter for a round up of last half term and photos of our teaching teams for September here. A huge thank you to our FOSB for the wonderful Father’s Day Breakfast on Tuesday and to all of the Dads and Grandads who came along. Thanks also to the Dads and Grandads who came along to the special Reception class Father’s Day Celebration this afternoon. It was lovely to see you all and the children loved telling you why they love you and enjoyed playing with you in their outdoor area. We wish all of our Dads and Grandads in our school family a lovely Father’s Day on Sunday! We have had a very busy week of sports with our Year 3/4 quad kids team coming 2nd out of 17 schools, our year 5/6 cricket team just missing out on the final and our netball team came 2nd in the Darwen netball league. Well done to you all and a huge thank you to Mrs Gardner and Mr Bloomfield for supporting the children and thanks to parents who supported. Next week we are looking forward to our Sports Day on Friday morning. You are very welcome to come along to show your support and encourage your child. Reception class and Year 2 had great fun at Blackpool Zoo on Tuesday. For all of the photos, please click here. For all the class news from this week, please click here. For all the upcoming events, click here. Thank you so much for your generous bottle donations for our FOSB Summer Fayre. We really appreciate your support. Wishing you all a fabulous weekend and thank you for your continued support, Mrs Ham

Year 2 RE Church Observations

As part of our RE unit, year 2 have been down to our local church, St Barnabas, to explore and to see what makes a church a church. The children were tasked with a scavenger hunt to find all the objects that are most symbolic to a church and to write down why they exist within the church.

Year 2 - Blackpool Zoo Trip

Year 2 went to Blackpool Zoo to look at all the amazing animals and habitats. They were treated to an incredible Sea Lion display that showcased all their brilliant tricks and demonstrated how clever they are. We explored the big cats exhibit, giraffes and elephants. We also explored the world of the dinosaurs and learnt all about their existence and habits they used to live in. This fed nicely in with our new science unit - animals survival and growth and in many of the exhibits we learnt about the different stages of animal life.

Year 2 - Blackpool Zoo Trip

Year 2 went to Blackpool Zoo to look at all the amazing animals and habitats. They were treated to an incredible Sea Lion display that showcased all their brilliant tricks and demonstrated how clever they are. We explored the big cats exhibit, giraffes and elephants. We also explored the world of the dinosaurs and learnt all about their existence and habits they used to live in. This fed nicely in with our new science unit - animals survival and growth and in many of the exhibits we learnt about the different stages of animal life.

Forest school

Today during our Forest school club we have had so much fun exploring our Forest school area, adding to the existing dens and decorating them. The children also played games and climbed trees. We tried to keep the children in the shade as much as possible, we also had regular drink and fresh fruit breaks. We’re already looking forward to next week!

Whole School Worship: Encouragement

This morning in worship, we started with an encouragement song with the lyrics 'we all need encouragement, like the air that we breath'. Mrs Ham explained that yesterday was St Barnabas day and he was known as a great encourager. She then reminded us of how we have a special connection with St Paul's in Hoddlesden as we share our vicar, Rev Ben with and how St Barnabas and St Paul had a special connection in the Bible too. We then learnt about how St Paul became a follower of Jesus with the encouragement of his friend, St Barnabas. We then discussed how we can all show courage like St Paul and encourage each other like St Barnabas in the many upcoming events such as sports day, transition days, end of year assessments and productions. We are looking forward to learning more about St Barnabas and St Paul from Rev Ben in his worships over the next few weeks.

Celebration Worship

This week during celebration worship we discussed and reflected over the week of Pentecost. The children enjoyed listening to what each class has been doing over the week and celebrated their achievements and successes during the week. We also had a visit from one of our Cidari Trustees, Jo Venn and it was lovely to show her the great things we have been achieving. A huge well done to all of our values award winners, you are a credit to yourselves and our St Barnabas family.

Sports Stars

A huge congratulations to all of our sports stars this week. Many children participate in a variety of sports and events outside of school. A massive well done to our school's netball team who won the high 5’s netball final this week and our cross country team who worked extremely hard and showed huge amounts of determination to complete the course. Other sporting achievements included, gymnastics, dancing, performing arts, skiing and many more.

Year 2 - Windmills

During our year 2 DT unit the children have been exploring the use of different materials to build their structures of the windmills. They have used lots of techniques and materials to test and evaluate base structures.

Year 2 - DT Windmills

During our year 2 DT unit the children have been exploring the use of different materials to build their structures of the windmills. They have used lots of techniques and materials to test and evaluate base structures.

Year 2 - Music

Year 2 have been using a variety of musical instruments and techniques to create their own version of popular music. They have created many beats, loops and final pieces using many different musical instruments.

Year 2 - Creating ICT postcards

Year 2 have been looking at mixed media to design and create their own unique postcards. They have explored lots of creative techniques to ensure that their postcards are appealing and stand out to the reader. They have used the draw tools to create a unique design, they have used a variety of textures and techniques to create background and inputted text.

Whole School Worship: Pentecost

Today in our worship we learned about the events of Pentecost and how the church began. We had some fab actors acting out when the Holy Spirit descended and flames appeared on the disciples’ heads. We sang a special song to welcome the Holy Spirit into our Worship and reflected on how excited the disciples must have felt when they received the Holy Spirit. We thought about how we could show Jesus' love through our words and actions this week.

Year 2 - Computing

During computing year 2 have been exploring programming and creating their very own art work about themselves. They used strip design to create a cover sheet all about themselves and used their creative designs to make their own unique piece.

Celebration Worship

In Celebration Worship this morning, Mrs. Ham highlighted some of the wonderful key points from our GOOD Ofsted report and thanked everyone for their part in making our school a great place. We also celebrated our values winners across KS1 and KS2. India Mill came first place for the overall points of 562. Lucy and Mason received a pen licence for demonstrating an excellent standard of writing across all subjects. Mrs. Ham gave out awards to the children for taking part in extracurricular activities, this week, the children have taken part in swimming, rugby, darts, karate, brownies, gymnastic, netball, football, horse riding, and Olivia from Rainbow. Year 2 and Year 4 received the 'Amazing Attendance' alert this week. We finished our worship with prayers led by Mrs. Ham and we sang 'Shine from the Inside Out'.

Mad Science Club

Today was the last session of Mad Science Club and the children all really enjoyed learning about the density of different liquids today. They carried out group experiments and watched our science expert carry out an experiment too, whilst learning about how different liquids in our seas and rivers can affect the environment. They experienced first-hand, how difficult it is to get oil out of water and got to take home a little souvenir from the lesson at the end of it too.

Monday Maths in Year 2- Comparing Mass

Year 2 have been comparing the mass of classroom objects today. They first made a prediction as to which of the two items would be the heaviest before testing this out using the balancing scales. They then had the opportunity to test out items of their choice. Well done Year 2.

Year 2 - Wacky Windmills

During our DT unit, year 2 have been designing and looking at structures to build their own windmills. The children have looked at a variety of windmills and have started to design structures and windmill concepts to design their final pieces looking at all types of materials.

Year 2- Lunchtime MUGA session.

Year 2 had a really good go at learning to skip with skipping ropes. I was so proud of everyone for trying very hard, even when they found it tricky.

Year 2 - Music

Year 2 have been exploring dynamics within music. They have been working on how they change within a song, what they sound like and if changed how does that make an impact to the feel and sound of the music.

Year 2 - Collective Worship

During our class worship year 2 have been looking at whether music has a positive impact on the world and what impact the Eurovision Song Contest has on the world around us. The children came up with amazing ideas and suggested that it has so many positives such as: makes people happy, helps express emotion, different songs for different feelings and improves people’s moods. The children spoke very highly of Eurovision and talked about how it brings lots of countries together and is a change to show of talents on a big stage.

Year 2 - Windmills

For our Design & Technology unit year 2 have been exploring the functions and structure of lots of different types of windmills. We looked at all the functions individually and carefully looked at each one in order to build that knowledge to design and create our own windmill.

Year 2 - Music

During year 2’s music lesson they have been focusing on chords in music. Children have opportunities to play many different chord patterns and express themselves creatively in their music session using instruments.

Mental Health Parent Webinars

The week commencing 15th May is ‘Mental Health Awareness Week’. After much success of hosting some parent webinars back in February for ‘Children’s Mental Health Week’, the Mental Health Support Teams are rolling out some more. The topics for the week will be: My anxious child Helping with exam stress Psychoeducation around worry They’ll take place at 10am and 6pm, Monday 15th to Thursday 18th May and it’s for parents, teachers, carers, children and young people, in fact anyone can join.

Year 2 - Creative Writing

During our writing unit the children have been sorting their own sequel adventure to the amazing story A Winter’s Child. The children based their writing on their characters drawing a magical door and then writing about what would be on the other side of that magical door. All the children used really exciting vocabulary and lots of technical grammar skills to make their writing exciting and griping for the reader. A huge focus on presentation and handwriting has been instilled into the children and the examples show some beautifully presented work.

Celebration Worship: King Charles III

This morning during celebration worship, we learnt all about the coronation of King Charles III, which will be happening this weekend. We spoke about some of the important things to look out for during the coronation and what it will be like when King Charles is coronated. We also spoke about some of the celebrations that are happening in Darwen this weekend, such as a street party on Monday in the town centre and a party in Whitehall Park on Sunday! We also celebrated all of our successes and achievements in school this week, such as TriKidz and our coronation picnic lunch! We finished our Worship by singing the National Anthem to the new King whilst waving our special coronation flags that our school have bought us. Our Trust have also bought us some special gifts of a commemorative coronation coin, a bookmark and sticker. Thank you Cidari Multi Academy Trust!

Year 2 - TRIKIDZ

Year 2 participated in the TRIKIDZ and competed in a triathlon. The children really enjoyed the swimming activity on the resistance bands, bike work and running laps of the track. All of year 2 did brilliantly and demonstrated teamwork, determination and encouraged each other well.

Celebration Worship- Whole School

Another amazing week from everyone. We celebrated amazing attendance awards, awards for extra curricular activities such as; rugby, swimming, beavers and to Oscar for his dedication and outstanding commitment to piano lessons. Isaac was celebrated for receiving a distinction in playing the cornet from Trinity College London. The class teachers gave out value awards to the children that have worked their socks off in and out the classroom and have demonstrated our Christian Values. Whitehall Park received the most value points which put them in first place.Well done! The Year 4 class received the 'National Outdoor Learning Award' for being brave and showing great teamwork at Anderton Centre. The attendance award this week went to the Reception class and Year 4. We ended worship by singing the butterfly song and prayers led by James, Darcy, Luca and Mrs Ham. What a fabulous week. Well done everyone!

Mad Science Club Forces

Today Mad Science Club were learning about forces with Scientific Sarah. The children got to investigate forces using different equipment such as metal spinning tops and large coin machine spinners. They have really enjoyed themselves and can’t wait for next week!

Year 2 - Fire Safety

Year 2 had their fire safety talk by the local fire brigade. They explained and demonstrated the importance of fire safety inside and outside of the home. They explained how to deal with dangerous situations and what you would do if a fire broke out in the home. The children participated and tried on the fire safety gear and were really enthusiastic about wearing it. Year 2 completed the fire safety quiz at the end of the day and scored full marks.

Year 2 Class Worship

During our class worship we have been looking at all the children across the world who aren’t able to go to schools as a result of natural disasters. The children prayed for those in need and made us all appreciate what we have and we came up with many ways in we can help those in need such as raising money for charity and raising awareness.

Year 2 - Exploring Drama Techniques

In year 2 we have started our new unit based on A Winters Child. The children explored many drama techniques and retold the story of the child and conveyed many emotions during their acting to influence their writing. The children were amazing and really embedded the characters they were playing and this really helped to make emotion jump off their page with their writing.

Year 2 - French

During year 2 Junior Jam French lesson the children have been learning and understanding the variety of ways they can explain what they like and what they do not like. The children came up with many creative and amazing ideas and really enjoyed explaining to their peers their likes and dislikes.

Latest Newsletter

Good morning from a very sunny St Barnabas, please find attached the latest newsletter with upcoming dates and events. The sporting news and visits and visitors can be found here as the files are too large to load onto class dojo sorry. https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/parents/newsletters A quick reminder of the dates that school is closed in the coming weeks. They are all on our website and class dojo events. Monday 1st May- May Bank Holiday Thursday 4th May- School used as a Polling Station Monday 8th May- King's Coronation Bank Holiday Red, white and blue day is next Wednesday 3rd May to celebrate the King's Coronation. The children will be having a special Coronation Afternoon Tea Picnic. Further details of the menu will be sent shortly. Wishing you all a lovely day, Mrs Ham

Charlotte from Elektec visit: EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2

Charlotte from Elektec came to visit Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 today. The children watched a video to show how electricity is made. The children found out how electricity is made in a power station and the pylons help to carry the electricity to our houses. Charlotte asked the children what happens if you touch electricity. James said that you could get electrocuted which is absolutely right. Charlotte showed a photograph and the children had to guess what it was. Well done to Eliza who explained they are solar panels. Charlotte explained how they work and how sunlight heats the solar panels to make electricity. Charlotte also showed an electric car and showed a charging point. Charlotte explained that we will need to have a lot of electricians to help install the charging points and solar panels. Charlotte explained that Elektec is managed by herself and her husband. Charlotte and Carl’s children also work for the company and create videos. Charlotte shared a video of her Electots explaining what their company does. The Prince’s trust has helped set the company up and Charlotte has even met the king! Tristen, Sofia, Ella-Grace and Harry helped Charlotte to show how electricians keep safe. Glasses protect our eyes, a hard hat protects our head, a high vis jacket is worn so that everybody can see the electrician and a warning sign is used when an electrician is working on site to keep everybody safe. Charlotte showed a picture of the electricians that work in her company who are all men! This makes Charlotte sad and she explained to the children that girls can be just as good as boys and girls can be electricians too. Charlotte explained that to be an electrician you have to be good at Maths, be friendly, be good at puzzles, be able to follow the rules and be able to stay safe. Charlotte discussed what construction meant and she showed how a new house is built and the people who are involved from architects to decorators. Again, there aren’t many girls who work in construction. Charlotte shared her book called ‘When I grow up’ which explains how you can be anything that you want to be. Thank you so much to Charlotte for visiting, we had a wonderful time and left feeling inspired.

Year 2 - Hop Skip & Jump

In support of East Lancs hospice the children took part in a hop skip and jump event to help support all the amazing work that the hospice does and to raise awareness of all their amazing work that they do.

Year 2 - Class Worship

During our class worship we have been looking at the new alarms that are coming to every phone in the UK to warn people of any emergencies that may be occurring in their local area. We discussed many positives and negatives and agreed that it will save lives.

Year 2 - Junior Jam

The children have been learning and applying their music skills in order to create and understand musical pulses.

Year 2 - Pentecost

During our RE lesson we have been following on from the Easter Story. The children acted out and understood the messages that were told and celebrated during the Pentecost. Children explained what an important celebration it is in the Christian calendar and now it is considered to be the birth of the church.

Amazing Attendance Winners : Spring Term

Well done to all of our children who have attained 96% attendance in Spring Term. We are really proud of you all!

Whole School Worship with Rev Ben

Today in Worship, Rev Ben spoke about the awe and wonder in the events of Easter Sunday. He asked us about how the resurrection changed Mary Magdalene’s life and how the Easter story may make a difference in our lives.

Easter Artwork in Whitehall Park

The children have all been learning about Easter in RE. As part of their learning, they have created some Easter artwork which is displayed in Whitehall park. It will be displayed over the holidays so it is a great opportunity for you to visit with your family.

Celebration Worship Sports Stars

A huge well done to all of our sports stars who were presented with awards in Celebration Worship this morning. This week Mrs Ham presented awards for the following out of school sports or activities and the children got to stand on the golden podium with pride: Swimming, gymnastics, orienteering, dancing, writing, rainbow badges and the beaver and rainbow of the week. We congratulated our cross country team for their courage and determination at last night's Darwen Cross Country Competition. We thanked our Year 6 Sports Leaders for their successful KS2 inter-house sports competition yesterday as they planned and led it all.

Celebration Worship

Celebrating all of our amazing children in their year groups who received the most value points this week. A special well done to: Reception - Whole class Year 1 - Chay Year 2 - Whole Class Year 3 - Luca Year 4 - Grace Year 5 - Alfie Year 6 - Kaylen Well done to the Reception class who had 100% attendance this week so were the amazing attendance winners along with Year 6! Whitehall Park were out values points winners this week. Thank you to all of the parents and grandparents who joined us.

Whole School Assembly - Dogs Trust

Today’s assembly was led by Andrew from the dogs trust charity and his mascot ‘Duggie’. Andrew started the assembly by asking the children if they knew what the charity does, the children were keen to answer and said “it’s a charity for dogs who aren’t looked after properly.” Andrew explained that the trust takes in dogs who’s owners can no longer look after them, he said they then re-home the dogs to the most suitable owners to give the dogs the best life. Andrew told us that dogs trust re-home around 14,000 dogs a year. Andrew explained to the children that this assembly is all about learning how to be safe and act sensibly around dogs. Ella,Andrew and ‘Duggie’ demonstrated how to safely act around dogs and showed that you must always ask the owners permission before you stroke a dog.

Year 2 - Dogs Trust workshop

In year 2, we had a visitor from the Dogs Trust who taught our class about the five happy dog rules. The children discussed all the ways we can look after dogs, keep them happy and how to stay safe around dogs. All the children loved learning all the actions to the rules and understood the rules really well.

Year 2 - Plants

In our science lessons we have been exploring the needs and features of plants. We have been exploring what plants need to survive and labelling diagrams with an explanation to match.

Year 2 - Odd and even number games

During our maths sessions we have been looking at multiplication and division and we have been exploring the relationship between odd and even numbers throughout our topic. The children explored the differences and put their knowledge into practice with a challenge game of odd and even snakes and ladders.

Whole School Celebration Worship

In our Celebration Worship this morning we commemorated Year 6's trip to London, as well as the wonderful achievements of our pupils across all year groups. The class teachers gave out awards to pupils who have demonstrated our Christian values such as kindness, respect, and courage. We recognised the hard work and dedication of pupils who have excelled in various extracurricular activities, including our recent swimming gala and the Year 4 children for being brave and showing courage at Junction 4 skatepark. We also awarded the amazing attendance award to our Year 1 and Year 3 pupils, who have shown a commitment to their education and a passion for learning. Congratulations to the yellow team (Darwen Tower) for gaining a total of 317 points. This is a great achievement and a testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone involved. Well done and keep up the good work! We are incredibly proud of all our pupils and their accomplishments, and we know that they will continue to achieve great things. We want to thank Rev Ben for leading us in prayer and for reminding us of the importance of faith and community in our daily lives. To celebrate our students' achievements, we sang "Shine from the inside out," a fitting tribute to the incredible talents and hard work of our pupils.

Year 2 - Easter Symbols

During our Re lesson, we have been looking at a variety of symbols that are related to the Easter story and what they mean to Christians. We have designed our own stained glass windows with Easter symbols that will be displayed in Whitehall Park.

Year 2: Class Worship

During class worship, we had a look the impact that Roald Dahl’s books have on the modern day world. We discussed whether these books should be rewritten to fit in with new rules and regulations in today's society. Children were of the opinion that they: represent a time period, are historical and are still very funny and appealing. Therefore we agreed that they should not be rewritten.

Year 2: Taking Rubbings

During our art lessons we have been experimenting with the formal elements of art. We looked at creating at through rubbings of many different materials. We went around out local area taking rubbings of: trees, benches, rocks and walls to create a variety of patterns.

Year 2 - Creative Writing

In year 2, we have been focusing on the wordless book, The Journey written by Aaron Becker. We have been focusing mainly on using our senses to create a description for the forest image. The children explored the school grounds in the woodland areas and used all their senses to influence their creative writing.

Year 2 - Easter Story

In year 2, we have been looking at the Easter story and the symbols relating to Easter. We created our very own spinning wheel detailing the key moments of the Easter story.

Year 2 - Testing the use of everyday materials

During our science lessons we have been looking at the uses of everyday materials. During our science experiment we were testing how waterproof many materials are. We tested many materials and rated how water proof they were. After we had tested a variety of materials we looked at how to make materials waterproof. We used wax to rub that onto some materials and then re tested it to ensure it was waterproof.

Year 2 - Christopher Columbus

During our history lesson in year 2 we have begun to look at our second famous explorer, Christopher Columbus. We had a look a various pieces of historical evidence from the 1500’s to work out what Christopher Columbus was most famous for. The children were great at using their detective skills to work out what he explored and why he became a world wide name.

FOSB Mother’s Day Cream Tea

Thank you to all of our wonderful special ladies for attending our Mother’s Day cream tea.  A huge thank you to our wonderful FOSB. They are all volunteers and juggle work to make the events a huge success. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes and it is really appreciated by us all. We are very lucky to have you. If anybody would like to help volunteer for any events then we would be really grateful. We hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day on Sunday.

North West Air Ambulance Visit

We had the pleasure of welcoming Laura from North West Air Ambulance Charity today. Laura explained that the air ambulance colours are yellow and blue. North West Air Ambulance service is a charity and Laura’s job is to help raise money to keep the ambulances in the sky. The charity looks after over 8 million people and provides free emergency pre-hospital care. In addition to helicopters, the charity also has emergency vehicles. They are used when it is foggy, at night or when it is deemed not safe to fly. Darcy held the emergency bag that the crew carry. It is heavy and has everything they need to treat an injured person. The ambulance also carries blood on board. Wilson showed everybody the jacket that the crew wear and Harry showed the helmet that the crew required to wear. We watched a video which showed an air ambulance in action. Laura explained to us what happens in an emergency. We played Simon says to role play what we should do. If we notice somebody has hurt themselves, we would look around to check if it was safe and then go and find a trusted adult to call to 999. If there wasn’t a trusted adult around, it would be up to us to call. The crew would then be dispatched. Once the helicopter lands, there is a Lucas machine that can perform CPR if necessary so that the paramedic and doctors hands are free to help the patient further. Laura said it is brilliant that we have our invacuation procedure to help air ambulances land safely. Thank you to Mrs Price for teaching the children what to do in an emergency. Air ambulances can land on a beach, a field, a stadium, a car park and a helipad. Laura thanked everybody and said that St Barnabas are now part of the crew! Donations can still be made on parent pay to support this charity and during Lent it is the perfect time to give something back.   The charity needs to raise 12 million pounds each year in order to provide the amazing service and it relies solely on donations. Thank you to everybody who has donated so far. 

Parents' Evening

Dear Parents and carers, we are holding a face to face parents' evening on Wednesday 5th April in our school hall. Our teachers would also like to share your child's books with you too so that you can see how hard they have been working and you can see what they have been learning this term. Five minute appointments will be available from 2.00pm and 6.00pm. If you are flexible and can attend during school hours and after school, please select in school hours then we can give priority for the after school appointments to parents who are working through the day. Appointments can be booked through the same booking system that we used last year. Please click on the following link stbarnabasdarwen.schoolcloud.co.uk to book an appointment. Please note that the information in the software has been taken from our school management system so please use the information such as title, name, email etc that we have on your child's records. Hopefully you will be able to log in with the same details as last year as those of you who attended last time will already have an account. We politely ask that separated parents try to attend the same appointment so that our teachers don't have to repeat the same information and this also ensures that we have enough appointments for each child in school. However, if there are exceptional circumstances that require you to have separate appointments, please let our class teachers know. Our class teachers and I are really looking forward to welcoming you back into school to share how well your child has progressed this term. Please do not hesitate to message me if you have any issues booking an appointment. Yours Sincerely, Mrs Ham

School closed due to the snow

Good morning parents and carers, Mr Tierney and I are in school now and have assessed the snow situation. The roads around school are awful as there is ice underneath the snow and the road near school hasn’t been gritted. It is still snowing now and not due to stop for several hours.  We have taken the difficult decision to close, which those of you who have had children at St Barnabas for a while know, we haven’t taken lightly, as we always try to stay open. However as the children know, my number one job is to keep everyone safe and that includes the children, staff and parents. Several of our staff live far away and are unable to get into school safely and it isn’t safe for our children or parents to be travelling to school. The snow is drifting in places as we seem to have our micro-climate up at St Barnabas! Our teachers will be in touch with remote learning and you are all welcome to join virtual celebration worship at 9.05am. Further details to follow.  Please keep safe and I hope the children are able to enjoy the snow once it is safe to do so. Thank you in advance for your understanding. ❄️ ⛄️

Virtual Celebration Worship

Please join us for our virtual Celebration Worship on Zoom at 9.05am. Mrs Ham is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Virtual Celebration Worship Time: Mar 10, 2023 09:05 AM London Join Zoom Meeting https://us04web.zoom.us/j/74490000410?pwd=59agL0Z2XxE89HVTBtMpzNy4EnaaJZ.1 Meeting ID: 744 9000 0410 Passcode: 8CX4At We look forward to seeing you there.

Support for Turkey and Syria- non-uniform day

Smart School Councillors Subject: Fundraising for Turkey and Syria Earthquake Relief. Following our last class meeting, the children voted to hold a fundraising event on Friday 17th of March, where they will wear the flag colours of Turkey and Syria to show their support for those affected by the earthquakes. We are asking for a minimum donation of £1.00 for each child who participates in this cause, via parent pay. The colours are red, black, green and white. Do not go out to buy anything new, please wear what you have at home. All funds raised will be donated to a reputable charity actively working to provide relief to the earthquake victims. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns. Thank you for your continued support. Smart School Councillors and Miss Kachwalla

Year 2 - Collective Worship

During today's worship, we were having a look at all the ways we can looking after our local area. The children were amazing at coming up with brilliant suggestions in how we can look after our local area such as: recycle and not litter, litter picking, protecting animals by creating bug hotels and spaces for food. After worship we ended by saying prayers about people we care about and to all those who have been affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. The children made a person out of a pipe cleaner while saying their prayer and placed that on our prayer tree.

World Book Day Competition

During World Book Day, we held a whole school competition to create a book cover. All of the entries were excellent! Well done to: Cassidy in Year 1 Nevaeh in Year 2 Matthew in Year 4 Sienna in Year 5 Charlotte in Year 6 The children will all receive a £5 voucher to spend at our Scholastic book fair which will be at school between 15th-21st March. A huge well done to our winners and for everyone who took part. Just a reminder that our author Raysa Farah’s book is still available on parent pay to purchase. The last date to purchase the book will be next Friday.

Year 2 - FA Let Girls Play campaign

In support of the football association's campaign 'Let girls play' and International Women's Day, we took part in raising awareness to get more girls into football by all wearing a football kit. Year 2 took part in many footballing activities and sessions to encourage more children be be active and to get involved in football.

Scrooge by Charles Dickens

This morning all of the children enjoyed watching a theatrical production of Scrooge, which is a stage adaptation of the classic story 'A Christmas Carol', which was written by Charles Dickens. We were so proud of how well they joined in and the performers said they were a fantastic audience and couldn’t praise our school enough for the warm welcome they received. The children said 'It was even better than the film', 'It was amazing', 'I loved the songs' 'Everyone needs to show kindness' and our Year 6 children said this had made them even more excited to go and see the Lion King in London with school in a couple of weeks! The classic story highlighted our school focus on kindness as mean Scrooge learnt to be kind after being visited by three spirits who showed him the error of his ways. A huge well done to Daisy for showing lots of courage when she was chosen to join the actors on stage. Thank you so much FOSB for paying for the performance. It was a delight to see the childrens' faces as they were a picture and made several of our staff team, including myself, rather emotional watching them. What a great end to world book day week!

World Book Day- Staff Swap

As part of our World Book Day celebrations, our teaching assistants swapped classes and read a bedtime story to the children. It was lovely to see different staff members in each class and the children enjoyed seeing a new face too. Our FOSB donated chocolates for every child to enjoy whilst they listened to the story. Thank you.

World Book Day 2023

Today we celebrated world book day to show how amazing books are and the theme of this year’s celebration is bedtime stories and stories that fill our happy tank. During worship, Mrs Wilkinson, our reading leader, shared a variety of books through ‘the masked book’ quiz. Our school librarians shared clues from their favourite bedtime stories and asked the school to guess their book. Mrs Ham showed us one of her favourite stories, Oliver Twist, and read a 'Little people, big dreams' book about the author Charles Dickens. We learnt how he developed his love of books and became a successful author, writing stories with powerful messages. We are looking forward to a production of one of Charles Dickens famous stories tomorrow, A Christmas Carol, but in a special adaptation called Scrooge. Charles Dickens wanted everyone to know that everyday can feel like Christmas, if we show kindness and fill up each other's happy tanks. Children enjoyed stories from other teachers across the school who shared their favourite bedtime stories or stories that fill their happy tank. A special author came into school to read her latest book. The lion who lost its mane. She shared her amazing story and the message behind the story and her inspiration for making her book. Throughout the day children completed many activities to celebrate this year's themes for world book day, favourite bedtime stories or stories that fill your happy tank. This included: competitions for creating the best book cover, creating art work and reading their favourite stories to each other. Thank you to Mrs Speak, our English link Governor for joining us in our special World Book Day Worship. Happy World Book Day 2023!

Year 2 World Book Day

Today year 2 celebrated work book day by dressing in our pyjamas. We enjoyed collective worship with children sharing their favourite bedtime stories. In class, we completed many activities and shared all of our favourite bedtime stories that fill our happy tanks. We enjoyed listening to stories being read to us from other teachers across the school and enjoyed all the fun activities we completed today. Happy World Book Day!

EYFS & KS1: Author visit

EYFS and Key Stage 1 enjoyed an author visit this afternoon. Raysa Farah came into school to read her story, ‘A cub without a mane’. She explained how her son has leukaemia and lost his hair. Whilst in hospital, she decided to write her book. Raysa explained that no matter how you look, you are still special and a wonderful person. Our children had the opportunity to ask questions. Darcy asked if she had written any other books. Raysa said she had written one other book and it is awaiting approval to be published. Raysa is also a florist so Daisy asked if she liked making flowers. Lyla asked how long it took for Raysa to write her story. Raysa explained it took around a month to write. Eliza asked if Raysa drew the pictures. Raysa explained the role of an illustrator. Her publisher found an illustrator. Raysa then asked the children to draw anything that makes them happy and feel good. We loved your visit and the children left feeling inspired- thank you so much. Raysa’s book will be available to buy on parent pay for a discounted price. Further information to follow.

World Book Day: The Cub Without a Mane

Today, we welcomed Raysa Farah into our school to read and talk about her new book as part of our World Book Day celebration. Raysa is a successful florist who has now written a story after her little boy was diagnosed with leukaemia. 'My little boy S'aad was diagnosed with ALL in Spring 2022 at the age of two. From this experience I have found strength in writing an empowerment book for children and their carers. I want to help empower young children to feel like they’ve got a voice. The book follows a lion cub who loses his big, wild mane after developing leukaemia, but shows bravery to continue being himself and not let his illness get him down'. If you would like to order a copy of the book Raysa has offered a special price of £6.50, payment can be made through ParentPay. Thank you, Mrs Wilkinson

World Book Day- Staff Swap

As part of our World Book Day celebrations, our teaching assistants swapped classes and read a bedtime story to the children. It was lovely to see different staff members in each class and the children enjoyed seeing a new face too. Our FOSB donated chocolates for every child to enjoy whilst they listened to the story. Thank you.

Year 2 - Repeated Patterns

During our art lesson, year 2 children learnt and perfected their repeated pattern designs. The children explored a variety of patterns using paint and many everyday objects to create shapes. They practiced the printed shapes and then created repeated patterns based on the ones they think turned out the best.

Year 2 - Junior Jam - French

During year 2 junior jam sessions in french, we have been learning all about fruit and vegetables linking it with our previous work on colours. All children have worked extremely hard with their french work and have enjoyed the collaborative engaging sessions.

Live Production of Scrooge

Dear Parents and Carers, on Friday morning we have M&M theatrical productions in school performing Charles Dickens, Scrooge to all of the children. We are really looking forward to the performance and it is a great way to end World Book Day Week. A huge thank you to our FOSB for paying for the production so that all of our children can enjoy a live theatre performance. There will be no celebration worship this Friday so Values points will be rolled over to next week. If your child has an out of school award, please bring it in next week. On Friday Darwen Tower house team (yellow) have voted to have a non-uniform day and disco for achieving the most values points last half term. They can come to school in their non-uniform and they will have a disco and sweets at break time.

Celebration Worship

Well done to all of our children this week on another busy week in school, working so hard and showing all our Christian values and gaining so many value points. A huge congratulations to Reception and Year 3 for being the amazing attendance winners again this week! Well done Darwen Tower team for winning the overall value points prize which you get to choose, will it be a disco, non uniform, or maybe an extra MUGA session with coach Baxendale? A massive well done to all our class Value Award winners, your hard work and determination really does show both in the classroom and around school, we hope you are super proud of yourselves.

Year 2 - Class Worship

This week during our class worship we have been discussing the horrific incident that occurred in Turkey and Syria. Children discussed the devastating effects that it must have on family and what we can do and are doing as a country to show our support to all those affected. Some of the ideas we came up with are: - Sending food and water - Providing tents and beds for people to sleep in - Praying for all those affected - Sending specialist teams such as doctors, nurses and teachers.

Year 2 - Material testing

During our science lesson we have been testing the properties and uses of everyday materials. We have had a look at a variety of materials and how their properties are very useful for construction and building everyday items.

Year 2 - Problem solving

This week in maths we are coming to the end of our unit in money and we have been focusing on problem solving questions regarding change. Children used their rekenrek’s to solve problems relating to money change.

World Book Day Information

Next Thursday, 2nd March we will be celebrating World Book Day. This year the theme is bedtime stories and stories that can fill your happy tank. We would love for all children to come dressed all cosy and warm in their pyjamas. Children will take part in a variety of exciting book related activities and competitions and will listen to stories throughout the day. There will also be a book cover competition which the children will complete in school where the children will have the chance to win a £5 book voucher. During World Book Day, a local author, Raysa Farah will visit each class. Once Raysa has been into school, the children will have the opportunity to purchase her book 'The cub that lost its mane' for a discounted price. Further information will be sent out after World Book Day. The children will all receive a £1 token. This can be used at our book fair which will be held between 15-21st March. Between the 15-17th March, the children will all have the opportunity to look at the books in school and they will create a 'wish list' which will be sent home. You can then purchase these books either using the web address on the wish list or by coming into school to purchase books on Monday 21st March and Tuesday 22nd March from 3.30pm. Payment will only be able to be taken by card or contactless payment. We can't wait to celebrate next week and further promote our love of reading.

Online Safety: Spotify

Is Spotify hitting the right #OnlineSafety notes?

Year 2 - French

In Year 2, during Junior Jam, the children have been learning all the different fruits, linking them with the colours that they have previously learnt. They really enjoyed learning all of the different variety of fruits.

Rev Ben’s Ash Wednesday Worship

This morning Rev Ben led our Worship. First he lit our special candle and we had a moment's silence to pray for the families in Turkey and Syria who have been affected by the devastating earthquakes. Rev Ben asked us who was the greatest out of four celebrities, Marcus Rashford, Taylor Swift, Princess Kate and Rishi Sunak. The children had a discussion with a partner about who was the greatest and why. We had some super answers and several reasons why each one was the greatest. We then watched a video about the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee which was a story that Jesus told to some people who thought they were great and looked down on others. The Pharisee thought he was the greatest and looked down on others but the tax collector was actually great in God's eyes as he asked for help and forgiveness. Rev Ben explained that Ash Wednesday is when Christian's ask for help and for their sins to be forgiven by God. Rev Ben then talked to us about Christian greatness and we had some time to reflect and discuss what Christians think being great is all about and how we can put that greatness into practice. Again we had some brilliant answers such as showing kindness, friendship, generosity and service to others. We finished our worship with a special prayer led by Rev Ben and sang and danced to My Lighthouse, to symbolise that God is always there to hear our prayers of help and forgiveness.

Shrove Tuesday

As today is Shrove Tuesday, Mrs Ham bought our whole school family pancake bites to eat to symbolise the start of Lent tomorrow. They went down a treat and many of the children were excited to have pancakes at home this evening too. We are looking forward to seeing lots of different ways that we can all give this Lent through demonstrating our Christian values of service, friendship and generosity.

Whole School Worship: Shrove Tuesday and Lent

To begin our worship, we lit a special candle and prayed for everyone in Turkey and Syria. As we entered worship, we watched a video all about when Jesus spent 40 days in the desert. Tomorrow it is Shrove Tuesday. On Wednesday, our altar will change to the colour of purple as we enter Lent and prepare for Easter. Mrs Ham asked the children ‘what makes you you?’ Neve said her freckles, Oscar said playing the piano and cello, Jake said his fingerprints and Grace said her flexibility. Our personality, emotions, behaviour, clothes, family and belongings all make us unique. Mrs Ham then asked ‘what made Jesus Jesus?’ Eliza said he was the son of God, Grace said his abilities to perform miracles, Ella said that he came down from heaven, Finn said his kindness and Leonora said when he rose from the dead. On Wednesday, Lent beings where we remember how Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. We watched a video all about this time. Jesus was tempted by the devil during his time but he trusted in God and didn’t give in to temptation. Jesus knew there was a plan for him. He knew that he was going to die on the cross so that all of our sins can be forgiven. During our reflection, we had a think about what we could do or give up to help us to feel closer to God. Eva said she is going to give up chocolate, Elsa said sweets, Carter said fizzy drinks, Isaac said he will give some of his toys to charity and Declan said his clothes to the charity shop. We also thought about how we could show kindness and which Christian values we could show during Lent. We finished our worship by singing ‘our God is a great big God’.

Whole School- Celebration Worship

Wow! We had lots to celebrate today. During our Celebration Worship this morning, the class teachers celebrated by presenting a value award to the children who have been demonstrating our Christian Values. This week, our overall house values point winner was Darwen tower with 258 points. We also celebrated Years 3 and 4 for their winning at sportshall athletics. Well done to the reception class and Year 3 for this week's best attendance. We also celebrated the children that have taken part in extracurricular activities, well done to everyone! We finished our worship with Rev Ben leading a prayer.

Year 2 - Collective Worship

During our class worship we looked at the story with the Wales national football team. They are one of very few national football teams that have granted men and women equal pay. We looked at equality within sports and across the world and we all talked about how anybody can play football. The society we live in is and should be inclusive and we all have the potential to be amazing.

Year 2 - Building bridges

In science, we have been looking at the use of everyday materials. We looked at what makes a strong and sturdy bridge. We took a trip to a local bridge to investigate the material used. We then used the materials we could find to make a bridge of our own. We explored: strength, support, structure and how big a bridge can be.

Wellbeing Workshop in Year 2

Today our Well-being Warriors led another one of their fantastic workshops as part of Children’s Mental Health Week. The children looked at lots of different feelings, how we can manage them and that it’s ok to feel sad sometimes. We look forward to finding out our class winners for the feelings jar activity tomorrow in Celebration Worship.

Wellbeing Warrior Workshops for Children’s Mental Health Week

As part of Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, our Well-being Warriors have been going into Foundation and Key Stage 1 to deliver workshops around mental health. They have looked at the story ‘Lucy’s Blue Day’ and highlighted how it’s ok to have good and bad days. The children then completed an activity on a feelings jar which they loved.

Safer Internet Day

During our worship today we celebrated safer internet day. Safer internet day is celebrated all over the world and it helps children to understand ways of being safe online as the internet is growing as well as social media. Children discussed all the amazing things that they use the internet for and understand that it is an amazing platform to use with lots of positives. Although the internet is a great tool, we have to be careful that we: remain safe, understand age limits, only play games with those who you know, avoid online bullying and be able to recognise ‘fake news’. Children discussed many ways in which we can avoid these negatives and to enjoy using the internet for all its all amazing uses it can have such as: - Do not believe everything you see online - Do not post anything that isn’t kind - If I see something that makes me feel uncomfortable tell a trusted adult, report it and block it - Play with people we know - Most importantly keep having fun! - Understand age limits and respect those limits - Keep microphones and cameras off when online gaming with people who you do not know. One of the aims of the session was to keep talking and to be very open with a trusted adult about your online activity. Whether you have seen something that makes you uncomfortable or whether you have done something you believe is wrong. A trusted adult will always be able to help you and help you to remain safe online. Most importantly we recognised that the internet is an amazing tool that can be used to help us gain knowledge, communicate with people and have fun. As the internet grows and gets more advanced we understand that it is not going away. But remaining safe is the key.

Year 2- Safer Internet Day

Year 2 have been celebrating all the amazing ways we use the internet but have been focusing mainly on our digital footprint to ensure that we remain safe online. We discussed: - Do not believe everything you see online - Do not post anything that isn’t kind - If I see something that makes me feel uncomfortable tell a trusted adult, report it and block it - Play with people we know - Most importantly keep having fun! - Understand age limits and respect those limits - Keep microphones and cameras off when online gaming with people who you do not know.

Year 2 - Interview role play

During our English lessons we are looking to write an interview with Traction Man. We used role play methods to inform our writing and discussed many ideas, got into character and generated vocabulary and expressive techniques.

Whole School Worship: Children’s Mental Health Week Launch

What is mental health? Elsie said it is about your mind, Darcy said it is your feelings. Everybody has mental health. Sometimes our mental health might feel poorly like our bodies can feel poorly. One way to help our mental health is through our happy tank. Today we learnt all about happy tapping. We practised together as a school and then repeated after John whilst tapping. Mrs Ham explained how it is ok to feel different emotions. The children showed different emotions such as sad, scared, lonely, upset, ashamed, worried and guilty. Mrs Ham asked the children how you can exercise your brain. Isaac said by learning, Kaylen said by pushing passed your limit and Sophia said by eating healthily. This year, children’s mental health week is all about connecting. Connecting with others is vital for our wellbeing and can support our mental health. This links to our Christian value of friendship. Mrs Ham asked how have we all connected to others this morning. Darcy said she has hugged her Mummy, Harlow said she tickled her brother, Edward said he made his Dad a bacon sandwich, Harry said he spoke to his friend and Iris played with her brother. We listened to a poem called ‘together’. We discussed together why being together is so important. Lyla said if you don’t feel together and feel lonely, you could ask a friend to join in playing. You do not need to be a grown up to change the world. We can make a difference. During our reflection, we are going to have a think about how we can connect more to others. On Friday, we will all come together and will dress to express to show how we are unique and special.

Year 2 - Gymnastics

Year 2 have been perfecting their tuck and star jumps in our gymnastics topic in PE. We looked at the core principles of gymnastics, starting positions, focus jump and landing position. All the children practised these jumps and did amazingly well throughout the lesson.

Year 2 - Has man ever been to the moon?

During our history lessons in year 2, we have been looking at explorers. We looked at many different sources and worked as historians to discover how we can prove that man has actually been to the moon and what source best suits the statements children were presented with.

Year 2 - Happy Tank

As part of our kindness challenge and children's mental health week, we have created our own Happy Tank. Year 2 have created many affirmations to spread kindness through our class and within the school. Some examples are: ‘I matter in this world’ ‘I am amazing at what I do’ ‘We can make a difference’ ‘I am loved and I am needed’

Year 2 Junior Jam

During our Junior Jam sessions we have been looking at creating our own 2D and 3D animations in Computing.

Online Safety: Digital lives

#SaferInternetDay is coming!

Whole School Worship: Rev Ben

The children in year 6 played a game at the start of our worship. The game wasn’t as easy as it looked! Our children showed the Christian value of encouragement to help the children complete the task. Today, we learned about a man called Daniel. Daniel was taken far from his home and asked to work in a place where nobody believed in God. Rev Ben asked the children to think about how they would feel if that happened to him. Daniel found ways to keep trusting and God looked after him. Daniel showed the king that God was important. In the Bible, when people face a hard time, they praise God and they sing. Rev Ben asked the children why they feel it is important. Jack said that it will fill up your happy tank, Leonora said it will make you feel calm and relaxed, Carter said it can change your mood and Jenson said it can help you to express how you feel. When we find things tough, lifting our eyes up to God can really help us. Rev Ben asked the children to think of a time that it is hard to feel thankful. Iris said that when your Mummy and Daddy say that you can’t have chocolate it is hard to feel thankful. Rev Ben said in those difficult times, to remember that God is always with us. We finished our worship by singing my lighthouse.

Year 2 - Money

This week in year 2 we have started our money unit in maths. We have been exploring the value of coins, collecting an amount and exploring many ways in which we can make a set amount of money; using different coins.

Year 2 - Designing finger puppets

In year 2 this week we have been designing our own finger puppets in DT. We have looked at a variety of methods to create a strong and sturdy puppet and linked this in nicely with our English unit of Traction Man. The children have designed their own villain that Traction Man will face and this forms a basis for our interview writing unit.

Monday Worship: God’s Promise

Last week for our happy tank, we thought about affirmations. Mrs Ham shared Harlow’s affirmation, “You are worth it and are loved”. This week, we learnt about gratitude. We took a few minutes to think about what we are grateful for. Leonora said she was grateful for her life, Eliza said she is grateful for the staff, Ella said she was grateful for her family and Aisha said she is grateful for her hair. Mrs Ham explained how in the bible, God made up to 7000 promises. In Noah’s Ark, God made a promise to not flood the earth again. God’s promise to show this was a rainbow. God promised Mary that she was going to have a baby. God made lots of promises to us all. He said he will love us forever, he will comfort us, he will never leave, he will keep us safe and he will keep his promises. We watched a video that retold the story of Noah’s Ark. God wanted to see kindness. During our reflection, Mrs Ham asked for us all to think about a time when we made a promise and broke it. We had a think about how we felt and what we could do next time. Mrs Ham also asked for us all to think about a time that a promise has been broken and how we felt. We finished our worship by singing Waymaker.

Year 2 - Jesus healed a paralysed man

During our RE unit we have been focusing on Jesus’ miracles. We acted out Jesus healing a paralysed man and discussed: How the people may have felt? Did other people believe what they saw? What did Jesus want to teach us with his miracle?

Year 2 - Use of everyday materials

In year 2 we have been exploring the use of everyday materials. We took a trip to Whitehall park to see what materials we could find, what they were being used for and if they were fit for purpose. The children found lots of interesting materials being used at Whitehall park.

Online Safety: Roblox

We have received reports of a viral post circulating on social media about an alleged self-harm ‘game’ being shared on popular gaming platform Roblox. Known as ‘The Game’, the post claims that the game appears through private chats in an attached Word document that contains the rules and instructions. While it is unclear who made the original post and who took the screenshot of the document, it has been noted by several media outlets and concerned parents and carers, which has increased the sharing of the screenshot. There are multiple risks that come with this, including potential physical harm to children and young people, as well as inadvertent exposure to harmful online content. Currently, online safety experts have not been able to substantiate reports on the validity of this so-called ‘game’ or the claim that children and young people are sharing it. Due to the potentially dangerous and worrying nature of this game, we understand the concerns that parents, carers, and safeguarding professionals may have. That is why we have provided you with practical advice to help you care for the children and young people in your life.

Monday Worship: Forgiveness and Friendship

This week, we began our worship with our happy tank. We learnt all about affirmations. An affirmation is when we say a positive thing about ourselves. Our heads and deputies helped Mrs Ham to show what an affirmation was. Our job this week is to think of affirmations to say to make us feel good. Mrs Ham’s affirmation to share was “I am amazing!” The children all joined in with this affirmation. The heads and deputies read lots of affirmations which the children copied to help fill up their happy tanks. Charlotte read an affirmation that said ‘it is ok to make mistakes’. Bobby read out “It is ok to ask for help” and Elsa read the affirmation “I matter in this world”. Today we focussed on our Christian values of friendship and forgiveness. Mrs Ham asked the children if they had ever broken anything. Lots of things can be broken but most of the time they can be fixed. If a book has a rip, Ella suggested that we could use cellotape instead of throwing it away. If a handle falls off a mug, Alfie said that we could use superglue. If we hurt ourselves, Jack suggested that we could use a plaster. Mrs Ham asked the children to think about what we could do to fix a broken friendship. Jesus said if somebody does something mean, you should always forgive them. Jesus told a parable called the unforgiving servant. Our heads and deputies helped Mrs Ham to retell the story. If we do not forgive others, then God will not forgive us. Jesus said that we should forgive people 70 x 7= 490 times! We shouldn’t keep track, we should forgive every time. God always forgives us for big and little things so we need to do the same to each other. For our reflection this week, we are going to have a think about how we can mend a broken friendship and how we can show forgiveness. We finished our worship by singing ‘As one’.

Year 2 - Exploring travelling and movement

In year 2 this week we have been exploring the variety of ways we can move and techniques to improve movement linking in with a giant story. We linked movements through travel, jump, turn, gesture and stillness.

Year 2 - Jesus healed the blind

In year 2 we have started our new unit in RE - Jesus our friend. We looked at his miracles and in particular, Jesus healing the blind man. We acted out the story and gained a detailed understanding of Jesus’ messages and how we can be the light just as Jesus is. 

Year 2 - 3D shapes

In year 2 we have been exploring the various properties of 3D shapes; looking at vertices, faces, name and looking at similar objects in the real world.

Friday Celebration Worship

We had so much to celebrate this week in our special celebration worship, it was lovely to see so many grown ups attending too. Mr Prescott stepped in this week and announced our attendance winners, well done to Reception and Year 5 classes. After our trials for Sports Hall Athletics we took all 31 children to compete this week. We received amazing feedback that our students were so respectful and represented the school superbly, so well done to you all. Their resilience and determination brought them into second place so we are so proud of you all. Thank you for bringing in your out of school achievements, it is lovely to share your success out of school and see such a wide variety of activities being enjoyed. A huge well done to all of our values winners this week who have demonstrated our Christian and British Values. You are all superstars!

National Online Safety: Twitter

New year, new Twitter?

Year 2 - Junior Jam

This week in junior jam, year 2 have been learning about a variety of music genres, creating lyrics and exploring different music styles.

Whole School Worship: Thankfulness

It was wonderful to have our worship led by Rev Ben today. Today, we are going to be thinking about thankfulness. To begin our worship, we played a game of guess the animal. Well done to David, Carter, Ivy, Neve and Aisha for taking part. We are so thankful for God’s wonderful creations which include a frog, monkey, a fish, a panda and a lion. As we guess those wonderful animals, they are all very different. Some are big, some are small, some are colourful, some are loud and some are quiet. However, we are not always good at looking after God’s creation. When we don’t look after God’s creation like we should, he will always forgive us. Rev Ben gave us time to think about what we want to thank God for and we also had a think about how we can show our thankfulness for the amazing world we live in. Archie said he is thankful for us, Alice said she is thankful for all of the trees, Sadie is thankful for food and Carter is thankful for nature. Harlee said we shouldn’t litter, Daniel said we need to switch the lights off and Iris said that we need to care for the animals. Rev Ben led us in prayer and we joined in with a new song called ‘God of Science’. We loved the song! A huge thank you to Rev Ben.

Year 2 - Drawing and exploring properties of 2D shapes

In year 2 we have been exploring the properties of 2D shapes and learning how to draw them accurately using a geo board.

Whole School Worship: Martin Luther King Jr Day

We started our worship with our happy tank and we practised our kindness today. We then thought about what Jesus meant when he said you should love your neighbour as yourself. Elsie said your neighbour means everybody. Mrs Ham read a book ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ all about Martin Luther King Jr. It is important to stand up for what is right and love your neighbour, just like Martin Luther King Jr did. If people like Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks hadn’t stood up for what was right then the world wouldn’t be a nice place to live in. Martin Luther King Jr had a dream that people would judge people on their character rather than their skin colour. We had a think about our character today and how others may describe our character. If we show all of our Christian values then we will have a great character. This week we will focus on treating each other fairly. We will also have a think about how we can help other people to make their lives better and we will focus on showing love and kindness towards each other. Freddie said we could be brave and stand up for what is right, Alfie said we could be respectful, Grace said we could donate items to other people, Jack said we could show friendship and Lyla said we could show courage. We then thought about what our dream for the world would be and we had some wonderful ideas such as no violence, no wars, living in peace. everyone being treated fairly and with kindness etc. We finished our worship by singing ‘Make a difference’.

Whole School Celebration Worship

During our whole school Worship this morning, a few of our children shared their special gifts from God; being good at skating, swimming, football, gymnastics, basketball and rugby and some children said having loving and caring parents was their special gift from God. It was also lovely to hear that the children have been reflecting on their daily choices which was our Happy Tank focus for this week. The class teachers presented a value certificate to the child/children that has been demonstrating our Christian and British values and making the right choices. Prizes were given out to our 'Road Safety' winners, the entries were from last year and the children were thrilled with their winnings. Mrs Ham celebrated our sports stars for their dedication and commitments for taking part in extracurricular activities. Our amazing attendance classes this week were reception and Year 3 and the winning team for getting the most value points was Whitehall Park, putting them in first place. Rev Ben ended our Worship with a lovely prayer and blessing. What another brilliant week at St Barnabas and the children really have been achieving great things!

Year 2 - Science Experiment

In year 2 we have been looking at the importance of hygiene and experimenting with how easily germs can spread. We tested what happened to pepper and water when it was subjected to soap - in relation to bacteria. Children were amazed with the results and it showed them the importance of staying hygienic and to always wash your hands throughout the day.

Year 2 - Prayer Pail

During class workshop time year 2 have been creating their own prayer topics. The children came up with some amazing ideas and we prayed for: those in need, how to be kind, how to follow is Jesus’ footsteps and prayed for our friends and family.

Online Safety: Warcraft

#WakeUpWednesday meets World of Warcraft ⚔

Parent/Carer Support Group from the Mental Health Support Team

Here are the details for the next parent support group from the Mental Health Support Team (MHST).

Year 2 - Life Education

In year 2 we had a visit from Megan and Harold the giraffe from Life Education. We discussed our feelings, emotions and how we can deal with them. We talked about many ways in which we can live a happy and healthy life and year 2 did a great job coming up with lots a creative ideas. Thank you Megan and Harold!

Monday Worship: Epiphany

Last week we focussed on breathing with the happy tank. This week, we learnt how to reflect. We spent three minutes thinking about something that has happened to us today. Reflection time for ourselves is important and helps us to relax and fill up our happy tanks. On Friday we started our learning about the Epiphany. It took 12 days for the kings to meet baby Jesus and so the Epiphany is celebrated on the 6th January. Epiphany comes from the Greek word which means ‘making known’. The kings followed a big star which helped to make people know that Jesus had been born. One important thing that the festival of Epiphany reveals is that God doesn’t have favourites but welcomes people from any background and any nationality. Mrs Ham read a story from her rhyming Bible all about the kings journey and everyone joined in with actions for the repeated refrain. Thank you to our amazing actors in Year 6. Sadie, Manni, Isaac, Elsie and Carter did a brilliant job. The kings brought gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. Gold is a gift fit for a king, Frankincense was given as it is a holy fragrance and Myrrh was given to indicate that Jesus’ death would be important. During our reflection, we thought about our special gifts. This week, we will really focus on how we can share them with others and how we can show respect for other people’s gifts. We finished our worship singing ‘We three kings’.

Mental Health Support Team January Newsletter

Please find attached the latest newsletter from the mental health support team, who we work closely with in school. This month there are some great tips and signposts for ways that parents can support their own mental health and wellbeing, as well as their children's mental health and wellbeing. For all of the newsletters from the Mental Health Team, please click here https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/parents/newsletters

Coram Life Education & SCARF workshops

Coram Life Education & SCARF is the UK's leading charity provider of PSHE and wellbeing education in primary schools. Over the next couple of days all of our children in school will have a fun and interactive PSHE workshop delivered by Megan and her friend Harold the Giraffe, from Coram Life Education. Reception: All About Me Year 1: Feelings Year 2: My Wonderful Body Year 3: Meet the Brain Year 4: It's great to be me Year 5: Friends Year 6: Decisions The children really enjoyed the workshops last year and they learnt a great deal. These sessions are part funded by the local authority and the school have contributed the rest. Our staff will also be having training on Coram resources that can be used in PSHE lessons. If you would like to speak to Megan and learn more about the workshops or how you can support your child with their personal, social and health education, you are very welcome to call into school from 8.45-9.00am this Wednesday morning. There is also a website with information for parents about how you can support your child's wellbeing, help them develop a growth mindset and how to talk to them about sensitive issues etc. https://www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk/family-scarf

Whole School Celebration Worship

This morning during whole school celebration worship, we learnt about Epiphany and celebrated our achievements in school this week. It was lovely to hear that some of the children had used the breathing techniques that we learnt on Monday from John, the Kindness Coach's, happy tank programme over the week. Class teachers spoke about our first week back in school and how the children have settled back into our school routine brilliantly. Mrs Ham announced our amazing attendance classes of the week in KS1 and KS2. Well done Reception and Year 4! We then celebrated some fantastic sports stars, both in and outside of school!

Year 2 - Exploring human and physical features of different continents

This week year 2 have been exploring many different continents; finding out facts and exploring the many human and physical features. They have been using their learnt knowledge to write similarities and differences between two contrasting continents.

Year 2 - Regrouping in maths

In year 2 children have been working really hard on their addition and reasoning problem solving skills. They have improved their presentation massively and have been regrouping across multiple tens.

Year 2 - Creative writing

This week year have finished their creative writing. They have written their own twisted tale based on Jack and the baked bean stalk. They have been extremely creative and their presentation and efforts have shown within their work.

Whole School Worship: Happy new year!

It was lovely to have everyone together for our first worship of 2023. Happy new year to everyone! We took a few moments as we lit our advent wreath to think about Jesus and how he came to bring hope, peace, joy and love to the world and how he wanted us live life in all its fullness. A few of our children shared their new year resolutions. Alice said she wants to eat more healthily, Tristen’s is to always have a smile on his face, Sadie is to not talk back to her parents and Kaylen’s is to go outside more. Mrs Ham shared hers which is to be happy. Mrs Ham reminded us all of the kindness coach, John Magee. She introduced us all to the happy tank. We watched a video from John who explained what the happy tank was. One of the elements is to take some time to rest. During this time, we need to focus on our breathing which can help us to find peace. We all focussed together on our breathing for 2 minutes. Beau said that it made her feel calm and Jacob said it made him feel happy. Mrs Ham shared with everybody a happy calendar that we will follow throughout January. We watched a clip from ‘The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse’. At the beginning the fox was very angry but by the end he was happy. He filled up his happy tank by the boy, the mole and the horse showing him kindness. This year we need to really focus on how we can be kind to others and to ourselves. Through that, we also need to think about how we can find happiness and spread it to others. We all said a new year prayer together and ended our worship with the song ‘Shine from the inside out’.

Latest newsletter

Happy new year to you all! I hope you've had a lovely Christmas holiday with your loved ones. It has been wonderful to have all of the children back in school although I think it was a bit of a shock to the system being back in school today and I know it certainly felt like that for myself and our staff team. Our class teachers will shortly be sharing information with you about what your child will be learning this half term. As ever, if you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact me via class dojo, on the school yard or via the school office. Thanks for your continued support and we are looking forward to another brilliant year at St Barnabas, Mrs Ham

Amazing Attendance Award Winners

A huge well done to our amazing attendance award winners! We are so proud of them as they have achieved over 96% this Autumn term. Well done everyone!

Online Safety: Staying safe over Christmas

‘Tis the season to … stay safe online!

Christmas Fair

TODAY IS OUR CHRISTMAS FAIR!! Join us today, Wednesday the 14th December 2022 between 3.30-5.30pm.

Year 2 - DT - Chopping skills

As part of making our fruit kebabs, year 2 have been learning to chop and organise their fruit in preparation to assemble their fruit kebabs. We learned both bridge and claw methods of cutting fruit in a tidy fashion to make our fruit kebabs more appealing.

Year 2 - Making festive fruit kebabs

Year 2 making their fruit kebabs to sell at the Christmas Fair.

Design and Technology- Christmas Fair

In D.T this term, the whole school have worked their absolute socks off. The children have made wooden reindeer ornaments, festive fruit kebabs with choc drizzle and marshmallows, fire engines, photo frames, festive sausage rolls, seasonal stockings and Christmas themed cushions. The children then had the opportunity to purchase their products at our school Christmas fair.

KS1 Kurling Festival

A huge congratulations to our Year 2 Kurling stars who represented our school brilliantly at the KS1 Kurling Festival. They narrowly missed out on third place. A special thank you to our Sports Leaders for supporting and encouraging our team and to Me Bloomfield for coaching them.

Year 2 - Exploring how angels are portrayed.

During our RE lessons, we have been exploring how angels have been portrayed in different ways. We have looked at: traditional, stained glass windows, statutes, cartoon images and we looked at the similarities and differences between all of them.

Inter- House Sports in FS and KS1

What a fantastic opportunity we had this morning taking part in the Inter- House Dodgeball Competition. Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 loved every second and we saw some great sportsmanship and tactical decision making. A huge thanks to The Sports Leaders for organising and running the event too!

Celebration Worship

In Celebration Worship this morning we looked at how our children continue to work so very hard in promoting our Christian and British values. We are all so very busy preparing for the Christmas Fair, school performances and Christmas Worship. We had our House Team Winners announced for this half term - Whitehall Park for the second consecutive time- well done. It is so lovely to see all of the children celebrating each others success as we had lots of awards for out of school sports today.

Parents' Evening Reminder

Dear parents and carers, Just a quick reminder that it is parents' evening tomorrow from 2.00pm-6.00pm. We have 90% of our parents booked so far so thank you if you have already booked. If you haven't booked yet, please either click on the following link or send me a class dojo message by 5.00pm today with your available times and I will book you an appointment. https://stbarnabasdarwen.schoolcloud.co.uk/ * Please enter and leave school via the main entrance and all appointments will take place in the hall again. *Please do not park on the carpark as that is for staff only and there will be parents walking across it. *Please be aware that appointments are only 5 minutes long so if there is something that you would like to discuss for longer than that, please arrange a phone call at another date in order to not hold up other appointments. We ask for your patience with appointments as they may not run exactly on time. * A selection of your child's books will be available in the centre of the hall along with class RE and PSHE scrap books. Our class teachers and I are really looking forward to welcoming you into school to share how well your child has settled into their new class and the progress they have made. Yours Sincerely, Mrs Ham

Year 2 - Creative writing

In year 2 we have worked really hard on our presentation and creative flare within writing. We are all really proud of our work.

Whole school worship: Peace during Advent

Last week we lit our hope advent candle. Today, Manni lit our peace advent candle. Katie, Eva and Jenson read out our peace prayer. Jesus was sent to bring peace to the world and he is known as the prince of peace. Today, we watched the new John Lewis Christmas advert. Lucy said that the man tried to learn how to skate to make the foster child feel welcome as the child may have felt a little frightened or worried. At the end, the child smiled as they had something in common and she would have felt at peace. For our reflection this week, we need to think about how we can find peace but also how we can bring peace to others.

Christmas Fair 2022

FOSB POST

Christmas Fair 2022: Raffle

FOSB POST

Year 2 - Column addition

Year 2 have been exploring a variety of different methods of column addition. They have worked really hard building pictorial representations and applying that to their problem solving tasks.

Year 2 - Designing fruit kebabs

Year 2 have been working really hard to design their own amazing fruit kebabs ready for the Christmas fair. Linking it with our healthy eating in science we have designed our own healthy fruit kebab.

Online Safety: Social media and mental health

You know about social media influencers ✌

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Every child in school helped to decorate our real Christmas tree this afternoon. It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Our youngest child in school will place the star on the tree tomorrow in Celebration Worship.

Year 2 - Exploring rock and guitar music

Year 2 have been exploring and creating rock and guitar music.

Year 2 - French

Year 2 learning and applying their knowledge of colours in French.

Help us keep children safe from button batteries this Christmas

This Christmas, homes will be filled with light-up decorations, festive tea lights, singing Santas and flashing Christmas wands. But these – and many other toys – are powered by button batteries that can badly hurt or kill a child if swallowed. Please see the attached images for further information about how you can keep your child safe from button batteries.

Monday Worship: Advent

Our new vicar Rev Ben joined us for Worship today. We welcomed him into our school family by showing him our huge welcoming smiles. Good things come to those who wait. We are waiting for Christmas and now Advent has started. Advent is a time to prepare. Christians needed to have hope when they waited for Jesus to arrive. During lockdown, we saw lots of rainbows. God kept sending rainbows which gave us hope that there would be better times. During Advent, we need to see children showing kindness, friendship, respect, generosity and all of our Christian and British values. Mrs Ham asked the children what their hope is for the future. Elsa’s hope is to travel to every continent in the world, Sadie’s is to be successful in her job, Ruby’s is for peace and harmony, Grace’s is to get good results, Darcy’s is for peace around the world and Seb’s is to be an engineer. We watched a video about the special hope that was sent to the world: Jesus. We lit our first candle on our Advent wreath and prayed for hope. During our reflection, we thought about how we could turn somebody feeling sad into somebody feeling glad. We had a think about how we can show love and kindness to bring hope to others. We finished our worship by singing ‘may you find peace’.

Celebration Worship

This week we have been learning all about peace and harmony. A huge thank you to Miss Kachwalla for delivering our inter faith workshops all about the religion of Islam. Last night, Mrs Ham went to church to welcome our new vicar, Rev Ben. We will be sharing our vicar with St Paul’s, Hoddlesden and can’t wait to see him at school soon. Today, Sophie and Lola announced our anti-bullying competition winners. There were over 200 entries across the borough and 2 prizes were awarded to our school. 3rd place went to Harlow and Eliza and 2nd place went to Wilson. A huge well done! We have had yet another busy week in school. Well done to our values points award winners: Renee, Archie, Miley, Eden, Hamza, Archie and Darci. Our overall house winner for this week is River Darwen, well done! Our amazing attendance winners for this week are Year 2 and Year 4! We celebrated our super dodgeball team and girls football team who played on Wednesday and Thursday night. We also celebrated individual achievements for swimming, football, Rainbows, dancing and kickboxing. Well done to Leonora, Isaac, Eliza, Sofia, Carmen, Noah, Annabel, Cassidy, Ted and Mason. We finished our worship by singing the song of peace.

Year 2- Teamwork on the MUGA

Last week the weather wasn't on our side so we did our Pudsey hunt this week and what great fun we had! We had to work as a team and find the pieces of Pudsey that had been hidden and bring them back to the MUGA to stick him back together and complete Pudsey!

Year 2 - Inter Faith week food tasting

As part of inter faith week, year 2 have been exploring and tasting a variety of different foods related to Islam. All children have enjoyed inter faith week and have explored the similarities and differences between many religions.

Year 2 - Inter Faith workshop

Year 2 - Inter Faith workshop learning all about Islam with Miss Kachwalla, who is a Muslim. As part of our RE unit we have been looking at faiths across the world and have explored similarities and differences between each faith.

Year 2 - Design technology

Year 2 food tasting in design technology. As part of our unit we are making fruit kebabs to sell at our Christmas Fair. We have tasted a variety of different fruits and vegetables to see what we like and what we did not like in order to begin to build our fruit kebabs.

Monday Worship: Inter Faith Week

This week we are going to be thinking about how we can bring peace to the world. This links to our British Value of tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs. Mrs Ham asked the children which biscuit, superhero and toy they preferred. Mrs Ham explained even if you like different things, you can still be friends and we can tolerate each other. Mrs Ham explained how we are all different which is called diversity. We all watched a film where some characters were unkind. The birds treated the other bird differently because he looked and sounded different. They were not showing tolerance. Peace begins with tolerance and respect for everyone. This week we will be also be showing our Christian value of respect to learn all about Islam as part of Inter Faith week. Our very own Miss Kachwalla will be sharing her faith with all of the children in school. This week we are really going to focus on how we can show tolerance and acceptance to everyone. We finished our worship by singing One World.

Parents Evening Information

Dear Parents and carers, we are holding a face to face parents' evening on Wednesday 7th December in our school hall. Our teachers would also like to share your child's books with you too so that you can see how hard they have been working and you can see what they have been learning this term. Five minute appointments will be available from 2.00pm and 6.00pm. If you are flexible and can attend during school hours and after school, please select in school hours then we can give priority for the after school appointments to parents who are working through the day. Appointments can be booked through the same booking system that we used last year. A guide has been added to class dojo. Please click on the following link stbarnabasdarwen.schoolcloud.co.uk to book an appointment. Please note that the information in the software has been taken from our school management system so please use the information such as title, name, email etc that we have on your child's records. Hopefully you will be able to log in with the same details as last year as those of you who attended last time will already have an account. We politely ask that separated parents try to attend the same appointment so that our teachers don't have to repeat the same information and this also ensures that we have enough appointments for each child in school. However, if there are exceptional circumstances that require you to have separate appointments, please let our class teachers know. Our class teachers and I are really looking forward to welcoming you back into school to share how well your child has progressed this term. Please do not hesitate to message me if you have any issues booking an appointment. Yours Sincerely, Mrs Ham

Monday Worship: Anti-Bullying Week

Today is the start of anti-bullying week. We have all worn our odd socks to show that we are all special and unique. Yesterday was world kindness day. The children said that every day should be world kindness day! We listened to Andy Day about odd socks day. The theme for anti-bullying week is reach out which means talk to somebody about bullying to say it is not ok. During anti-bullying week, we will focus on the Christian values of friendship, respect, courage and forgiveness. We will also focus on the British Values of mutual respect, individual liberty and tolerance. Bullying is when somebody does something mean and they keep doing it again and again. James said the victim would feel “really sad and emotional”. Mrs Ham explained the acronym STOP. If someone does something Several Times On Purpose then it is bullying and we should Speak To Other People. We played a game where the children had to put their thumbs up if they thought the action was bullying and thumbs down if they thought if wasn’t. Mrs Ham asked what would happen if they saw bullying taking place. James said he would tell them to stop, Eli said tell the teacher. It takes courage to do something about bullying. During our reflection we thought about how we are all different and how we need to treat each other with respect. We finished our worship by listening to Andy and the odd socks song.

Year 2 - Anti-Bullying week

Children in Year2 wore odd socks to raise awareness of anti bullying week. All the odd sock combinations were amazing.

Year 2- Amazing attendance winners

Well done to year 2, our amazing attendance winners for this week.

Poppy Appeal

Good morning, thank you so much for your kind donations to our Poppy Appeal by the Royal British Legion. Our heads and deputies have been busy selling poppy merchandise every break time this week. Our stocks were running low but we have managed to purchase another box of poppy appeal merchandise including more slap bands. Therefore, if you would like to purchase further items such as another slap band or poppy zip tie, please send money into school tomorrow. They will be for sale during celebration worship for parents and carers and at break time for children. Many thanks for your generosity to such a worthy cause.

Librarian Club

Our librarians have been very busy today. They have tidied the library and read stories to key stage one at lunchtime. It has been wonderful to see how enthusiastic they all are.

Year 2 - Maths

Year 2 applying their mastering number knowledge to our work on addition using number bonds to 10. Children used the rekenrek‘s well to ensure their work was correct.

Online Safety: Online Bullying

Outwit the internet bullies with our #WakeUpWednesday guide

Year 2 - Remembering all those who fought

Year 2 took a trip to go and see all the war memorials that are in Darwen cemetery. We looked at all the people who fought and took part in the war from Darwen, we discussed the conditions and respected all those that gave their lives for us.

Year 2- MUGA fun!

A busy but brilliant lunchtime! A massive thank you and a big well done to our two sports leaders who planned and delivered a really fun session. Year 2 loved your sports session!

Year 2 - Exploring Continents and Oceans

Year 2 used an atlas and explored the continents and oceans of the world. We discussed the variety of climates the world has to offer and used our knowledge of direction to answer location questions.

Monday Worship: Remembrance & Lilian Bader- One of the first black women in the Armed Forces

This week we are going to be thinking about Remembrance Day. Mrs Ham asked “why do we wear poppies?” James said that it is about the world war; Harriet said we raise money; Harlow said soldiers gave up their lives to fight for our country; Leonora said that when the war was over, poppies grew in a field; Kaylen said it is to remember those who passed away and Finn said the red of the poppy reminds us of blood. Mrs Ham lit a remembrance candle. Mrs Ham explained to the children what Remembrance Day is for which is this Friday. On Friday, we will be having a 2 minute silence to think about all of those people that died for us. Mrs Ham shared photographs of war memorials in Whitehall park and Bold Venture park. We watched a video together all about Remembrance Day. Mrs Ham then shared the story of Lilian Bader who died a few years ago, aged 97. Nobody would give her a job because of the colour of her skin. When the Second World War broke out, she was 21. Ladies were not allowed to fight in the war and only white men were allowed to fight. Lilian got a job making food for soldiers but after 7 weeks, she was told she had to leave her job as her Dad was not from Britain. Eventually, Lilian managed to get a job in the RAF and helped to fix the planes. Mrs Ham shared a video so that the children could learn more about her and the difference she made. During our reflection, we said a big thank you to everybody who sacrificed their lives in wars and conflict. We thought about our Christian values of service and peace. We finished our worship by singing a song of peace.

Mental Health and Wellbeing Support in School

Good morning parents and carers, please find attached the latest newsletter from the Mental Health Support Team. Mental health and wellbeing is given the highest priority in our school and is a big focus on our school improvement plan each year. We know that if children, staff or parents aren't emotionally well and happy then this can be a barrier to effective teaching and learning. In school both myself and Mrs Wilkinson are trained mental health first aiders who provide support and signpost support to children, parents and staff. We also have an Educational Mental Health Practitioner called Hazel Broadfield who works with us to provide families with support with mental health issues. We also have two trained ELSA's in school, Mrs Hegarty and Mrs Lyons, who provide emotional literacy support to specific children throughout school. Mrs Gardner, our PSHE lead also has a group of Wellbeing Warriors that help to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing and organise events. They are organising an Odd Socks day next Monday and have led a poster competition to launch Anti-bullying week. If you or your child are experiencing any issues linked to mental health and wellbeing, Mrs Wilkinson and I are always available to speak to on either informally on the yard or through arranging a meeting. Alternatively, there are also sections on our website where different services and groups linked to mental health and wellbeing are signposted. https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/key-information/safeguarding https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/parents/community-groups There are also services and groups signposted on the MHST newsletters. MHST run a Parent Support Group. It is an online group which is currently topic based. It is a space where information is shared with discussion between parents. Last group's topic was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where we explored what OCD is and how to support your child. There is no pressure to contribute or have your camera or microphone on, there is a chat function to contribute to the session. The next topic is Social Anxiety Wednesday 23rd November 2022 @ 6-7pm online via microsoft teams Please email [email protected] for a link to the meeting.

Year 2 - RE - Judaism

The children investigated a variety of Jewish artifacts, explored the Jewish culture and began to compare their growing knowledge to other faiths and religions.

Invitation to Celebration Worships

Good morning, a quick reminder that parents, carers and grandparents are always very welcome to attend our Celebration Worships on Fridays at 9.15am. Potential parents of children who are due to start school in September are very welcome too. Refreshments will be served from 8.55am too. Parents of children who have received the most values points each week will be invited to attend via class dojo but other parents, carers and grandparents are very welcome to attend to hear about the great things we have been learning, attendance winners and sports stars etc. If your child has an award from an out of school club, please send it into school so they can receive their award on the golden podium and our whole school family can show them how proud we are. We look forward to welcoming you into school. Yours Sincerely, Mrs Ham

Year 2 - Sketching and Shading

Year 2 creating different patterns, sketches and shading using a variety of different methods. They explored different patterns and combinations within their shading to create their own unique patterns.

Year 2 - Junior Jam - creating a bass line

Year 2 creating a bass line for a funk song using the keyboard during junior jam.

Year 2 - Programming

Year 2 learning how to program with junior jam.

Online Safety: Amigo parent guide

Is Amigo a friend or foe?

Monday Worship: All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints' Day and All Souls’ Day

Today is All Hallows Eve. We noticed that the word 'hallow' was in the Lord's Prayer that we sang on the way into Worship. It means Holy. Tomorrow, it is All Saints day which is a Christian celebration. A Saint is somebody who is really special and has done something really wonderful. Leonora said a Saint is somebody who follows God and Jesus’ example. On Wednesday it is All Soul’s Day and we remember everybody who has passed away. We watched a video about the origin of Halloween and All Hallow’s Eve. It was celebrated thousands of years ago by the Celts. Christians then celebrated it and honoured all of the Saints. Mrs Ham asked the children about the names of different Saints. Ella said Saint Barnabas, Matthew said Saint Paul, Miles said Saint James, Jack said Saint George, Charlie-Rose said Saint Joseph and Sofia said Saint Edward. The children noticed that Saints have halos around their heads. Mrs Ham shared some images of different Saints and which country they were the patron saint of. During our reflection, we thought about what we could do to follow Jesus, live our lives well and be Saints ourselves. We thought about what kind of person we really want to be. We ended our worship by singing ‘Oh when the Saints, go marching in’.

Whole school Harvest service in Church

This morning our WOW group, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children led our Harvest service in church. Our wonderful choir led the singing during the service. We gave thanks to the farmers and our WOW group reminded everybody about the charities that we are supporting, The Mother’s Union in Burundi and DARE (Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise). The children made us all very proud. A huge thank you to all of the parents, carers and family members that attended too, it was lovely to see you all.

Whitehall Park Values Point Winner’s Disco

Whitehall Park team had a brilliant time at their disco for winning the most values points this half term through showing our Christian and British values. They showcased their best dance moves, played musical bumps, played the corners game and had some yummy sweets. I wonder which house team will win the most values points next half term?

Meet our Key Stage 1 Librarians

Here are our wonderful key stage one librarians. They all had to write Mrs Wilkinson a letter stating why they think they would be a good librarian. The children really impressed Mrs Wilkinson and are excited about starting their new role next half term.

Whitehall Park- Values Winner's Disco and Non-uniform Day

A huge congratulations to WHITEHALL PARK (Green) house team for the most value points this half term for demonstrating our Christian and British Values. The children have voted for their prize and they would like a non-uniform day this Thursday 20th October with a disco at break time. All other house teams still come to school in their uniform on Thursday please and PE kits if it's a PE day.

Monday Worship: Blackburn Diocese Harvest Appeal 2022

During the start of our worship, we discussed what literacy and numeracy meant. We then discussed if any jobs do not require us to read and write. It was really interesting which jobs the children thought didn’t require you to read and write but Mrs Ham proved the children wrong! All jobs require you to read and write. Reading is like a key. If you can’t read, you can’t unlock all of those possibilities. You wouldn’t be able to be a teacher, cook, builder etc. We discussed the British Value of individual liberty. We all have rights. We have the right to education and it is free. This year, the Bishop of Blackburn’s Harvest appeal is supporting the Mother’s Union. The Mother’s union is a Christian charity but it shows the British value of tolerance of all faiths and helps everybody. Mrs Ham showed the children 4 tools and the children explained what each tool does. Mrs Ham explained that in some countries, they do not have the tools to do things that we take for granted: our reading and writing. The Mother’s Union helps people in Burundi which is one of the poorest places in the entire world. In Burundi, families live on £1.50 per day. Our Wow group have set us a challenge to raise £1.50 each to help to support families in Burundi. Wow group explained that we can do chores to help raise the money. Monies can then be paid on parent pay. We can also collect tins and cans for Dare. Mrs Ham has also asked if we can write prayers for families in Burundi. This week, we need to think about how we can help other people and help to make a difference. Our choir group led our song at the end ‘The Harvest of Love’.

Celebration Worship - Value Awards

In Celebration Worship this morning we saw lots of children who had demonstrated our Christian values and British values and have worked hard to achieve great things. We can’t believe how quickly six weeks has gone by and all of our children are growing in confidence and maturity by the day! It’s lovely to see how they all support and respect each other both in and out of the classroom. Well done to all of our Value winners this week.

KS1 - Multi skills festival

On Friday morning we took a team to the KS1 multi skills festival at QEGS Sports Hall. Everyone represented school brilliantly and most importantly had so much fun! We are so proud of everyone for trying their best even if they found something difficult. A massive thank you to Riley and Eva, our Sports leaders who came along to support 11 sports stars!

Year 2- Hello yellow Hunt.

What a fun session we had today, we went on a hunt to look for 10 yellow objects that had been hidden around our school. The excitement and competitiveness was on another level! Well done to yellow team for finding all the objects and being the first ones back.

Online Safety: Fortnite

It has been brought to our attention, that a number of our children are playing Fortnite. Please find attached some information about the game and the age recommendation is 13+. You can also find further information on our online safety page: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/parents/useful-links/online-safety

Year 2 - Junior Jam

Year 2 learning different French songs in junior jam.

Year 2 - Junior Jam

Year 2 exploring music and computing during junior jam.

The Bishop of Blackburn's Harvest Appeal- Burundi Harvest Challenge

This morning in worship, the WOW group launched our Harvest appeal challenge. We are asking for donations of £1.50 from parents in exchange for the children completing 3 helpful challenges at home. Each challenge is worth 50p. The challenges can be any of those mentioned in the poster, or any that you and your child decide at home. Donations will go to the Bishop of Blackburn's Harvest Appeal and this year they are supporting the Christian charity, Mothers' Union, to support the delivery of literacy and numeracy programs to women in Burundi so that they can help earn money to support their families. Donations will be collected by next Thursday 20th October on Parent pay. We are also collecting tins and packets for our local Darwen Refugee and Asylum Enterprise (DARE) to support refugees who have had to flee their homes due to conflict. Please send any donations into school next week. Parents and carers are welcome to join us at our Harvest Festival next Thursday 20th October at 9.30am at St Barnabas church. Our WOW group, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes will be leading the service and the rest of the school will be joining in with songs and prayers.

Monday Worship: Hello Yellow Day

Wow, what an uplifting worship we had. We began our worship with our trinity. Mrs Ham then called upon her minions to help her with today’s special worship. We began by dancing along to ‘Happy’. The roof blew off with all of the fabulous singing and dancing. The minions started by asking the children to show different feelings, for example, tired, happy, sad and loved. The minions explained how you are not alone with your mental health and it is important to talk to somebody. The minions explained that Young Minds is a great campaign about opening up about your mental health. The children watched a video about mental health. It explained how we all have feelings that come and go every day. If feelings become too big then it is important to talk to somebody about them. The minions shared some morning affirmations that we can use. If you say an affirmation, it can make you feel happy, brave, confident, strong and determined. The children said affirmations together such as ‘today is going to be a great day’, ‘I am kind’ and ‘I matter in this world’. The minions explained that you can donate to Young Minds which helps provide a service to help young people with their mental health. The minions have created a competition to design your own emoji. The winning emoji will receive a special hamper prize! This week, we will also have a hello yellow hunt on the MUGA every lunchtime. We finished our worship by singing ‘build up’. A huge thank you to our minions- our head boy, head girl, deputy head boy and deputy head girl.

Year 2 - Exploring similarities and differences between two different faiths.

Year 2 explored the similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam. We were able to come up with lots of similarities between both faiths and learned how other religious people live their lives according to what they believe in.

FOSB Remembrance Day Art Competition

FOSB Remembrance Day Art Competition £1 entry on ParentPay 3 Hamper prizes to be won! Deadline: Friday 4th November Art work will be on Display in the School Hall on Friday 11th November during Celebration Worship and some pieces at Whitehall Park

Celebration Worship

Wow what a jam-packed celebration worship we had this morning - our children have certainly be living life in all its fullness this week! We started by sharing smiles with each other in aid of World Smile Day - Mother Theresa taught us that ‘peace starts with a smile’, so let’s smile at one another and continue spread joy and kindness around our school. There have been so many achievements across school this week! We say a big well done to this weeks value point winners Albie, Bluebelle, Alice, Lola, Bobby, Lucy And Eliza who continue to demonstrate our Christian values throughout school. River Darwen are our Value point champions this week. Keep it up! And what fantastic Sports stars we have in our school - well done to Charlie, Miles, Annabel, Penelope, Leonora, Isabella & Charlie, Eliza, James and Lyla. Congratulations to our DPSSA football team for their 10-2 victory against St James, what a result! Well done Rosie for your super reading too. Year 2 and Year 5 are our attendance winners this week - let’s keep up that fantastic attendance to school. We also shared our Remembrance Day art competition with the school and look forward to seeing some fantastic entries for the chance to win a prize hamper. It was lovely to have Lillian back in school with us to finish with a blessing and a prayer. Thank you. What another tremendous week!

Year 2 - World Smile Day

Year 2 - World Smile Day

Year 2 - Clarice Cliff Painting

Year 2 created their own Clarice cliff style plate. They painted circles using warm colours then contrasted using blue in the style of Clarice Cliff. They use straws and blew black paint to create a tree/branch effect which made the silhouette that Clarice Cliff is renowned for.

Year 2 - PSHE

Year 2 - PSHE. We discussed loneliness, what to do if you see someone who is lonely and how you would feel if you are lonely. The children worked really well expressing their views and opinions on the matter and worked well to come up with ideas of what they would do if they saw someone who is lonely.

Year 2- Lunch time MUGA session.

Lunch time MUGA session for year 2- Learning how to control the ball in football and using the correct part of their foot to pass the ball to their partner.

Monday Worship- Black History Month

Last week we focussed on being kind to our neighbour. When we came into worship, we listened to ‘Respect’ by Aretha Franklin. We discussed what this meant and looked at how it was one of our Christian values and our British Value, mutual respect. Mrs Ham told us about how many years ago, Africans were captured and taken to America to be slaves. The children all agreed that this was unfair. Mrs Ham then role played with Declan and Elsie to show the children how slaves were treated. They weren’t treated nicely which was very unfair. In 1865, slavery was completely banned. In 1926, Carter Woodson created black history week and now we celebrate black history month every October. We watched a video which showed how Ayanna Najuma who was just 7 years old changed the world! Ayanna did a peaceful protest and went into a white only restaurant and waited until they were served. Ayanna asked for a hamburger and a coke but the waitress said no. They went back on day 2 and 3. By day 3, they were served food and the restaurant became integrated. Ayanna said “my voice was little but it was just as important as everybody else’s voice”. Martin Luther King Junior also stood up for what was right and he fought for a long time for everybody to be treated equally. Finally we watched a song video about Rosa Parks and how she fought for change. This week, Mrs Ham asked the children to reflect on anything that we have experienced that seemed unfair. Did we have the courage to speak up? Can we do this going forward? We finished our worship by singing ‘Make a difference’.

Year 2 - Mastering Numbers

Year 2 - Mastering numbers, quick challenges in maths for quick recall. All the children did amazingly well.

Celebration Worship and Celebrating Values

During our Celebration Worship, Mrs Ham reminded everyone about spreading kindness at school and at home. The children shared some of the kindness that they have been sharing at home, such as, cleaning their bedroom, helping their parents carry in the shopping, opening the doors for teachers and pupils and looking after the environment. We also celebrated the value certificate for each classroom presented to, Year 6 - Eva, Year 5 - Rio, Year 4 - Laila, Year 3 - Grace, Year 2 - Sofiya, Year 1 - Harry and Emily, Reception - Sienna and the winning team this week, Whitehall Park. They have all demonstrated our Christian and British Values throughout the school. A huge well done to everyone. The worship came to an end with a prayer led by Mrs Ham and three children.

Sports Awards- Celebration Worship

During our celebration worship this morning, the children were presented with their sports awards. Last night, a group from Years 5 and 6 represented DPSSA football. They played superbly and gained 1 victory and a narrow defeat. A massive well done to all of our children who also celebrated awards that they brought in from taking part in activities outside of school. We had awards for gymnastics, running, swimming, dancing, reading and martial arts.