Image of Year 2 - PE
8 May

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.

Image of Mad Science After school Club- Magnetic Magic
7 May

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!

Image of Rev Ben’s Worship: The Ascension
7 May

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.

Image of Mrs Ham's Weekly Message
3 May

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

Image of Friday Celebration Worship
3 May

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.

Image of Reception and KS1- Story and Craft Club
1 May

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.

Image of Forest school club
1 May

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.

Image of Year 2 - Science trip to the garden centre
30 Apr

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.

Image of Mad Science After School Club- Lights, Colour, Action.
30 Apr

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.

Image of Rev Matt’s Worship - The Road To Emmaus
30 Apr

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.

Image of Reception, Year 1 and Year 2-Science Show
29 Apr

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.

Image of Friday Celebration Worship
26 Apr

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.