The Big Lent Walk in Year 4
This afternoon, Year 4 went on their Big Lent Walk around our local area. We walked past both Mrs Gardner’s and Mrs Singleton's houses on our journey. The children loved being out in the fresh air and working together to add more km to our whole school total. We are so proud of them as we were also in our World Book Day outfits which included onesies, dresses and dressing gowns. Collectively we walked 92.8k - WELL DONE Year 4
World Book Day in Year 4
What a wonderful World Book Day! We have had a day packed full of enjoyment and the opportunity to showcase our love of books and reading. From reading our new class novel to book tasting to hearing Miss Flynn sharing one of her favourite stories with us, we have loved every second. Thank you to Miss Flynn for organising and the librarians for making the World Book Day Assembly so interactive and fun! Also a special mention for Annabelle who won the WBD bookmark competition for Key Stage 2.
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.
Let’s Go Sing concert 2024
Wow, we are so proud of our school choir for their amazing singing and enthusiastic actions this evening at the Let’s go sing concert at King George’s Hall. I’ve loaded some videos onto class dojo and the photos can be found here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/let-s-go-sing-concert-2024 A huge thank you to Mrs Govan for her wonderful leadership of our choir and to Mrs Wilkinson for her support this afternoon. Thank you to all of our choir parents for their support in helping the children learn their words and for supporting them this evening. We are hoping to have more choir members next year and will be opening choir open to more KS2 children in the next few weeks. If your child is interested in joining, they are welcome to come along on Thursday lunchtimes to give it a try. It was an absolute pleasure to watch our children sing their hearts out. They will be performing their favourite song in worship on Friday. You are very welcome to join us.
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.
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
KS2 Author Visit
Yesterday, the children in KS2 were lucky enough to have a visit from Richard Alker. Richard is the author of the book ‘My Grandad vs the Fangazoo’. The children were truly immersed in his session and had many questions to ask Richard about his life and how he became an author. During the session, he discussed various things: what inspired him to write, character development, simple strategies he uses when writing and finally the children had the chance to listen to a book reading. Thank you Richard!
Year 4 - Science: Electrical Circuit Challenges
In science this week, the Year 4 children have been learning the names and symbols of different components in a series circuit. They drew the scientific symbols and then were challenged to build different circuits based on key questions; ‘Can you make the bulb light up?’, ‘Can you make the buzzer sound?’, ‘Can you control when you want the circuit to work?’
Year 4 - PE: Orienteering
It was an extremely physical orienteering session for the Year 4s this week. The children were using a map of the school grounds to locate specific posts around the outside of the school. In pairs, they were given a letter to locate. They had to firstly ensure they had their maps facing north, and then they had to figure out where their given letter was. When they found their letter they had to remember the two-digit number on the post and return to the leader with the answer. They were then sent off to find another letter. All of the children had great fun exploring the school grounds with their maps, and showed some fantastic map-reading skills.
KS2- Author Visit-R.K. Alker
To celebrate World Book Day and foster a love for reading, we welcomed children's book author RK Alker today. He shared insights into his journey before becoming an author, recounting experiences such as growing chillies and collaborating with celebrities like Gordon Ramsay. Before pursuing writing, RK worked as an ambulance man until a leg injury led him to reconsider his career path. Inspired by his daughters, he fulfilled his lifelong dream of writing a book. During his talk, RK emphasised the importance of creative writing prompts and utilising the five senses to enhance writing. He introduced the children to his character Stretch the Dragon by reading chapter 7 from his current best-selling book 'My Grandad Vs the Fanga Zoo,' leaving it on a cliffhanger. RK hopes to get a word he made up, 'oopositollogy' (which means the opposite of opposite), into a dictionary one day. To end the visit, RK told funny jokes that had the children laughing their socks off.
Year 4 DT - Electrical Systems
In our first DT session this half term, we have started to explore electrical systems. This week we focused on what electricity is and where it comes from. We then moved onto making simple circuits with a bulb , batteries and a switch using split pins and a paper clip. Some groups were really tested as they needed to exchange their components a few times but we all got there in the end.
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!