Smart School Councillors Raise £163 for 'The Brain Tumour Research'.
A huge thank you to all the parents and children for your incredible support at our recent bake sale; thanks to your generosity, we successfully raised £163.00 for ' The Brain Tumour Charity'. Our Smart School Councillors did a fantastic job organising the event and helping with the baking, resulting in an impressive spread of 180 biscuits and 100 fairy cakes. These funds will make a huge difference, allowing us to pay for 10 DNA preservation tubes and provide much-needed comfort to a child following their diagnosis by sending them a Brainy Bag and a cuddly bear. We are so proud of our students hard work and grateful to our wonderful community for helping us provide this vital support.
Year 5 - PE
We continued our athletics lessons by adding sling shots to our repertoire of throws. The children had to sling a hoop as far as they could, focusing on keeping their arm straight, rotating the body and releasing at the right moment. We also carried out a sequence of three standing jumps, hops and leaps, with the children experimenting by changing their stance and motion.
Amazing Attendance Award- Top 10% Nationally
🌟 We’ve Struck Gold -Amazing Attendance Award 🌟 We have officially been honoured with another National School Attendance Award for the 2025/26 Spring Term to go with our 2025/26 Autumn Term Award. Thanks to the incredible dedication of our children and the unwavering support of you—our parents and carers—we have been ranked again in the Top 10% of all FFT primary schools in England. Excellent attendance isn't just about a certificate; it’s about ensuring our children have every opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed alongside their friends. Being in the top 10% nationally is a massive achievement and speaks volumes about the value our families place on education. 🙏 A Heartfelt Thank You 🙏 We know that getting the children up, ready, and through the gates every morning takes effort. This award belongs to you and your children just as much as it belongs to the school. Let’s keep this amazing momentum going into the Summer Term! 🚀 #StBarnabasProud #AttendanceMatters #TopTenPercent #SchoolSuccess
Year 5 - Online Safety
Year 5 discussed the ways in which it’s possible to feel lonely while online and how they can overcome these feelings. Loneliness can occur when people are unkind to you, don’t reply to messages or leave group chats. We talked about how going offline to talk to friends and family can be helpful as well as entertaining yourself by watching funny videos or listening to happy music.
Year 5 - Religious Education
We examined different views on the nature of death by comparing and contrasting the views of Christians, Muslims and Humanists. We found that Muslims, just like Christians, believe in an afterlife where the soul goes after death and the actions of each person during their life are judged by God. However Humanists have a more scientific viewpoint and consider this to be the only life we have and so we need to do as much good as possible.
Bee Stinger Netball Heat Winners
This evening we took part in the Bee Stinger Netball Heats down at Darwen Vale High School. Many of Team B had never played Bee Stingers before but they worked hard and managed to come out heat winners! We are so proud of how they conducted themselves showing respect and resilience the whole way through.
River Darwen Disco
Today, River Darwen enjoyed their disco and came in their own clothes to celebrate earning the most Value Points last half term. Thank you DJ Bloomfield for hosting!
Year 5 - Computing
In this lesson, the children were introduced to the terms ‘melody’ and ‘hook’, with a focus on how hooks make songs catchy and memorable. Year 5 then used the app Garage Band to create their own hook using a range of instrumental sounds, before using this hook to write their own song.
Year 5 - PE
We continued our orienteering topic by turning our playground netball court into a map that the children had to carefully navigate. Each group was given different directions that they had to follow, with each point on the map given a number they had to record. It was another opportunity to exploit the glorious weather we have been having and it was great to watch the children work so well with each other, displaying and developing their strong talking and listening skills.
Whole School Worship - One Way Giving
In this whole school collective worship, we developed our understanding of one way giving. Our Year 6 heads and deputies began by sharing what each class did for our Hop, Skip and Jump event. Jacqui, a representative from East Lancs Hospice came to award us with participation certificates and to reveal that we raised a fantastic £357 during our event. Thank you to all our children and parents for your support. Mrs Ham then shared this week’s One Way Giving kindness kite. Three of our KS2 children volunteered to read the sections of the kite and we learned that the Bible says we should give in secret and God will reward us. After this, we watched a cartoon of the event when Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Canaan. He secretly asked the servants to fill the jars with water and turned it into wine. The master of ceremonies tasted the wine and approved it to be a very good wine thinking it was provided by the groom. The groom received the praise, and only the servants and God knew that Jesus had performed this miracle. This was a great example of one way giving. Finally, Mrs Ham and Mr Bloomfield put up our new Widgit symbols, with the help of our children, on our Big Frieze to help the children understand God’s Big Story.
Times Tables - April Battle Week Winners
Our KS2 children have been really stepping it up with their times tables practice lately and we couldn’t be prouder. They’ve racked up THOUSANDS of correct answers between them, resulting in one of our biggest point-scoring battles yet. A huge congratulations to this month’s winners: Piper-Jo in Year 3, Lottie in Year 4, Charlie in Year 5 and Charlie in Year 6. And to our class champions, Year 4 taking the LKS2 trophy and Year 6 taking the UKS2 trophy. May’s battle will be slightly different with the children requesting a boys vs. girls battle. Good luck, everyone!
Year 5 - RE
We started by discussing the children’s knowledge of what funerals are and why we have them. This is a sensitive topic and the children showed great maturity and sensitivity in sharing their experiences in an open, respectful manner. We then analysed Christian prayers spoken in funerals and considered what they tell us about Christian beliefs around God, Jesus and heaven.