British Science Week- Year 5- Building Sand Timers and Sweet Reactions
This afternoon, Year 5 had a brilliant time getting hands-on with science, exploring time and sweet reactions. First, the children took on the challenge of building their own sand timers. They worked in teams to create timers measuring one, two, and five minutes and then tested them to see how accurate they were. Our Science Ambassador, Mathew, was on hand to support them, and it was fantastic to see the children applying their scientific knowledge and working together. Then, we moved onto a heart shaped sweet experiment. The children investigated what happens when heart-shaped sweets are placed in different liquids: water, vinegar, and a fizzy drink. Before they started, everyone made predictions about what they thought would happen. They then carefully observed the changes, noting how the sweets reacted in each liquid. This led to some lively discussions about dissolving, chemical reactions, and the properties of liquids. It was a fantastic day of scientific exploration, where the children learned about time and chemical reactions whilst enjoying the teamwork and excitement of discovery. We certainly lived life in its fullness, celebrating British Science Week with engaging and educational activities.
Year 5 - Year of Prayer
This week’s Year of Prayer focus is all about forgiveness. The children took time to reflect on their actions, writing down things they wished to be forgiven for on a scrap piece of paper. As a powerful symbol of God’s grace and mercy, they then ripped up their papers—reminding them that, through faith, they are forgiven and can move forward with a fresh start. By embracing forgiveness, the children are learning to let go of past mistakes and live life in all its fullness, just as God intends.
Year 5 - Gymnastics
This week in gymnastics, Year 5 have been exploring counterbalancing, working in pairs and small groups to create stable, controlled balances. They experimented with different ways to distribute weight evenly, ensuring that both partners contributed to maintaining balance. As their confidence grew, the children incorporated varying levels and different points of contact to make their balances more dynamic and visually interesting. They also focused on trust and teamwork, communicating effectively to adjust their positions and maintain stability.
Whole School Worship - The Widow’s Offering
Today in our Collective Worship we acted out the Bible story of the Widow’s Offering. Mr Norris kindly acted in the role of Jesus, and we had 4 children from across Years 4 and 5 acting as the money givers. Each person acted out sharing a small portion of their wealth to charity, and then a poor widow came along and donated two coins. Jesus explained that the widow gave the most because she gave all she had. We all spent time reflecting on how we could give to others during Lent. Some ideas were we could take part in the Big Lent Walk and help to raise money for those who don't have as much food as us and we could show kindness to each other through our 40 acts of generosity such as donating our clothes and toys to charity. We said a special prayer for all of the things we are thankful for and each time Mrs Ham dropped a coin, we said Amen. We are thankful for our family, friends, pets, teachers, food, warm beds and God's creations. We finished our Worship by singing Rich in Kindness and Year 6 modelled the actions at the front.
Year 5 English - Persuasive Letters
In English, Year 5 have been busy writing formal, persuasive letters. The children have studied persuasive features and combined this with their work on emotive language from their previous unit on Oliver Twist, to compose a letter to Keir Starmer, proposing that the public should be using more Fairtrade products.
Year 5 Science - Water Resistance
Year 5 had a fantastic science lesson on forces and water resistance, this week. The children learned that objects need to be streamlined in order to move through water easily, otherwise the upthrust or drag will slow them down. They made predictions about which object they thought would move fastest/slowest through water and then carried out an investigation to test their predictions.
Singing Worship and Year of Prayer
This morning in Worship we started by introducing the Year of Prayer to our classes this week which is about using rubbish to create sorry prayers and then throwing them away. We then learnt a special action prayer to help our love to grow as part of the Year of the Prayer. After that we had a joyous time singing some of our favourite Easter songs and hymns in preparation for Easter. We sang Lord of the Dance, We have a King who rides a donkey, Rich in Kindness and Give me oil in my lamp. We also started to learn a new upbeat song called 'He's Alive!'. What a joyous way to start a Monday morning together as a school family!
Mad Science After School Club- Super Sticky Stuff
This afternoon in the club, our future scientists got hands-on with exciting experiments, testing different types of tape, lemon, orange, and other sticky substances to explore their properties and strength.
A Disco For the Value Award Winners
Today, Whitehall Park and India Mill celebrated their success of achieving the most value points last half-term with a non-uniform day and a disco. A huge thank you to Miss Flynn, Mrs Irshad and Miss Woods for the leading the disco and games! The children had a fantastic time!
Biggest Ever Girls Football Event
Today, we proudly took part in the FA’s Biggest Ever Girls’ Football Event, celebrating the joy of football and encouraging more girls to get involved in the sport. Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 participated in a fun, game-based session where they had to dribble the ball and score in any of the four goals while defenders tried to stop them with tackles. The session helped develop their dribbling, spatial awareness and teamwork skills in an exciting and engaging way. Years 3, 4, 5, and 6 took part in a series of competitive matches, showcasing their skills and teamwork. They then tested their nerves in thrilling penalty shootouts, demonstrating confidence and precision under pressure. It was fantastic to see so much enthusiasm, determination and teamwork throughout the morning. The event truly highlighted the growing passion for girls’ football in our school!
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and reflecting on our very busy yet enjoyable week in school. This week, we launched our challenge called ‘THE BIG LENT WALK’ which involves our whole school community working together to raise money to make a difference to the lives of those who don't have enough food. Please continue to let either Mrs Wilkinson or Mrs Ham know if you have walked anywhere and send photos if you can. We have also been thinking about how Lent is a good time to give things back so we have launched our 40 Day Kindness Challenge. This week, we have also celebrated Shrove Tuesday, World Book Day and enjoyed a great variety of after school clubs such as Craft Club led by Fred and Pearl, Cross Country, Mad Science, Choir , Dodgeball and Gymnastics clubs led by Edstart. We then congratulated this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Evie, Alessia and Heidi in EYFS and KS1 and Lottie, Penelope, Nevaeh, Seb and Laila in KS2 for their fantastic work ethic, their commitment to demonstrating the Barney’s 4Bs (being ready, respectful, kind and safe) and showing full participation and engagement in lessons. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 2 and Year 3 classes for being our attendance winners this week with 99.2% and 99.3% attendance, River Darwen as our value award winners this week with 509 points and our Year 4 Football team who kicked off their journey in the BRFC league with three exciting matches on Tuesday evening and represented school amazingly well. We also congratulated Year 3 and Year 6 as being the WOW (Walk to School) winners for the month of February. Well done to these classes for earning the most badges. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school sports award winners. This week, it was a week full of congratulating super swimmers. Well done to Zac for being a super swimmer and achieving his Puffin award, Phoebe for achieving her Stage 1 swimming certificate, Annabel for achieving her 15m swimming certificate, Ava for achieving her Stage 2 swimming certificate, Desmond for achieving his silver and gold swimming certificates, Iris for achieving her Stage 6 swimming certificate and Bluebelle for swimming an amazing 50m. We also said a huge well done to Carter for being a fantastic footballer and Lana for being the Star of the Week at Performing Arts. To end our worship, we read a beautiful Lent prayer together as a school and sang ‘We Have a King Who Rides a Donkey’. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.
World Book Day- Storytime Across School
To celebrate World Book Day, our children voted for the story that they wanted to listen to and moved around school to listen to their chosen one. Miss Flynn read ‘The Monkey With a Bright Blue Bottom,’ Mrs Wilkinson read ‘The Wonky Donky,’ Mrs Govan read ‘Taylor Swift (Little People, Big Dreams), Mr Norris read ‘Sammy Striker and the Football Cup,’ Mrs Hegarty read ‘The Great Dog Bottom Swap,’ Miss Woods read ‘I’ve Broken My Bottom,’ Miss Kachwalla read ‘There’s a Snake in My School,’ Mrs Gardner read ‘Revolting Rhymes,’ Mr Bloomfield read, ‘The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors,’ Mr Prescott read ‘The World’s Worst Children’ and Miss Lyons read ‘Absolutely Awful Adults.’ Most of these stories were new to our children and they thoroughly enjoyed listening to and engaging with them. There were lots of giggles!