Friday Celebration Worship: Children in Need
This morning in our celebration worship, we gathered as a whole school family to mark Children in Need, offering heartfelt thanks for the generosity shown in raising awareness and funds for such a worthy cause. This week, we have also celebrated the start of Anti-Bullying Week by wearing odd socks, a joyful reminder of the importance of uniqueness and individuality. Together, we reflected on how love, friendship, generosity and kindness can help us use our power for good and stand against bullying and nurture one another’s mental health. Throughout the week, our after-school clubs have brought great excitement and creativity, with children enjoying board games, football, forest school, Warhammer painting and a lively Let’s Go Sing workshop. Reception delighted in a terrific Trekking Tuesday, Year 3 welcomed Rev Ben and enjoyed a memorable visit to Nightingale Farm, and all classes began their new Design & Technology units as they prepare to create products for the Christmas Fair. Our worship continued with the presentation of awards. We celebrated our Value award winners Alfie, Beau and Haydn in EYFS and KS1, and Joshua, Luke and Mason across KS2, for demonstrating an excellent work ethic, thoughtful listening, teamwork, independence and our Christian values. We congratulated the whole of Year 3 for representing our school so beautifully during their farm visit, Darwen Tower as the overall value award winners with an impressive 233 points, and Year 2 and Year 3 as our attendance champions. We then celebrated our out of school star achievers. We celebrated Bo for earning both ‘Player of the Week’ in football and ‘Best in the Cast’ at Made for Stage, Haydn for his ‘Player of the Week’ award and an incredible 27 goals in just seven games, Ralphi for achieving his 5m swimming badge, Poppy for her wonderful dancing, Isabella for being ‘Star of the Day’ in acro, Hendrix and Maggie for completing Stage 1 gymnastics, Jack for his courage and skill as ‘Player of the Match’ with Blackburn Eagles, Marley for her dedication to Brownies, Grace for exceptional success across her dance competition, Freddie for swimming a fantastic 25 metres, Evie for achieving her laughter, communication, drawing and promise badges at Rainbows, Lydia and Naomi for demonstrating kindness, helpfulness and bravery at Rainbows and Brownies, and Ohana in Reception class for swimming an impressive 75 metres. We also celebrated our Year 5/6 football team for their two brilliant league wins last night in the DPSSA Football League and for representing our school proudly at the Blackburn Rovers Senior Ground on Wednesday as part of the KS2 BRFC Kids Cup. Mrs Ham and Mrs Govan then awarded certificates to Luna, Beau, Lyla, Skye, Olivia, Edward, Alana and Naomi for their success in the Spring Vale Ramblers Club Art Competition, with their artwork chosen for display in the Darwen Heritage Centre. Mrs Govan also introduced our Christmas ADVENTure Trail Art competition, inspired by the Nativity story and soon to be showcased in Whitehall Park, with a chocolate treat awaiting all who take part. We closed by thanking Renée, Callie and Harry for their beautiful prayers and offering our appreciation to everyone who joined us in worship, as well as to our whole school community for their continued support. We wish you all a peaceful and restful weekend as we look forward to the busy and joy-filled weeks leading up to Christmas.
Sportshall Athletics Trials
Today we held the first one of our Year 5/6 Sportshall Athletics trials. The children practiced long jump, triple jump, obstacle race, speed bounce and the baton exchange in relays. Everyone worked so hard and showed a great attitude when trying out new skills! What a great way to end the week!
KS2 Football Team
Tonight our KS2 football team competed in the DPSSA Football League, playing two fantastic matches. The boys showed great teamwork and determination, beating Sudell 5–0 and St James’ Darwen 6–2. A brilliant effort from everyone, well done, boys!
Year 6 - Geography
In Geography today, Year 6 explored DigiMaps to develop their mapping and geographical skills. Using digital maps, the children navigated towns and cities across the UK, locating and identifying key places. The children compared their human and physical features with those of Darwen, exploring how different environments are shaped by people and nature. The children showed great curiosity and teamwork as they discovered the similarities and differences between urban and rural areas across the country.
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Year 6 Junior Jam French
In French this week, Year 6 learned words and phrases to help them describe their daily routine on a school day. They played games, sang songs and had lots of verbal rehearsal time to help them to learn the new vocabulary.
KS2 BRFC Kids Cup
A huge well done to our KS2 football team, who represented the school brilliantly at the BRFC Kids Cup! They played exceptionally well and narrowly missed out on reaching the quarter-finals.
KS2 Football Training
This week, we began our football training for the half term. We focused on game-based sessions with specific rules designed to enhance players’ style of play and support their overall development within the game.
Year 6 - The Human Heart
Today, we began our new science unit on Animals Including Humans, focusing specifically on the human heart. The children used their talk tactics, particularly their talk tokens, to discuss and debate whether the heart is the most important organ in the human body. They thoroughly enjoyed sharing their ideas and demonstrated excellent oracy skills throughout the discussion. Following this, the children took part in an experiment to explore how the heart responds to exercise, recording their results carefully. Later in the lesson, they investigated the structure of the heart in more detail, labelling its different parts and learning about the functions.
Whole School Worship - Power for Good
Our theme in today’s collective worship was “Power for Good”. Continuing our focus on Anti-Bullying Week, Mrs Ham shared some of the fantastic answers the children gave on Monday about standing up to bullying. These included saying stop, being assertive, asking why, and telling a trusted adult. We learned of how Jesus was a power for good, even when others turned against him, and we reflected on the ways in which we can also be a power for good by being a good friend and spotting when someone needs our help. The WOW Group also shared how they are being a power for good, by protecting our planet and leading our school’s Switch Off Fortnight campaign. They shared posters recommending ways to save energy around school, including turning off lights and computer monitors when they are not in use, and they explained that they will be checking how well each class is doing at saving energy every break time and lunchtime during the campaign.
Year 6 - Advent
This week in RE, the children have been exploring the season of Advent and its meaning within the Christian faith. Through studying quotes from the Bible, they gained a deeper understanding of themes such as hope, preparation and the coming of Jesus. The children then designed and decorated their own Advent wreaths, thoughtfully including Christian symbols such as candles, greenery and ribbons to represent the spiritual journey of Advent.
Year 6 - Counterbalancing
Today in gymnastics, Year 6 built on their balance skills by incorporating apparatus into their counter-balance sequences. The children worked collaboratively to create controlled, coordinated routines that demonstrated strength, teamwork and trust.
Year 6 - Anti-Bullying Week
This week, Year 6 took part in Anti-Bullying Week 2025. Year 6 wore odd socks to celebrate individuality and remind everyone that it’s great to be different. The children also designed their own odd socks, each one showing creativity and spreading positive messages about respect, kindness and standing up for others. Throughout the week, Year 6 took part in thoughtful discussions and activities exploring how we can all use our Power for Good — whether that’s by including others, speaking up when we see unkind behaviour or being a role model to younger pupils.