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Our Whole School Worship-Palm Sunday and Serving Others
Our whole school worship began with signing the Trinity, bringing the whole school together in reflection. To explore the theme of our new Kindness Kite, Jack (Y5), Eliza (Y5), and Olivia (Y4) shared the Fairness Kite, which explained the biblical perspective on justice and treating others equitably. Mrs Ham asked the children to take a moment to reflect on everything we have done as a school to serve others who don't have as much as us. We looked back on our collective efforts to help those in need: Donating clothes, coats for the homeless, and teddies, which were organised by Year 5 Rotakids. Collecting food for Harvest and supporting the Darwen Enterprise Easter Egg appeal. Filling shoe boxes and raising money through sponsored walks. Worship continued with Mrs Ham reading a rhyming Palm Sunday Bible story about Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, which the children and staff acted out brilliantly. Jesus and his friends were played by Charlie G, Peyton, and Mr Bloomfield. Zac (Year 1) played the donkey that carried Jesus into the city. Iris, Ava, and many other children acted as the crowd, waving palm leaves to welcome the King. Mrs Araujo and Mr Mealor played the Pharisees, representing the religious leaders who disagreed with Jesus and watched the parade with concern. To end our worship, we sang, 'We Have a King Who Rides a Donkey.' We left worship thinking about the example Jesus set and how we can continue to give in service to those around us.
Year 6 - Orienteering
Our Year 6 class have been developing their orienteering and map reading skills this week. During the session, the children worked brilliantly to complete the course, using maps to navigate their way around a series of checkpoints. The children demonstrated excellent teamwork, communication and problem-solving skills; supporting one another, discussing the best routes to take and adapting when things did not go to plan. It was great to see their resilience and determination, particularly when faced with more challenging sections of the course. As the session progressed, many children began to think more strategically, choosing more efficient routes and improving their time. The children also reflected on their performance afterwards, considering what went well and what they would do differently next time.
Year 6 - Building Bridges
Year 6 have begun their new Design and Technology unit on building bridges. The children started by exploring different types of bridges and discussing how their structures help them stay strong. The children looked at examples such as arched bridges and corrugated designs, learning how shapes and materials can make a structure more stable. After investigating these designs, the children created their own bridges using card. The children then tested their models to see how much weight each bridge could withstand, helping them understand which designs were the strongest and why.
Year 6 - World Trade
Today, Year 6 began exploring the concept of global trade and how the United Kingdom is connected to other countries through the exchange of goods. The children investigated a range of different countries and identified the products they export to the UK. Through this, they began to understand how natural resources, climate, and physical geography influence what different countries are able to produce. The children then located these countries and coloured their own world maps using a key to show each product and its country of origin. This helped them to visualise the global distribution of goods and the extensive trade networks that connect continents and oceans. The activity also supported their understanding of imports, exports and trade routes, highlighting the scale and interdependence of the global economy. Towards the end of the lesson, the children began to explore the advantages and disadvantages of international trade. They discussed how trade can support economic growth, provide access to resources that are not available locally and create employment opportunities. They also considered some of the challenges, including environmental impacts, transport distances and the reliance countries can have on goods produced elsewhere.
Choir - Concert Practice
Choir have been working really hard on polishing their performance in preparation for the Let's Go Sing concert at Planet Ice next week. The children have worked really hard to remember the lyrics and actions for a range of different songs and are now excited to perform to a live audience. We can't wait to see them shine!
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Year 6 - British Science Week
As part of British Science Week, Year 6 explored the question: What makes great teamwork? The children took part in a practical challenge where they worked in small groups to control a single pen. Each of the children held a peg, and the pegs were clipped to the pen. Without touching the pen directly, they had to communicate and work together to draw a series of pictures that were given to them. This activity encouraged the children to think about the importance of communication, patience, listening and cooperation. They quickly realised that successful teamwork requires everyone to contribute, share ideas and support one another in order to achieve a common goal. The challenge also showed how scientists and engineers often rely on teamwork and collaboration to solve problems and create solutions.
Netball Club
In our second week of netball club this half term we focused on improving our technical skills, tactical awareness and physical fitness. We did this through playing full games in which children switched positions regularly to establish zones on the netball court. Not long now until the league starts after Easter !
Whole School Worship - Sharing What We Have
Our kindness kite focus for this week, ‘Shared what they had’, linked perfectly with today’s story, the Feeding of the 5000. Before sharing the story, Mrs Ham asked children to about times they have shared with others. These included smiles, toy and clothing donations and even car sharing. After watching the story, the children reflected on the benefits of sharing and how God provides for his people in abundance, just like how the small amount of food multiplied upon Jesus’s faithful request to God. In reflection, we considered what we could share with others throughout Lent and made pledges to do so. We brought our worship to a close by sharing our wonderful singing voices with one another, practising some Easter songs for our upcoming service.
Year 6 - Is Macbeth a good person?
Today in Year 6, we rounded off our unit on Macbeth with an oracy-focused lesson centred on a concept cartoon exploring the question: Is Macbeth a good person? The cartoon presented a range of viewpoints about Macbeth’s actions and motivations, encouraging the children to evaluate different perspectives and justify their opinions using evidence from the text. The children used their talk tokens to support balanced participation and to encourage purposeful discussion. This helped ensure that everyone contributed thoughtfully to their group conversations. During the discussions, some children took on the role of silent summarisers, carefully listening to the dialogue, gathering key points and identifying evidence from the play. They later shared these summaries with the class, helping to draw together the different ideas that had emerged. The lesson placed a strong emphasis on developing spoken language skills, including building on others’ ideas, respectfully challenging viewpoints, and supporting opinions with textual evidence. By the end of the session, the children demonstrated a deeper understanding of Macbeth’s character, recognising the complexity of his choices and debating whether his ambition, guilt and manipulation by others affect how we judge him as a person.
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Blackburn with Darwen Schools Y5/6 Cross Country
This evening was Race Night 2 for the Blackburn with Darwen Schools Years 5/6 Cross Country. Team B dug deep and came away with some great placings with some of the children getting great PBs and much higher positions than in Race 1 so we are very proud of their hard work and progress- well done!
Friday Celebration Worship
It has been another very busy and exciting week here at St Barnabas. In Worship we have been taking time to reflect on both Lent and Ramadan, thinking about kindness, reflection and helping others. We have also had a fantastic week celebrating World Book Day, sharing our love of reading and enjoying all the brilliant costumes and book characters we saw in school. Our classes were also lucky enough to take part in the Pinocchio dance workshop and performance, which was fantastic to watch. There has been lots happening beyond the classroom too, including the River Darwen team disco and our wide range of clubs, such as Kids with Bricks club. Many of you have also been taking part in the Times Tables Rockstars competition and showing great enthusiasm for practising your times tables. We have now completed our Big Winter Wander and together we have raised £175 for WWF, which is an amazing achievement. Thank you to everyone who took part and supported this. Our RotaKids have also been showing kindness in action by collecting teddies for Darwen Asylum Refugee Enterprise and Darwen Rotary which will help support children less fortunate than us. We also had the World Book Day Dolly Peg Competition run by the Friends of St Barnabas and the judges were very impressed with the creativity and effort that went into the entries. The award for Best Book Character goes to Phoebe for Greg the Sausage Roll. The award for Most Creative goes to Ida for the Highway Rat. The award for Best Use of Materials goes to Molly for Molly and the Goldfish Fairy. The Judges’ Choice award goes to Alfie. The award for Most Imaginative goes to Alice for Stitch and the Outstanding Effort award goes to Elliot. Well done to everyone who took part and a huge thank you to our FOSB for organising the competition as well as contributing money to the Pinocchio workshops. A massive thank you to our parishioner Glenda for undertaking the difficult task of judging the competition. Our Values Awards where we recognise children who have been showing our school four Be's of being kind, respectful, safe and ready to learn. In Reception the award goes to Erina. In Year 1 it goes to Cassius. In Year 2 the award goes to Thomas. In Year 3 it goes to Albie. In Year 4 the awards go to Cassidy and Alfie. In Year 5 the award goes to Olivia and in Year 6 the award goes to Isabelle. Well done to all of you for showing our 4 Be's and Christian values so clearly in school. We also had some pen licences to award this week in Year 3. These go to Harry, Molly and Eddie. Well done for showing such neat and consistent handwriting across the curriculum, not just in English. We celebrated our team values totals for the week. In fourth place was Darwen Tower. In third place was Whitehall Park. In second place was River Darwen. And in first place this week was India Mill. Well done everyone! We also have lots of wonderful sports and out-of-school achievements to celebrate. Olivia, Eleanor and Annie have been awarded a certificate for celebrating 100 years of World Thinking Day at Rainbows. Alessia has been awarded her Level 1 for back bends in dance. Poppy has been awarded a teddy for really good dancing. Carmen and Renee have both been awarded their yellow belts in kickboxing. Albie has been awarded player of the week for good tackling. Martha has achieved her 20 metre swimming certificate. Haydn has been awarded a trophy for scoring seven goals in football. Olivia has also received a certificate for a fantastic backwards roll in gymnastics. Callie has been awarded a certificate for completing two years of JuJitsu. Maggie has received a Brownie doll and her promise badge. Annabel has been awarded star of the week in dance and swimmer of the month. Jack has been awarded a certificate for completing a silver swimming challenge and Piper-Jo has achieved her 50 metre swimming certificate. Well done to all of you for your hard work and dedication outside of school. A special well done also goes to our Cross Country team who showed fantastic determination when competing in rainy weather and muddy conditions. They ran over a mile, which is a brilliant achievement. We also held our inter-house competition for football and bench ball and the winning house was India Mill. Well done to everyone who took part. Our WOW group had some exciting news to share as well. Our school is now number one across all Blackburn and Darwen schools for walking to school last month. That is an incredible achievement. Year 4 are the overall winners for walking to school and badges will be given to all children who walked to school. Our attendance awards this week go to Year 2 and Year 3. Well done for coming to school every day and being ready to learn. Finally, just a reminder that Reception will soon be performing their Mother’s Day Service next Wednesday at 9.00am and there will also be the Mothering Sunday Service at St Barnabas Church where children are invited to come along and sing to their mums. To finish our worship we had lovely prayers from Olivia and Darcy and we sang the Butterfly song.
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Year 6 - World Book Day
As part of World Book Day, Year 6 took part in a variety of engaging and creative activities to celebrate reading and the enjoyment of books. The children participated in a World Book Day Premier League online workshop, where they had the opportunity to watch footballers discuss their favourite books and explain why reading is important to them. The children then took part in an interactive quiz linked to the session, which encouraged them to think about different authors, stories and the importance of reading for pleasure. In English, the children completed a poetry activity linked to Macbeth, focusing on the witches’ famous spell. They explored the language used in the scene and discussed how rhyme, rhythm and descriptive vocabulary help create a mysterious and magical atmosphere. The children then used their creative writing skills to compose their own spell-inspired poems, experimenting with rhyming patterns and imaginative word choices. As part of the day, the children also designed and created their own unique bookmarks. They used colours, illustrations and quotes from their favourite books to produce personalised designs which they can continue to use during reading time. Throughout the day, the activities aimed to promote a love of reading, creativity and imagination, while also giving the children opportunities to discuss their favourite books and share recommendations with their classmates.