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.
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World Book Day Worship with Key Stage 2
World Book Day Worship with Key Stage 2. Todays session started with a WBD quiz from Primary League Primary Stars in association with WBD. We completed the quiz in our classrooms and it had a football focus. An example question was - Which Premier League club does the current Wales men’s national team captain, Harry Wilson, play for? A mix of authors and footballers asked the questions with Katherine Randell who wrote Year 4’s class novel ~ The Explorer asking question six. The children absolutely loved the interactive quiz and worked to support each other in answering the football heavy questions. What a super way to kick off our World book Day Celebrations and celebrate The National Year of Reading. We finished with Ben and Alex who told us about the ‘Go All In’ challenge which we look forward to taking part in.
Year 6 Junior Jam: French
This week in French, the Year 6 children learned how to express opinions about things they do / do not like to do in their spare time. They also played a class game to help them revise the names of places to visit in our town and city centres.
Year 6 - Pinocchio Performance
As part of this year’s World Book Day celebrations, our whole school was given the exciting opportunity to perform scenes from Pinocchio. Each year group focused on a different part of the story, working together to bring the tale to life. Year 6 explored the ending section of the story, using expressive dance and dramatic freeze frames to capture the key moments and emotions. Their creative performance helped to conclude the story in a powerful and engaging way, showcasing their teamwork, imagination and understanding of the narrative.
Year 6 - Macbeth Commentary
Today, Year 6 focused on developing their oracy skills through an engaging sports commentary task. The children explored how to use pitch, tone, pace and purposeful pauses to build suspense and engage an audience, just like professional commentators. Applying these techniques to their English learning, they created a live-style commentary of Macbeth being crowned king in Macbeth. The children carefully considered how their voices could reflect the atmosphere of the moment — from the tension leading up to the crowning to the dramatic announcement itself. They then performed their commentaries to the class, confidently embodying their roles as commentators. It was fantastic to see them experimenting with expression, projection and timing to bring their writing to life, demonstrating both creativity and growing confidence in their speaking and listening skills.
Year 6 - Handwriting and Spellings
Today, Year 6 focused on handwriting and spellings. They filled their pages with carefully practised words, using beautifully joined handwriting and showing a clear understanding of letter formation. Their work reflected pride, accuracy and a touch of poetic flair.
KS2 Timestable Rockstar Battle
A huge well done to our champions of this month’s Times Table Rockstars Battle! Our individual champions are: Year 6 – Luca Year 5 – Charlie Year 4 – Bobby-Ray Year 3 – Charlie A special congratulations to Year 6 and Year 4, who were our overall winning teams and claimed victory in their class battles. Well done to everyone who participated — your effort, enthusiasm and determination made it a fantastic competition!
Whole School Worship
During today’s whole school worship, we reflected on what we might give for Lent. We explored how Lent is a time of sacrifice, remembering Jesus’ sacrifice, but also a time to give — not only by giving something up, but by giving more of ourselves. We thought about how we can share smiles, kindness, love and live out our Christian values in simple, meaningful ways each day. The children shared thoughtful ideas about small changes they could make, both at school and at home, to show patience, forgiveness and generosity. We also focused on this week’s Kindness Kite theme, “Share what you have,” reminding ourselves that even the smallest act of generosity — sharing time, helping a friend or offering encouraging words — can make a big difference to others.