Craft Club Trick or Treat Bags
For the past 2 weeks at our after school Craft Club, the children have been creating mixed media trick or treat bags! In week 1 they designed their bag on paper before adding colour with fabric pens. This week, they used felt to create the main design and then added ribbons and beads for extra colour and texture. I wonder how full these will be on 31st October!
Reception- Owl Babies
This week, Reception class' learning has been inspired by the beloved story Owl Babies, which linked wonderfully with our discussions about how each of us is special and how important our families are to us. Across our provision, the children are busy exploring the story through hands-on creative activities while working hard on their fine motor skills. They are experimenting with painting techniques using sponges to create realistic feather textures on their owls, and they are practising their pencil grip and control by carefully drawing patterns on owl templates. In our creative area, the children are enjoying making their own owls using collage materials, and they are bringing the characters Sarah, Percy, and Bill to life by crafting them out of playdough and additional resources to retell the story. To build up their hand strength and precision, they are having great fun using tweezers to pick up and feed worms to the owls. We are so proud of all their hard work and creativity.
Reception: Mystery Reader
In preparation for Give Like Dolly Day, Reception enjoyed a very special storytime session today when Georgie’s mummy came to visit. The children were completely captivated as she read two fantastic stories: The Dinosaur That Pooped the Bed and Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book. It was a wonderful way to celebrate the joy of reading, and we would like to send a big thank you to Georgie’s mummy for taking the time to share these brilliant books with us!
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Year 5 - RotaKids Elections
In preparation for the visit of Darwen Rotary Club, Year 5 carried out elections for the key roles of president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. The children showed confidence, insight and passion as they tried to convince the class they were the best person for the role. The whole class will be responsible for 3 charity projects this year but it will be the role of the 4 elected representatives to take the best ideas, convince Mrs Ham of their viability and then promote them across the whole school. The results will be announced soon!
Year 6 - Hockey
In Year 6, the children began their hockey unit by developing their fundamental skills. They focused on passing and receiving the ball with control, as well as moving into space to support their teammates. The children also explored how to work effectively as a team, using movement and communication to create opportunities during games.
Whole School Worship
We started the week by singing the 80s classic hit ‘Nine to Five’ to celebrate the life of Dolly Parton, who dedicated her life to helping children read. We can't wait for our 'Give like Dolly Day' on Thursday where we will be wearing our brightest clothes whilst raising money. Your money will help to provide books to children in need, opening up their world and unlocking the curriculum. We can't wait for our mystery readers across the week either. Afterwards, Mrs Ham spoke to us about our most important Barney's Four Be's- Be safe and how her most important job was to keep us safe. We discussed and acted out what the children should do in case of an emergency at school and how we would safely evacuate or invacuate the premises. Reasons to evacuate may include a fire, so the children were introduced to the fire alarm and shown how they should calmly stop, line up and gather on the playground for a headcount. Should an air ambulance land on the playing fields or a dog come onto the school premises, any children outside would calmly move indoors to ensure their safety and we listened to our new lockdown message over the tannoy. We will be rehearsing drills over the next few weeks so that everyone knows how to be safe, especially our Reception class who have only just joined us. A huge thank you to our Year 6 volunteers for their amazing acting skills.
PSHE in Year 4
Our theme for PSHE this half term is ‘ Me and My Relationships’. This week we discussed how different emotions impact on us in different ways. The children worked in pairs to ‘ grade’ their emotions 1- 5 with examples ranging from bothered, scared, worried, terrified and petrified. It was great to discuss the meanings of words and relate these to the scenarios given by Harold the Giraffe.
Shadow Sculpture Part 1 in Year 4
As part of our new unit in art, we have been looking at various types of sculptures. This week, we have focused on shadow sculptures and we have focused on creating letters that spell out our four Barney’s B’s. Be kind, Be ready, Be respectful and Be Safe. The children all chose a letter each, drew it onto card and then painted it in black ready for the next lesson which will involve us placing the letters onto ribbon and using the light to create shadows.
Little Gardeners Club: Bird Feeders
Today in Little Gardeners Club, we made bird feeders. In the colder months, it can be a lot harder for birds to find food, so putting out bird feeders can help them to survive. The children used cardboard tubes and poked string through to make them into hangers. Then we covered them with lard and bird seeds. We placed them all around school on tree branches. We also tried to bird watch but we didn’t see very many. We are hoping that we will be able to see more birds now that we have more bird feeders on the school grounds.
Year 2 Science- Microhabitats
Today in Science, Year 2 put their planning into action and created their very own microhabitats! They used a range of recyclable materials, including egg cartons, yoghurt pots, boxes and plastic bottles, and filled them with natural materials they found themselves. These included moss, sticks, bark, grass, flowers, soil and leaves. What a fantastic effort, Year 2! We’re looking forward to seeing which minibeasts come to visit and discovering the different creatures that make these microhabitats their home.
Year 1&2- Lunchtime Games Club
Another week, another fun-filled Games Club! Children from Years 1 and 2 enjoyed getting stuck into a variety of games. There was plenty of friendly competition, laughter and lots of fun along the way.
Macmillan Coffee Morning
A massive THANK YOU to all the parents and carers who attended our Macmillan Coffee Morning today! We were absolutely overwhelmed by the fantastic turnout. 💚☕ Your generosity in donating cakes was incredible! Thanks to you, every single child was able to enjoy a sweet treat today. 🧁 We still have a few spare cakes left over, which will be on sale after school, so be sure to grab one while you can! A huge shoutout to our brilliant Heads and Deputies for doing such an amazing job hosting their very first event. 👏 We also want to send a massive thank you to our hardworking support staff—we couldn’t have done it without your ongoing support and dedication. Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated to this truly worthy cause. If you would still like to contribute, donations can now be made on Arbor (apologies for the earlier technical hiccups, it’s all set up and working now!) or you can drop off cash donations after school. 💷 Check out all the wonderful photos from this morning here (and huge apologies that I didn't manage to photograph absolutely everyone—it was mad busy in the best way possible!) 📸 https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/macmillan-coffee-morning-2026
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