Image of Reception: Aliens Love Underpants
22 Sep

Reception: Aliens Love Underpants

We have had out-of-this-world fun in Reception this week exploring our story of the week, Aliens Love Underpants! The children have been thoroughly engaged in reading and retelling the hilarious tale, bringing the story to life across all areas of our provision. Taking inspiration from our handwriting sessions, the children have been busy making marks and practising their letter formation directly onto cut-out underpants. Over in the malleable area, little hands were hard at work shaping, squeezing, and decorating their very own playdough aliens, while our creative station saw vibrant alien portraits painted with endless imagination. In maths, the children put their counting skills to the test by matching and placing the correct number of stars onto different spaceships.

Image of Reception: Handwriting
22 Sep

Reception: Handwriting

Our Reception children have been working so hard in their handwriting sessions! To get ready for writing, we start each session with a fun hand workout—doing thumb pushes, palm crouches, finger taps, and finger lifts to build up those vital fine motor muscles. The children have been putting a huge effort into using a comfortable tripod grip as they explore basic pre-writing shapes, laying fantastic foundations for forming their letters. We are so proud of their focus and determination!

Image of Keep Fit Club
22 Sep

Keep Fit Club

Today at Keep Fit Club, our Key Stage 2 children enjoyed a fantastic, action-packed session out in the sunshine! We made the absolute most of the beautiful weather by taking a trip around Whitehall Park, where everyone worked hard on their stamina with a brisk walk, jog, and run. As a reward for all their great energy and effort, the children got to enjoy a fun treat on the playground. To wrap up our workout, we headed over to the MUGA and outdoor gym to finish off our fitness routine on a high note. Thank you for ensuring they came prepared—they all did a brilliant job today!

Image of Year 5 - Science
21 Sep

Year 5 - Science

In science, we looked at how the Earth moves through space and how this creates day, night and the seasons. After going through the concepts and vocabulary, the children used torches to mimic the light and heat from the Sun and table tennis balls to mimic the Earth. By rotating the ball on its axis, the children saw how sides faced towards and away from the light, creating day and night. Then the children moved the ball around the torch, with different hemispheres receiving different amounts of light over the course of its orbit, creating winter and summer.

Image of Wire sculpture in Year 4
21 Sep

Wire sculpture in Year 4

In our art lesson we explored how shapes can be formed and joined in wire. We bent the wire to make different shapes, joined it with twists and loops and added detail using smaller pieces of wire. We created some fantastic sculptures which included cars, humming birds and dragonflies.

Image of Year 1 Geography: Searching for clues about seasons
21 Sep

Year 1 Geography: Searching for clues about seasons

In Geography, we searched for clues to decide what season we are in. We looked for information about the colours of leaves, the weather and the plants. We were able to find some red and orange leaves, leaves on the ground and we had some windy and rainy weather which helped us to decide that we were in Autumn.

Image of Little Gardeners Club: Bug Hotels
21 Sep

Little Gardeners Club: Bug Hotels

Today in Little Gardeners Club, we became mini wildlife architects and made our very own bug hotels! We started by exploring the school grounds and collecting natural materials such as sticks, leaves, bark and other bits and pieces that bugs love. We then used our materials to create cosy little homes for insects and minibeasts. Once our bug hotels were finished, we placed them around the school perimeter, ready to provide shelter for our garden visitors. We had lots of fun getting creative while also helping to support the wildlife around our school!

Image of Year 1&2 Lunctime Games Club
21 Sep

Year 1&2 Lunctime Games Club

Another great lunchtime games club. Some of us had a huge stroke of luck this week whilst others were a bit unlucky but we all had lots of fun all the same! We played ‘Pizza, Pizza’ again as it was a favourite last week and lots of us also played ‘Don’t Wake Mr McGregor,’ ‘Shopping List’ and ‘Dinosaur Number Eggs’. We hope to introduce a couple of new games again next week. Well done everyone!

Image of Netball Club
21 Sep

Netball Club

Tonight was our second netball club of the year and it was great to see lots of enthusiasm and eagerness to improve skills, especially speed and agility. We also worked on tactics and how to dodge in and out of space.

Image of Boccia and New Age Kurling in Year  4
21 Sep

Boccia and New Age Kurling in Year 4

We have really worked hard in Year 4 to develop our skills in Boccia over the past few weeks. Today we looked at how to be patient and knock the opponents balls away from the target. As we are getting so good at this sport we also introduced New Age Kurling which is an indoor, ice-free adaptation of traditional winter curling designed to be completely inclusive for players of all ages and physical abilities. The children loved this addition and wanted to play all afternoon.

Image of Friday Celebration Worship
18 Sep

Friday Celebration Worship

This morning, we started our celebration worship by reflecting on a fantastic week in school. It is great to see that our whole school are settling into their new classes and continuing to work hard to earn dojo points for achieving great things and showing a huge amount of respect. This week has also seen us launching our lunchtime and after school clubs. It’s been brilliant to see our children enjoying and making the most of these extra-curricular opportunities. There may still be a few places on a number of our clubs. Please see Arbor. We then presented our Barney’s Brilliant Beacons. A huge well done to Noah, Elsie, Elara, Noah, Hendrix and Luna in Reception and KS1 and Teddy, Alice, Renee, Harry, Lana, Alfie, Layla and Charlie in KS2. Well done to these amazing children for working extremely hard across the curriculum and for their exemplary behaviour. We ended our worship with a reminder from Mrs Ham about MacMillan Coffee Morning next Friday. We would really appreciate any donations of cake to help us to raise funds for an amazing charity. We also had a sing along to ‘Shine.’ We thank our St Barnabas families who could attend celebration worship this morning and extend a thank you to all of our other families who continue to support us in many ways. We wish you all a fantastic weekend.

Image of Year 6 - Expressing Myself
17 Sep

Year 6 - Expressing Myself

Today, Year 6 began exploring their creative side using graffiti as a stimulus for their artwork. The children experimented with colour, pattern and design, using masking tape to create a four-letter word or slogan across their page. They then used vibrant oil pastels to build a bold and colourful scene around their design. Once the artwork was complete, the children carefully removed the masking tape to reveal their hidden slogan, creating a striking contrast between the vibrant background and the clear lettering. The finished pieces showcased the children’s creativity, imagination and ability to use different artistic techniques to create an impactful piece of art.