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Whole School Celebration Worship
This week has been full of joy, community and Christmas spirit across our school! We started our celebration worship by lighting our first Advent candle together. Mrs Ham also thanked all the children and staff for decorating Christmas trees across school and highlighted a special moment when Phoebe, our youngest child in school, put the star on top of the tree in the school hall. We also said a huge well done to Reception who did an incredible Nativity performance. We also celebrated a couple of children who proudly represented our school at a local care home, singing for the residents and spreading Christmas cheer. We also had a fantastic time at the pantomime this week so a big thanks to Mrs Wilkinson for organising it. This week, our Values Awards were presented to the following children: all of Reception for their fantastic performance, Eleanor in Year 1, Teddy in Year 2, James in Year 3, Arabelle in Year 4, Sophia in Year 5 and Isabelle in Year 6. These children have been working so hard, following our 4’Bs and demonstrating Christian values. Mr Mealor also awarded Alexis, Miles, James, Harriet and Charlie with pen licenses for excellent progress in their handwriting. We also celebrated our Team Values Points with India Mill finishing in fourth place, River Darwen in third place, Whitehall Park in second place and Darwen Tower in first place! Mr Bloomfield also announced our first Times Table Rock Stars Winners: Charlie in Year 3, James in Year 4, Ivy in Year 5 and Charlie in Year 6. Our overall winners were Year 6! Well done. We are very proud of all the children who received special sports awards this week. Ava received Squirrel of the Week for her kindness. Zachary achieved his Stage 2 swimming certificate. Charlie was named Player of the Week for his excellent goal scoring. Desmond and Iris both competed in swimming events and placed in the top three, earning several medals. Thea was recognised for her fantastic balancing skills in gymnastics. Olivia was awarded the Olivia doll at Rainbows for her hard work. Vienna achieved her Stage 5 swimming certificate for completing 400m. Finn was named Player of the Week for his good passing skills. Willow achieved an impressive 19 skills in gymnastics. Luna earned the red belt in kickboxing. James received the Wilson Cup Trophy after finishing second with fewer players and also swam an impressive 50 metres. Grace was celebrated for helping others and persevering. Mollie was awarded the Claire doll for being helpful. Jack earned Captain of the Month for his encouragement, discipline and leadership. Tristan earned both his blue and purple belts in kickboxing and completed three minutes of continuous punching. Harriet was praised for her amazing progress in MMA. Lilly achieved a distinction in her Grade 1 acting school exam. Lila reached the finals of a dance competition, placing first in improv, first in commercial and second in lyrical. Our KS2 football team also showed great resilience this week. After losing their first match 7-0, they came back stronger to draw 2-2 in their next game. The winners of the Walk to School Challenge was also won by Reception, well done! We also celebrated our attendance winners this week which are Year 2 and Year 3. We have several exciting events coming up. The Lantern Parade will take place this Saturday in Whitehall Park. Our Christmas Fayre will be held next Wednesday in the school hall. The Christmas Carol Service will take place next Sunday. We also have an Advent Art competition with submissions open until Wednesday. Year 1 and Year 2 are performing their Christmas Cracker Show on Thursday and Friday. Year 1 are continuing to collect Christmas Hamper donations for the Darwen Asylum Refugee Enterprise. We are so proud of our wonderful children and look forward to another week of joy and celebration through our Advent journey.
Year 4 - Christmas Star Map - Picture News
In our PSHE session today we decided to light up the world by sharing a star containing a wish or act of kindness that we think will make the world a better place. The children loved this idea and just think of the positivity and joy that they can spread, especially over the festive season!
Year 5 - French
The children continued to develop their understanding of the French language by exploring the vocabulary and grammar associated with sport. They expressed their sporting preferences through written and oral sentences, explaining themselves through language such as facile (easy), ennuyeux (boring) and amusant (fun).
Year 5 - Geography
In geography, the children worked in groups to determine the correct features of a mountain before using their artistic skills to draw a labelled diagram in their books. We then went on to explore how mountains are formed by the ever shifting outer crust floating on the liquid rock inside the mantle before describing the different types of mountains that can be found on Earth.
Whole School Worship - The Story of Queen Esther
This morning our whole school came together to worship with Rev Ben. Here we enjoyed a story about Queen Esther who came to power for her beauty and saved her people from the king by showing courage and compassion. We then thought about how we can show courage and compassion to others and ourselves.
Forest School Christmas Party
We concluded our final Forest School session of the year with a Forest School Christmas Party! We made music using materials around us, enjoyed the beautiful full moon and played some fun games. It’s been a pleasure to share our Forest School Club with your enthusiastic and amazing children! We hope to continue the club in the new year. Thank you for embracing nature, getting muddy and learning how to look after our shared spaces.
Reception Maths - Numberblock Stampolines
This week, Reception have been further developing their understanding on composition of numbers 1-5. We used the Numberblocks as reference to print patterns equal to their amounts and looked at the parts we could see. We also thought about how each Numberblock can create different shapes, but still remains the same amount as before. The children then used an interactive grid on the large screen to explore these shapes and patterns.
Year 4 Maths LBQ
Today we had a visit from Mr Bloomfield who taught us various ways to multiply and divide by 9 using LBQ. The children loved learning the most common tricks of how to understand and find the next multiple of 9.
Year 1 Science: using our sense of touch
Continuing on with our Science, we focused on our sense of touch. We understood that when we touch something or feel something on our skin, it sends a message to our brain. Sometimes this always keeps us safe from touching dangerous objects. We used our fingertips to feel different objects and describe them. Some of the words we used to describe the objects were rough, smooth, warm, cold, hard and soft. Year 1 are really enjoying learning about the human body and their scientific work is really impressive.
DPSSA Football League
Some super game play this evening down at the DPSSA Football League at Witton. Our first game was against Ashleigh when we unfortunately lost 7-0 . Our second game was against Holy Trinity and through pure grit and determination we can away with a draw.
Singing at Acer Lodge Care Home
We are so proud of the 8 children, who were selected based on their effort in Monday's singing worship, who sang at Acer Lodge Care Home on Wednesday. They brought lots of festive cheer to the residents and it was wonderful to see them joining in with the bells we gave out. The children were over the moon to get a surprise visit from Santa himself, who thanked the children by giving them each a selection box. Rosie gave some letters written by herself and her Year 4 class to the residents to introduce themselves and tell them about themselves. We hope the residents enjoyed reading them.