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Year 5 - National Storytelling Week
To celebrate the wonder of reading during National Storytelling Week, we had a special guest visit our class to read a story. Kathleen Graham, from Darwen Rotary, volunteered her time to kindly read Roald Dahl’s The BFG at the end of the day. The children really enjoyed it and we are very grateful to Kathleen.
Year 5 - Science
In science we learned about how the Earth moves through space. It rotates on its axis once every 24 hours, which is tilted by 23 degrees, and orbits the sun once every 365.25 days. We modelled this movement using torches and balls to understand how day and night and the seasons are a result of these properties of our planet.
Key Stage 2 - Timestable Rockstar Battle
Huge congratulations to all of our Key Stage 2 children who competed in this month’s Times Tables Rock Stars Battle. We were incredibly impressed with the effort and enthusiasm shown by everyone involved. Our individual award winners are: • Year 3 – Charlie Duckworth • Year 4 – Bobby-Ray Catterall • Year 5 – Carter Corran • Year 6 – Charlie Shorrock A special well done also goes to Year 6, our overall winning class for this battle. As a reminder, in order to raise money for the NSPCC, we will be launching the KS2 Times Tables Rock Stars NSPCC Battle in school on Friday 6th February. Throughout the day, children will collectively build up their scores, which will contribute to a whole-school total. To celebrate Number Day, all children — including Reception and Key Stage 1 — are invited to come to school wearing their own clothes that depict a number (for example: numbers on clothing, badges, or Times Tables Rock Stars-themed outfits). Voluntary donations will be available via ParentPay to support this fantastic cause.
Whole School Worship: National Storytelling Week Launch
Today marks the first day of National Storytelling Week. Mrs Wilkinson launched the week during worship, where we began by discussing some of our favourite stories, such as The Snail and the Whale, Dork Diaries, and The BFG. Mrs Wilkinson then read a chapter from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which the children thoroughly enjoyed. We discussed how even longer books can be enjoyed by our younger students and shared a reminder about the wonderful variety of books available in our school library. As a focus of the week is on performance stories, the whole school joined in with Michael Rosen’s reading of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. It was wonderful to hear students from all year groups reading and performing the story together. Throughout the week, we look forward to welcoming mystery readers into our classes to share their favorite stories, and the children will also be participating in several storytelling workshops. We are excited to continue celebrating this week together.
Reception: Muddy Monday
As part of the Ruby Robin Award, our Reception class participated in the "Craft and Care" challenge today. The children visited Whitehall Park to build bug houses using resources they collected themselves. We are incredibly proud of their hard work and creativity; we even saw some bugs starting to move into their new homes! Well done to our Reception class on a fabulous job.
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Doodle and Dance Club
This week our children learnt how to follow instructions to create a masterpiece. They all followed step by step instructions to create a Panda with bamboo, Mrs Wilkinson was extremely impressed with everyone's creations. Doodle and Dance will be back next half term for more fun!
Year 1 Geography: Exploring UK Capitals
Today Year 1 flew around the United Kingdom to visit our capital cities London, Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh. Whilst on our airplane flying to the cities, we matched the countries (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to their flags in our passports. We also listened to each country’s National Anthem. When we arrived in our capital cities, we explored a human feature and a physical feature in each city. For example, in London we explored Big Ben and River Thames. To share our knowledge, we wrote postcards to Mrs Ham to explain where we had been on our travels and what they had learnt.
Foodie Friends Club- Vanilla Snap Biscuits
We had a fantastic final session of Food Club today. The bakers put all their skills to the test to create some truly mouth-watering shaped biscuits. It was great to see how much their confidence has grown. They were busy weighing out the flour, cracking eggs with precision, and creaming the sugar until it was just right. Once the dough was ready, the children loved rolling it out and choosing from a variety of cutters to create their own unique biscuit designs.
Friday Celebration Worship
This week’s Celebration Worship was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the many achievements, experiences and values shown across our school community. We began by celebrating some exciting learning opportunities, including an inspiring author visit and our worships which encouraged our children to think deeply about fairness and injustice through discussions around the Holocaust and what it means to be treated unfairly. We also celebrated the success of our clubs, with Foodie Club, Drama Club, and Doodle and Dance providing fantastic opportunities for creativity, confidence and teamwork. Alongside this, pupils were praised for taking part in the January Reading Challenge, sharing their favourite books and enjoying reading in their favourite places. We then celebrated our values awards, recognising pupils who have demonstrated our school values in their everyday actions. Ronan was awarded the Reception value award, while Albie received the Year 1 values award, Elsie the Year 2 award, Charlie G the Year 3 award, Bindi the Year 4 award, Peyton the Year 5 award and Matthew the Year 6 award. These children were recognised for being excellent role models to others, always following our 4B’s and working hard. Team values were also celebrated, with Whitehall Park coming in fourth place, Darwen Tower in third place, India Mill in second place and River Darwen taking first place. Well done to all teams for showing cooperation, respect and determination. We were incredibly proud to celebrate a wide range of sporting and extracurricular achievements. Ava was awarded a medal and trophy for achieving second place in acro dancing, while Alice received a medal for coming first in a cheerleading competition. Zachary was awarded a Rocksteady certificate for his drumming, and Thea received a certificate for her hard work on the bars in gymnastics. Charlie G was awarded a trophy for martial arts, with Isabelle also receiving a trophy for being a winter champion in martial arts. Lyla was awarded medals for acro, Erin received a cheerleading certificate for Cheerleader of the Week and Phoebe was awarded both a trophy and certificate at a dancing competition. Mason received a certificate for jumping into the water with his coach, Chester was awarded Squirrel of the Week, and Jack received swimming certificates for swimming a metre butterfly, 25m front crawl, back crawl and breaststroke. We also celebrated Lilly and Sophia, who attended a red-carpet event for their acting school, with Lilly proudly featured on screen as Annie. Attendance was celebrated, with Year 3 achieving an outstanding 100% attendance, and well done also to Year 2 for their continued efforts. We shared some important reminders, including National Storytelling Week, where parents and grandparents are invited to come into school to read in classes. Thank you to those who volunteered! Reception Stay and Play next Wednesday and Dress to Express will take place on the 13th of February. We also reminded pupils that Kids with Bricks Club will be running in Spring 2 and Summer 1. We ended our Celebration Worship with thoughtful prayers led by Charlie and Ava, bringing the whole school together to reflect on gratitude, kindness and our shared values. It was a joyful celebration of achievement, effort and community spirit.
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Year 3- Art-Express Yourself: The Tie-Dye Gallery
The highlight of our week has definitely been seeing the Year 3 artists' tie-dye T-shirts finally finished, and they look absolutely stunning! After spending time earlier in the term thinking about their own personalities and what makes them unique, the children used their mood boards to choose colours that really represent who they are. We've been talking a lot about the aesthetic of their designs, how the different colours and shapes come together to create a specific "vibe" or look. From bright, bold circles to more muted, marble-effect designs, every single shirt is totally different. The children have done such a great job creating a unique style that is completely their own, and they should be so proud of what they’ve made.
Year 3 - P.E- Gymnastics-Pencil Rolls and Teddy Bears
In P.E., we started with our favourite warm-up dance, which the children always love and get really involved in! We then moved onto our mats to practice different ways of rolling. The children worked on their egg rolls, pencil rolls, and teddy bear rolls, focusing on keeping their bodies tight and tucked. We also challenged ourselves to "rock to stand" and practised smooth transitions to move in and out of balances with flow. It was great to see partners evaluating each other and giving helpful tips on how to improve. We ended the session with a much-needed cool down to relax our muscles.
Year 3 - English-Adapting Stories into Play Scripts
This week in English, we have been exploring playscripts. To help us understand how to tell a story through dialogue and action, we have been watching two short films that have no dialogue at all: The Little Shoemaker and Soar. Today, we worked together as a class to adapt The Little Shoemaker into a script. We practised turning the characters' expressions and actions into spoken lines and stage directions. It was a great way to see how we can give characters a "voice" on the page! Next week, the children will take everything they have learned to write their very own scripts for the film Soar. Once their scripts are finished, they will get to perform them for the rest of the class!