Year 1 D&T- Remembrance Day
Today in Year 1, we applied our understanding of sliding mechanisms to create beautiful, remembrance-themed moving pictures. As we worked, we reflected on all the soldiers who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice their lives to protect our country. We also thought carefully about the symbolism of the poppy and what it represents. Well done, Year 1, for your thoughtful work and creativity.
Amazing attendance award!
We are incredibly proud and thrilled to announce a significant achievement for our school family! We have been honoured with a national school attendance award, recognising our placement in the top 10% of all primary schools across England for the 2024/25 academic year. This outstanding accomplishment is a testament to the dedication of our children, the support of our parents and carers, and the hard work of our entire staff. It reflects our collective commitment to ensuring that every child has the opportunity to be in school, learning, and thriving. This success builds upon our previous achievement, where we were recognised for being in the top 25% of primary schools the year before. This consistent improvement demonstrates the positive impact of our ongoing efforts to promote excellent attendance and create an engaging and supportive learning environment for all. We extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who has contributed to this remarkable achievement.
Reception PE - Jumping Stations
This week we have continued to develop our jumping skills in the hall. The children accessed four different jumping stations where they could practise jumping and landing appropriately.
Friday Celebration Worship
This morning in celebration worship, we reflected on a wonderful first week back to start the second half of our Autumn term. This week, we have remembered all those who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice their lives for us, and we observed a special two-minute silence. We would like to thank everyone who has supported the Poppy Appeal; our poppy merchandise will continue to be available next week. We then presented our individual value award winners in EYFS, KS1 and KS2. Well done to our worthy winners Hunter, Finn, Inaiya, Elijah, Chay, Harriet and Quinn for consistently demonstrating the Barney’s 4Bs, working extremely hard across the curriculum, producing work of an exceptional standard and showing a genuine desire to always improve. A huge well done also goes to Elijah, Chay, Isaac, Lana, Lyla, Cassidy, Naomi and Emily for achieving their pen licences—we know how hard you have all worked for this accomplishment. We also congratulated Whitehall Park as our overall value award winners for the week, along with Year 1 and Year 5 for achieving the highest attendance. Moving on, we celebrated the wonderful achievements of our children who have been excelling outside of school in their various sports and activities. Well done to Beau for being a mighty defender in football, Ida and Leila for showing impressive skill in stop, starting and steering during horse riding, Callie for demonstrating outstanding floor and vault work in gymnastics, Ava for her generosity at Rainbows and for achieving Star of the Week at Street Dance, Lana for her performing arts award, Theo for earning her drawing interest badge and Star of the Week in gymnastics for exceptional beam work, Olivia for achieving her 20m swimming certificate, Lyla for her success in lyrical, jazz and commercial dance, Olivia again for achieving her Level 1 gymnastics award, Isaac for demonstrating exceptional football skills at the Everton Academy experience, Rosie for being a superstar Brownie and earning several badges, Martha for achieving her 10m swimming award, Lydia for earning her laughter badge at Rainbows and for being extremely helpful, and Eleanor for achieving both her Rainbow Silver Award and a laughter badge. In other news, our Wellbeing Warriors also announced Year 3 as the winning class for having the most walkers in October and proudly shared that our school placed third in the borough for the highest number of walkers overall, our Sports Leaders presented India Mill as the Inter-house Dodgeball Competition winners from before the holidays, and we also congratulated our Year 5/6 Boys Football Team, who represented our school brilliantly and achieved two wins in the BwD Football League last night. Looking ahead, we are excited to continue our Scholastic Book Fair next week, to wear odd socks on Monday as we launch Anti-Bullying Week, and to end the week by wearing spots, pyjamas or Pudsey attire in support of Children in Need next Friday. Thank you to our wonderful school family for their support this week and always. Wishing you all a lovely weekend.
Year 6: Remembrance Service
Our Year 6 children took part in the Darwen Cemetery remembrance day service this morning and we were so proud of the remarkable respect that they showed. A huge well done to Mason for his lovely reading and to all of our children for their maturity and compassion when placing crosses on the graves of the soldiers who bravely fought for our country. After the service the children learned that the piper used to attend St Barnabas as a child so he let the children try on his special hat. As a reward for representing our school so brilliantly, the children got to enjoy their break time on the play area in Whitehall Park. #WeWillRememberThem #remembrance #remembranceday #lestweforget
Year 1 Phonics
Today in Phonics, Year 1 enjoyed playing Phonics Bingo to revise the Phase 3 sounds they have been learning. This activity helped remind us of all the sounds we need to listen for as we segment and blend words when reading. Well done, Year 1!
Value Award Winner Disco- India Mill
Today, India Mill enjoyed a well-deserved non-uniform day and disco to celebrate their success as the overall Value Award winners for last half-term. As part of this, they enjoyed a game of bonfire themed corners followed by a game of musical bumps. Well done to everyone for your fantastic achievement!
Week 1 of BWD Boys Football League
We are super proud of our Year 5/6 boys football team for their amazing performances tonight during their first two games of the BWD school’s league. They won their first match against St James, Lower Darwen 6-0 and gained another win against St Cuthbert’s 5-2. A huge thank you to the parents and family members who came and gave their wonderful support. Well done boys!
Year 5 - Online Safety
After class worship, we spent some time discussing how to stay safe online. We discussed why children should not share personal information online and how to respond to seeing or hearing unpleasant words or images. I talked about the trusted adults in their lives that they can always talk to for help and advice, including family members and staff at school. The children shared their experiences of being online.
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Year 5 - PE
Our new topic in PE is badminton. The children learned how to grip the badminton racket before becoming familiar with how a shuttlecock moves through the air by individually attempting to keep it off the ground for as long as possible. Afterwards, they developed accuracy with underarm backhand shots by aiming for a triangle of cones and we finished by working in pairs to use forehand and backhand shots to return the shuttlecock.
Year 5 - Music
After listening to opera music, the children learned the importance of a vocal warm up before singing. They learned the meaning the the words unison and homophonic and practised these during a performance.
Whole School Worship with Rev Matt
Rev Matt led our Whole School Worship this morning which focused on the word ‘Compassion’ We started by discussing what we thought the word compassion means. It means that having compassion is feeling how someone else feels. Our challenge this week was to find the best ending to each of the scenarios as to which shows the most compassion. One of this being~ you had a friend round at your house and they want to play with your favourite toy. Do we A ~ share our toy or B ~ distract them and not let them play with it? Our Bible story today was Joseph the Dreamer. Jacob had 12 sons and Jesus was his favourite who he gave special gifts too. His siblings hated the fact that they were not all treated the same. One night Jesus had a special dream which he shared with his brothers but they didn’t like it all. They ripped off his colourful coat and threw him to the floor. At that moment some traders walked by and the brothers sold him to them and ripped up his colourful coat. The brothers told their father Jacob that Jess was dead and he wept and wept. Not one single person in the story shows compassion and everything seems to be going wrong, but in the following part of the story we will see another side as God always shows compassion. We will hear this from Rev Ben next week. Following the story Rev Matt asked ‘ How can you show compassion this week?’ The children came up with some wonderful examples which included; to siblings when they are upset, if someone hasn’t got something that you have, you could share yours, Finally, we finished with a prayer and the children reflected on how they may show compassion to others today.