Friday Celebration Worship
We had a fabulous first week back and it was wonderful to see all the children working so hard and settling back into school life so positively. Throughout the week, we spent time reflecting on kindness, thinking carefully about the kind things we have done ourselves and the kindness we have seen in others. This week’s values awards were proudly presented to Luna in Reception, Jasper in Year 1, Noah in Year 2, Archie in Year 3, Bluebell in Year 4, James in Year 5 and Elsie in Year 6. Well done to all of you for consistently demonstrating our school values. In TT Rockstars, Archie and Lyla from Year 4 were awarded certificates for their efforts, fantastic work! Our team values results saw Darwen Tower in fourth place, India Mill in third, Whitehall Park in second and River Darwen taking first place. A huge congratulations to River Darwen, who also won a disco and non-uniform day for achieving the most points last half term, what a brilliant achievement! We were delighted to celebrate a wide range of achievements outside of school this week. Ava was awarded a Level 4 certificate in swimming, while Reggie achieved 50 metres, Mikey 20 metres, Minnie C 10 metres, Isabella achieved Stage 5 and James achieved Stage 1, well done to all our swimmers. Luna earned a yellow belt in kickboxing and Eleanor received a certificate for taking part in a duck hunt. Lydia, Annie, Luna, Thea and Olivia were all awarded badges and certificates in Rainbows for first aid, networking skills, tasty treats and present making. Rosie and Naomi were recognised as seconders in Brownies, taking on an important leadership role. Sophia, Darcy, Daisy and Alexis were all awarded sixer badges in Brownies for their leadership, with Darcy also receiving the Brownies doll for being particularly helpful. Samuel was named Beaver of the Week for his excellent map reading and Isaac was awarded Player of the Week for his fantastic shooting, passing and tackling in football. Congratulations to Reception and Year 3 for achieving the highest attendance this week, keep it up! Finally, we shared some important reminders. Reception families were invited to the upcoming stay and play session and we are looking forward to celebrating Earth Day on Wednesday, with children invited to come dressed in green or blue. Year 3 are excited for their upcoming Rock and River Outdoor Adventure trip and we also look forward to the Whitehall Park afternoon tea taking place on Sunday. We ended our worship with thoughtful prayers led by Sophia and Darcy. Well done to everyone for such a positive and successful week.
Year 5 - English
Our topic in English concerns writing an explanation text about earthquakes. To understand how school children in Los Angeles prepare for a potential earthquake, we studied the practice of Drop Hold Cover. This involves children dropping to the floor holding the back of their heads, crawling beneath a table and holding still until the danger passes. The children were given the task of surviving an artificial earthquake that struck Year 5 today. Thankfully, they all made it through unscathed.
Year 5 - Kindness Kites
2026 is the centenary year for the Blackburn Diocese, which includes the churches and schools in the local area. To celebrate this, everyone at St Barnabas has been thinking about kindness and the different forms that it can take. Previously the children have considered the power of saying something kind, listening and sharing while giving examples from their own lives. This week, we completed our ‘making peace’ kite and over the next two weeks we will start thinking about generosity.
Year 5 - French
To start the new French unit of describing people, the children reviewed the verb ‘to have’ and learned how to describe eye and hair colour. We developed our written and spoken French vocabulary and put particular focus on how to construct sentences with the correct word order.
Year 3- English- Exploring Rules linking it to R.E
Today we started exploring how structure helps us convey a clear message in our writing. To create interest, we watched two contrasting clips: one of a chaotic kitchen on Mother's Day and another of a young girl cooking in a calm, organised space. We are using these clips to help us write poems, thinking about how we can use different structures to show either "order" or "chaos." We also linked this to our R.E. focus on rules and laws, discussing how rules are important because they keep us safe. The children reflected on how, without laws, our streets would be full of confusion, much like the messy kitchen. Ultimately, we learned that a rule is like a promise to look after one another, providing the same structure to our lives.
Year 4 History
Today we started our new History unit on why the Vikings invaded Britain. We started by looking at our previous history units: Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon Britain. Next we placed key events on a timeline starting with when the Romans invaded back in BC 55, all the way through to the Vikings arriving at Lindisfarne in AD 793. The children focused in on the Viking timeline, creating their own in groups, adding key dates and events up until when Edward the Confessor (Anglo-Saxon) became King of England in AD 1042.
Year 3- Maths- Exploring Mass and Scales
Building on what the children learned in Year 2, we have started our unit on Scales and Mass this week. While the children already know about grams and kilograms, they are now looking closer at how to read different types of scales accurately. We have also been practicing how to convert between units, remembering that 1 kg = 1000 g. We talked about how we still see these scales today, like when weighing fruit and vegetables at the supermarket. This week’s learning is helping the children become much more confident at weighing objects and comparing masses on their own.
Year 3- History- Mapping Our Prehistoric Past
In history class today, the Year 3 Historians took their learning beyond the classroom and became true historians as they explored the Prehistoric Ages. We started by investigating the massive timeline in our school hall, which shows how humans have lived in Britain for over 900,000 years. To deepen our understanding, we then used an interactive timeline. We discovered how the Stone Age lasted for a vast amount of time as humans mastered flint tools and early farming, followed by the Bronze Age, where the discovery of metal-working changed how people traded and lived. Finally, we saw the rise of the Iron Age, characterised by powerful hillforts and advanced tools.
Year 1 PSHE: Fairness
In our PSHE lesson, we were thinking about fairness. We started by reading a story about Harold the Giraffe and his friends. At several points in the story, we stopped to discuss if the events were fair, unfair, kind or unkind. We shared examples of times we may have found something unfair, such as not sharing toys, not sharing equipment or someone being unkind. Then, we looked at four pictures. The children had to look closely and decide if the pictures were fair or unfair. These pictures helped us to understand four new terms: reality, equality, equity and justice. The children understood that sometimes equality isn’t always the fairest and we should try to be more equitable. This means giving more support to those who need it and less to those who don’t. It was fantastic to see the children problem solving and building on each other’s ideas.
Reception Observational Spring Art
As part of our Spring topic this week, Reception have been looking at Spring flowers and have been developing their drawing skills using charcoal. The children looked carefully at daffodils and tulips, then applied different pressure on the charcoal to create light and dark tones.
Reception Maths - Odd and Even
This week in Maths we have been introducing odd and even numbers. We looked at the numberblocks, splitting them into two groups of ‘odd blocks’ and ‘even tops’ - we looked carefully at the shape of the number blocks to help us to identify if they were odd or even, noticing the doubles that could be seen in the even tops.
Year 2 - RE - Rev. Ben Eucharist visit
Year 2 were visited by Rev. Ben this week. He explained about the Eucharist and why it is so important in Christianity.