Whole school Worship: Generosity
Today during our worship we discussed what generosity means and why it is important to be generous. The children discussed how we can be generous. They said we can give to charity, help others, smile and make others happy. We looked at how important it is to give up our time to be generous and reflected on what this means. The children said they could stop playing on their games and could stop watching TV so that they would have more time to give to others. We looked at Mother Teresa and how she dedicated herself to helping others. This week we will be reflecting on how we can be generous and to see if we can create a positive ripple effect. We will also reflect on being truly grateful for anything that we receive.
Friday 29th April- Celebration Worship
Today in celebration worship, we reflected on Monday’s worship about St George and how we have shown our Christian value of courage this week just as he did. Annabelle in Year 2 said she showed courage by diving into the swimming pool and Oscar in Year 3 challenged some behaviour that he didn’t think was right. Then, our wonderful choir performed the song ‘Time to Shine’ for our whole school as they did last night at Ewood Park for an audience of 4,200. We then heard from our cross country team who participated in the DPSSA cross country on Tuesday night and showed amazing sportsmanship and our netball team who played against St Peter’s in the DPSSA netball league and won 11-0. A special well done to Kaycie who was voted player of the match for her determination. We then celebrated our out of school award winners. Well done to Katie, Harlow and Eva in Year 5 for their team success in coming 2nd in their football tournament, Eliza in year 1 for her success in horse riding and achieving trainer of the week in football, Daisy in Year 1 and Grace in Year 2 for earning a special badge at rainbows for learning sign language and Charlotte in Year 5 for her yellow belt in jujitsu and for fundraising for East Lancs Hospice. She has raised £600 by running a mile a day for 40 days. Amazing work Charlotte! We heard from our teachers who shared their highlights from the week. A huge well done to our whole school for their achievements and successes in class. Finally, Mrs Ham reminded us about the upcoming Royal Variety show that we’ll be having in school on 27th May to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee and we had some beautiful prayers from David and Lucy to end our worship.
Year 1 Science- Plants
This afternoon, Year 1 have been exploring the different stages of plant growth. They created their own animations on Purple Mash to illustrate these stages and then played them back to enjoy watching their plant grow. Some children even added visiting bees to their plants to pollinate them, their plant being watered and seeds dropping off their plants to form new ones. They also explained what the different parts of the plants do such as the stem transporting the water and the nutrients from the roots to the plant.
Year 1- Science Results
This afternoon, Year 1 had a look at the results of their science investigation. The children discovered that our plant that was given sunlight, water and soil grew to be healthy, our plant without water didn’t grow, our plant without soil didn’t have the correct nutrients to grow and our plant without sunlight did grow but it died and didn’t have a green colour.
Year 1- Exploring Volume and Capacity
Today, Year 1 were introduced to volume and capacity. They had to fill the containers with the correct volume of water to match the following descriptions: full, empty, nearly full, nearly empty, more than half full and less than half full.
Year 1 Geography
This afternoon, Year 1 took part in some fieldwork as part of their geography unit. They used to a map to locate and identify some of the human and physical features of our school ground. Then they completed an activity where they had to describe the location of some of the human and physical features that we had seen and other areas of school from our classroom e.g. the rainbow room, the staff room and the office. They had to identify those that were near such as the MUGA and the staff room, some that were further away such as the junior playground and the woodland and some that were the furthest away such as our field.
St George’s Day Worship
As we entered worship today, we listened to ‘Jerusalem’. On Saturday it was St George’s day. We discussed what we think of when we think about England. Carlton said “football”, Ted said “the sea”, Jake said “Formula 1” and Oscar said “our home” to name a few! We looked at a few favourites from England which included apple crumble, roast beef dinner, cups of tea, Charles Dickens, the white cliffs of Dover and Stonehenge. We looked at how things have changed in England. In the past, ladies did jobs at home whereas now ladies can have careers. We used to have lots of factories for workers but now many people work in jobs to provide services. We learnt about St George. St George died from what he believed in. He believed in God and St George stood up for what was right. We looked at our British values and how we follow them in school. We discussed how we are tolerant, how we respect each other, how our opinions are important, how we can make our own choices and how we need to follow the rules in school. During our reflection we thought about when we have had to show courage. This week we re going to focus on showing courage and standing up for what is right.
Celebration Worship
Today, we welcomed our parents back to Celebration Worship after two years. It was wonderful to have you all back. We then introduced our whole school worship by talking about Earth Day. We discussed how it's important to show respect to the earth as God created it for us. We were especially proud of Year 2 who did some litter picking around Darwen yesterday during their local area walk in Geography, and our other classes are looking forward to some further reflection on the importance of looking after the earth in their classes later today. We then celebrated some in and out of school achievements. We heard from our class teachers about how our children are living life in all its fullness. We said thank you to some boys across school who came into school in the holidays to take part in a darts competition and we also said a huge thank you to WOW group for their success in leading their first messy church on Tuesday this week. Well done WOW group! We then celebrated some individual sports superstars. Well done to Archie in Year 4 for his darts and football achievements, Jason, Lennox, Cassidy and Isaac for their swimming success, Cassidy for her gymnastics success, Olivia for very good listening and being sensible at rainbows and Mason for his dance talent . We had some notices from Mrs Govan and our Head and Deputy Head girl. Mrs Govan told us about the competition that is currently running linked to the Queen's Jubilee. Please see Class Dojo for further details. Our Head and Deputy Head girl told us about the new playtime equipment that they have ordered with some of the money that we raised as a school from the movie nights before half term. Finally, we ended our worship with some lovely prayers from Lily and Mason.
Parents’ evening -thank you!
Thank you to everyone who attended parents’ evening last night. We had 89% of our parents attend which was great. It was lovely to welcome you back into school again and we hope you enjoyed hearing how your child has progressed since the last parents’ evening in December. Thank you for your patience when waiting for appointments and for your ongoing support. If you weren’t able to attend last night, please contact class teachers via class dojo to arrange a phone call or meeting. A quick reminder that parents and carers are now welcome to join us for our Family Celebration Worship on Friday mornings. Refreshments will be available from 8.55am and worship will start at 9.15am. We look forward to seeing you.
Year 1- Lunchtime on the MUGA
Year 1 enjoyed their session on our Multi-Use Games Area at lunchtime with Miss Baxendale. They all joined in exceptionally well and worked as part of a team. Well done Year 1.
Year 1- Exploring what plants need to grow.
This afternoon, Year 1 set up an experiment in their science lesson. They are investigating what will happen to the growth of cress in 4 different conditions. The first is with soil, sunlight and water, the second is with soil and sunlight but no water, the third is with soil and water but no sunlight and the forth one is with sunlight and water but no soil. They are looking forward to observing the results.
Darwen Rotary Club - Create a gift for the Queen Competition
Good Morning, As you can see from the poster, we have a fantastic competition being run by Darwen Rotary Club, and we would love for the children in our school to take part. We are inviting the children to create a gift for the Queen to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee, this is to be completed at home. The gift can be of any style they wish. We are looking for originality and inspiration from the children. Possible ideas are a poem, a song, a model, a piece of artwork - the list goes on! Please can all gifts be completed and brought into school ready for judging by Wednesday 11th May. We will judge the best 10 pieces for KS1 and the best 10 for KS2 and then arrange for a Rotarian to call into school and choose the final 3 winners for each category. There will be prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places from each Key Stage. All the winning entries from each school will then go on display in Darwen Market Hall on the Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend, and on Saturday 4th June, 2 overall winners (1 for KS1 and 1 for KS2) will be selected from all the 1st place entries and the winners will win a tiled mural for their school! This is a very exciting opportunity and we would love for our children to get involved, if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to ask. We look forward to seeing some fantastic gifts for the Queen! Mrs Govan- Art and Design Leader