Image of After-School: Board Game Club
12 Nov

After-School: Board Game Club

Wow, what an amazing first session of Board Game Club! The children showed all 4B’s, it was lovely to see them all taking turns and sharing. The older children were so great with helping the younger children and teaching them some of the games. They all had such a lovely time. 

Image of Year 4 Class Council
12 Nov

Year 4 Class Council

In our Class Council session this week, Year 4 were asked to discuss the TV series - Traitors. If they were in a situation similar, would they choose to be completely honest or keep a secret in order to win a big prize? The children worked in five seperate groups but their choice was a unanimous decision of keep a secret. They communicated really well with each other and listened to each other’s points. There were a few children who said they would be honest in this situation but the majority of the vote won within each group!

Image of Seasonal Stockings in Year 4 - Exploring and Analysing Products
12 Nov

Seasonal Stockings in Year 4 - Exploring and Analysing Products

In DT we have started our new unit on Seasonal Stockings. We looked at what we already know about stockings, what their function is and where the tradition of leaving stockings out at Christmas came from. Following this we shared a variety of Mrs Gardner’s Christmas stockings and had to guess whose was whose. We discussed both function and visual appeal of each of the examples. Finally we choose one of the stockings and answered questions relating directly to both the fiction and appeal then went on to start our very own designs in paper, choosing the colour of the two base felts in preparation.

Image of Year 4 - Linking Schools: Who Am I?
12 Nov

Year 4 - Linking Schools: Who Am I?

Our Linking Schools project in Year 4 is well underway, beginning with a discussion around the question: Who Am I? We played the Speed Name Game and talked about our likes and dislikes. We then decorated a piece of bunting with our names and symbols to represent the things we like. Next, we will be exploring aspects of our identity and sharing our bunting with our linking class.

Image of Year 4 - PE: Gymnastics Routines
12 Nov

Year 4 - PE: Gymnastics Routines

Our Year 4 budding gymnasts began their new unit recapping some of the types of travels they have learned in previous years and perfected their technique. They then chose a routine and worked with a partner to learn and perform their routine for the rest of the class.

Image of Whole School Worship - Power for Good
11 Nov

Whole School Worship - Power for Good

Our theme in today’s collective worship was “Power for Good”. Continuing our focus on Anti-Bullying Week, Mrs Ham shared some of the fantastic answers the children gave on Monday about standing up to bullying. These included saying stop, being assertive, asking why, and telling a trusted adult. We learned of how Jesus was a power for good, even when others turned against him, and we reflected on the ways in which we can also be a power for good by being a good friend and spotting when someone needs our help.  The WOW Group also shared how they are being a power for good, by protecting our planet and leading our school’s Switch Off Fortnight campaign. They shared posters recommending ways to save energy around school, including turning off lights and computer monitors when they are not in use, and they explained that they will be checking how well each class is doing at saving energy every break time and lunchtime during the campaign. 

Image of Year 4 - Odd Socks Day
11 Nov

Year 4 - Odd Socks Day

We had some rather whacky sock combinations in Year 4 for Odd Socks Day. The children loved showing off their unique styles. In PSHE, we watched a CBBC video of Andy and the Odd Socks and learned a bit about bullying and how we can ensure we show friendship to others. The children then designed their own odd sock to represent what friendship means to them.

Image of Friday Celebration Worship
7 Nov

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.

Image of Value Award Winner Disco- India Mill
7 Nov

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!

Image of Year 4 English - Escape From Pompeii
6 Nov

Year 4 English - Escape From Pompeii

Our new class novel is Escape From Pompeii by Christina Balit. In today’s sessions we have continued to use sentence stacking to develop and construct better sentences. We started by adding a fronted adverbial by watching the main character Tranio and recording how he feels about living in Pompeii at the start of the story. We then moved into a modelled sentence and then an independent one with a different fronted adverbial. In our next sentence, we referred back to our experience day and described the size of Mount Vesuvius using words such as colossal and humongous. Finally we used the same modelling to construct a sentence thinking about how Tranio feels about living in such a beautiful part of the world. The children produced some very effective sentences, using the success criteria to ensure they added all of the key parts.

Image of Year 4 Maths - Area
6 Nov

Year 4 Maths - Area

In our maths session today, the children were looking at how to compare different areas. They compared various shapes and added which was greater, larger or the same. They also discussed about what is the same and what is different between them. The children found how to work out the difference but must first use their times tables to help calculate the answer.

Image of Wellbeing Warriors Wow Challenge - October
6 Nov

Wellbeing Warriors Wow Challenge - October

In our Wellbeing Warriors meeting today, the children identified who had done enough walks or park and strides and to gain their October badges. We are thrilled to see that so many children are trying so hard to make their journey to school a healthier one. The girls went through each class highlighting names and then collecting the right amount of badges which they will give out in Worship tomorrow. Another great achievement is that St Barnabas have managed to come third place in the Blackburn with Darwen Top Ten Leader Board for Autumn 2025 which shows that our engagement rate is outstanding!