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Smart School Council in Year 4
This week we looked at whether technology can be a help or a hindrance when learning. The children used their talk tokens to discuss this issue and did so in a very mature way. It was lovely to hear all of points and great to see turn taking and listening intently even whilst challenging their peers.
Friday Celebration Worship
It has been another very busy and exciting week here at St Barnabas. In Worship we have been taking time to reflect on both Lent and Ramadan, thinking about kindness, reflection and helping others. We have also had a fantastic week celebrating World Book Day, sharing our love of reading and enjoying all the brilliant costumes and book characters we saw in school. Our classes were also lucky enough to take part in the Pinocchio dance workshop and performance, which was fantastic to watch. There has been lots happening beyond the classroom too, including the River Darwen team disco and our wide range of clubs, such as Kids with Bricks club. Many of you have also been taking part in the Times Tables Rockstars competition and showing great enthusiasm for practising your times tables. We have now completed our Big Winter Wander and together we have raised £175 for WWF, which is an amazing achievement. Thank you to everyone who took part and supported this. Our RotaKids have also been showing kindness in action by collecting teddies for Darwen Asylum Refugee Enterprise and Darwen Rotary which will help support children less fortunate than us. We also had the World Book Day Dolly Peg Competition run by the Friends of St Barnabas and the judges were very impressed with the creativity and effort that went into the entries. The award for Best Book Character goes to Phoebe for Greg the Sausage Roll. The award for Most Creative goes to Ida for the Highway Rat. The award for Best Use of Materials goes to Molly for Molly and the Goldfish Fairy. The Judges’ Choice award goes to Alfie. The award for Most Imaginative goes to Alice for Stitch and the Outstanding Effort award goes to Elliot. Well done to everyone who took part and a huge thank you to our FOSB for organising the competition as well as contributing money to the Pinocchio workshops. A massive thank you to our parishioner Glenda for undertaking the difficult task of judging the competition. Our Values Awards where we recognise children who have been showing our school four Be's of being kind, respectful, safe and ready to learn. In Reception the award goes to Erina. In Year 1 it goes to Cassius. In Year 2 the award goes to Thomas. In Year 3 it goes to Albie. In Year 4 the awards go to Cassidy and Alfie. In Year 5 the award goes to Olivia and in Year 6 the award goes to Isabelle. Well done to all of you for showing our 4 Be's and Christian values so clearly in school. We also had some pen licences to award this week in Year 3. These go to Harry, Molly and Eddie. Well done for showing such neat and consistent handwriting across the curriculum, not just in English. We celebrated our team values totals for the week. In fourth place was Darwen Tower. In third place was Whitehall Park. In second place was River Darwen. And in first place this week was India Mill. Well done everyone! We also have lots of wonderful sports and out-of-school achievements to celebrate. Olivia, Eleanor and Annie have been awarded a certificate for celebrating 100 years of World Thinking Day at Rainbows. Alessia has been awarded her Level 1 for back bends in dance. Poppy has been awarded a teddy for really good dancing. Carmen and Renee have both been awarded their yellow belts in kickboxing. Albie has been awarded player of the week for good tackling. Martha has achieved her 20 metre swimming certificate. Haydn has been awarded a trophy for scoring seven goals in football. Olivia has also received a certificate for a fantastic backwards roll in gymnastics. Callie has been awarded a certificate for completing two years of JuJitsu. Maggie has received a Brownie doll and her promise badge. Annabel has been awarded star of the week in dance and swimmer of the month. Jack has been awarded a certificate for completing a silver swimming challenge and Piper-Jo has achieved her 50 metre swimming certificate. Well done to all of you for your hard work and dedication outside of school. A special well done also goes to our Cross Country team who showed fantastic determination when competing in rainy weather and muddy conditions. They ran over a mile, which is a brilliant achievement. We also held our inter-house competition for football and bench ball and the winning house was India Mill. Well done to everyone who took part. Our WOW group had some exciting news to share as well. Our school is now number one across all Blackburn and Darwen schools for walking to school last month. That is an incredible achievement. Year 4 are the overall winners for walking to school and badges will be given to all children who walked to school. Our attendance awards this week go to Year 2 and Year 3. Well done for coming to school every day and being ready to learn. Finally, just a reminder that Reception will soon be performing their Mother’s Day Service next Wednesday at 9.00am and there will also be the Mothering Sunday Service at St Barnabas Church where children are invited to come along and sing to their mums. To finish our worship we had lovely prayers from Olivia and Darcy and we sang the Butterfly song.
World Book Week Showcase
Year 4 have had a wonderful World Book Week and to celebrate we have decided to showcase our best parts in a display outside Year 4. We have included pic collages that highlight our webinar with the author James Fox, The Pinocchio Workshop, learning a piece of text by heart and our fantastic World Book Day Celebrations. We have also included our bag packs which we could take with us into the Amazon in order to survive. This was linked to our favourite class novel - The Explorer by Katherine Rundell. We were so shocked to see Katherine also appear on our World Book Day interactive worship yesterday and it was a lovely surprise! What a week we have had!
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World Book Day Worship with Key Stage 2
World Book Day Worship with Key Stage 2. Todays session started with a WBD quiz from Primary League Primary Stars in association with WBD. We completed the quiz in our classrooms and it had a football focus. An example question was - Which Premier League club does the current Wales men’s national team captain, Harry Wilson, play for? A mix of authors and footballers asked the questions with Katherine Randell who wrote Year 4’s class novel ~ The Explorer asking question six. The children absolutely loved the interactive quiz and worked to support each other in answering the football heavy questions. What a super way to kick off our World book Day Celebrations and celebrate The National Year of Reading. We finished with Ben and Alex who told us about the ‘Go All In’ challenge which we look forward to taking part in.
World Book Day in Year 4
World Book Day in Year 4. We have absolutely loved World Book Week, but we have especially enjoyed World Book Day today. When Year 4 entered the classroom today they were shocked to see a jungle, cave, sloths galore, planes that had crashed and fierce piranhas in the river! The theme of our WBD and the whole week was based on the class novel that the children read back in Autumn Term - The Explorer by Katherine Randell. The children loved the story and this is why we decided to go back to the Amazon Rainforest. After taking part in the WBD quiz this morning, the children completed various challenges and whilst this was going on we had a ‘ Stop, Drop and Read’ session where children were picked to stop whatever they were doing and make their way into the cave to read and enjoy the biscuits and juice. It was lovely to see the children using our Jungle area enthusiastically and sensibly, showing their love for reading. In our PE session, the children had to go on a hunt for all of our past class novels using their orienteering skills. Again, they did this brilliantly with great big smiles on their faces. Finally, to finish off the day we played ‘ Guess the Teacher ‘ where we shared slides with photos of a teacher reading but their faces were covered with their favourite books. It was so much fun!
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Year 4 PSHE - Who helps us stay healthy and safe?
In our PSHE session this week we looked at who can help us stay healthy and safe. We looked at the roles of a teacher, doctor, police officer, crossing patrol, site supervisor, school administrator, nurse and child line councillor. The children worked in small groups and all collaborated on their posters to produce some super pieces of work.
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Year 4 - Webinar with Author James Fox
On Monday, the Year 4 class took part in a live webinar and Q & A session with up-and-coming author James Fox. He talked about his books, including Boy Vs. Reality, and shared ways in which he has drawn inspiration from real life. The children loved the session, especially because they got a few shout outs when their questions were read out and answered during the webinar. It was a truly inspiring session.
Year 4 - Pinocchio Dance
The Year 4 children joined in with great enthusiasm during their West End dance session with James on Tuesday. They learned about how dance is a way of telling stories with their bodies. They then worked with James to create some movements to help them to tell a section of the story Pinocchio. At the end of the day, the school came together for a joint performance. Each class in turn came to the front of the hall to perform their part of the story. It was amazing to see every child give their all to their performance.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Zoom Call
This week, the Year 4 class had the opportunity to meet their link class from St Matthew’s in Blackburn via a Zoom call. The call began with a brief introduction and a chance to share some Makaton/Sign Supported English they had learned. Together, the children from both classes laughed and played games. They also asked and answered curiosity questions, such as, ‘What after school clubs does your school offer?’ Or, ‘What’s your favourite book, and why?’ It was great to meet our link class and to see who we sent our identity maps to.
Year 4 - English: Recital
The children are definitely enjoying our current class novel, The Firework-Maker’s Daughter. In this lesson, the children had to practise reading and reciting a paragraph from the story. They used symbols and actions to help them remember the words in each sentence, and they rehearsed 4 or 5 times before the text was removed and only the symbols remained. The children then performed the paragraph with actions and using their symbols to help them remember the words. This will help them to develop the inner voice of an author, ready for writing their own paragraph based on this one.
Year 4 - World Book Day Hook
The children are really looking forward to World Book Day, especially following this survival kit activity based on our first class novel, The Explorer. We watched the news report of the plane crash from 2023, in which 4 children ended up stranded in the Colombian jungle. The children instantly recognised the similarities between the incident and the events of The Explorer. Following this the children spent time in groups, using their talk tokens and debating the four most important items to pack in their rucksack for their survival. Each group had a brilliant discussion about why some things are more essential than others and how important it is to meet basic needs first. The children are going to love the activities planned for Year 4 for World Book Day.
KS2 Timestable Rockstar Battle
A huge well done to our champions of this month’s Times Table Rockstars Battle! Our individual champions are: Year 6 – Luca Year 5 – Charlie Year 4 – Bobby-Ray Year 3 – Charlie A special congratulations to Year 6 and Year 4, who were our overall winning teams and claimed victory in their class battles. Well done to everyone who participated — your effort, enthusiasm and determination made it a fantastic competition!