Year 5 - Hello Yellow Day
Year 5 celebrated Hello Yellow Day by wearing our own yellow clothes. We defined what the term ‘mental health’ means before reflecting on what positive mental health looks like and the many different ways it can be managed. This included a mindfulness colouring session.
Friday Celebration Worship and Hello Yellow Day
This morning, we enjoyed an extra special celebration worship to mark ‘Hello Yellow’ Day for World Mental Health Day. We began by exploring the range of emotions we all experience and discussed ways to lift our spirits when we're feeling down, with thoughtful suggestions like listening to favourite music, taking deep breaths, watching a funny film, reading a book, singing wholeheartedly, having a cuddle, or counting to ten. To boost our mood even further, we had a joyful singalong to Golden by K-pop and lit candles to pray for those facing mental health challenges. We then celebrated our Value Award winners across the school—well done to Coban, Reggie, Olly and Percy in EYFS and KS1, and to Harry, Olivia, Carter and Jenson in KS2—for their outstanding attitudes to learning and for consistently demonstrating our Barney’s 4Bs. Congratulations also to India Mill for being our overall Value Award winners with an impressive 979 points, as well as to EYFS and Year 2 for 100% attendance in the infants and Year 3 for an excellent 99.3% in the juniors. Mrs Ham shared the fantastic news that we had 100% attendance across the whole school on Tuesday. We also celebrated the achievements of our pupils beyond the classroom—well done to Mason for swimming 5m, Chester for earning ‘Player of the Week’ as a goalkeeper at Darwen FC, Phoebe for her wonderful dancing, Callie for her gymnastics skills, Callie and Alice for completing the Summer Reading Challenge, Grace for excelling in a recent dance competition with acro, song and dance, classical and her own choreography, Harry for achieving his yellow belt in kickboxing, Thea for being named Star of the Week in gymnastics, Scarlett for being a superstar netballer and earning Player of the Match, Willow for achieving her Puffin award in swimming and Star of the Week in gymnastics, and Eleanor for earning her Stage 4 in swimming, her recycling badge at Rainbows and completing the Summer Reading Challenge. A huge congratulations also went to our brilliant Year 4/5 Girls Football Squad for their outstanding performance in the Girls DPSSA Football League, and to the group of eight Year 2 children who represented our school so brilliantly in the Key Stage 1 Multi Skills Festival. To finish our worship, Mrs Ham reminded us of the upcoming Harvest Family Service at St Barnabas Church this Sunday at 11am, and how we hope to see as many of our children there as possible for a joyful Harvest singalong. We are also proud to be supporting Year 5 and the Rotakids in their campaign to collect as many shoeboxes as possible filled with essentials for local refugees and The Bishop's Harvest Appeal 2025—please see Class Dojo for further information.
DPSSA Girls Football
Our St Barnabas girls’ team did amazingly well today! They showed great teamwork and determination, earning hard-fought draws against St James’ Lower Darwen and St Cuthbert’s, before securing a fantastic 1–0 win against St Paul’s. We’re so proud of their effort, skill and sportsmanship throughout the matches.
Year 5 - Music
In music, Year 5 listened to reggae music in order to develop their critical analysis. Then they developed their songwriting and composing skills on the glockenspiel before performing their music to the class.
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Year 5 - RE
In RE, we explored the Jewish sacred text called the Torah. We discussed the role that the Torah plays in worship at the synagogue and how it compares and contrasts to the Christian Bible. The children then wrote their names in Hebrew and we placed spiritual words on our prayer tree.
Year 5 - PE
In cricket, we continued to develop our overarm bowling ensuring our delivery is accurate and consistent. For batting, the children learned how to hold the bat, watch the ball and take a stride towards the ball. Despite the heavy rain, the children still worked hard in the hall to improve their skills.
Year 5 - History
In History, we studied examples of Maya cities including the building types, architecture and city layout. The children considered how their city would function, with temples to make offerings to the gods, roads for transport (sacbeob) alongside meeting places such as plazas and market places.
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KS2 Football Club
Today in Football Club, the children took part in a series of matches with specific challenges and restrictions, such as one-touch finishes, overloads and passing forward. These activities helped them to think strategically, improve their teamwork and develop greater control and awareness during gameplay. Everyone showed great enthusiasm and growing confidence throughout the session.
Year 5 - Science
In science, we continued exploring how materials change. This week we looked at mixtures, including what they are made of and how we could separate them. We focussed on trying to retrieve the salt from salt water solution, using filtering and evaporation methods.
Harvest Appeal
This morning we launched our Harvest Appeal for this year by hearing from Bishop Philip about his Pedalathon on 17th October where he will be cycling to visit and pray at a school or church in all 14 deaneries across the Diocese. We will be supporting Bishop Philip's Harvest Appeal for Christians in South Africa by joining in with his pedalathon over the next few weeks, including half term. We are encouraging our school family to cycle on bikes or scooters just like we did for the Big Lent Walk and we would love for you to send your photos in and the distance. Donations can be made on parent pay shortly. Our RotaKids are also supporting Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise (DARE) and Darwen Rotary this Harvest by creating Winter Warmer boxes filled with toiletries, packets or tins of food and warm clothing for DARE families, the elderly, isolated, poor and vulnerable people in our community . They are also collecting winter coats for the homeless and poor through Darwen Rotary club. Please send in any donations and thank you in advance for your generosity. We then sang some of our Harvest songs for our Church Harvest Festival this Sunday 12th October at 11.00am- all welcome and our school Harvest Festival on Thursday 23rd October led by our WOW group and Reception, Years 1 and 2. All welcome.
Year 5 - PE
Year 5 continued to develop their gymnastic routines by adding starting and finishing positions. They continued to develop their understanding and application of counter tension and counter balance actions and even had an opportunity to show their routines to the children in Year 1.
Year 5 - RotaKids
Year 5 are collaborating with Darwen Rotary Club on a range of charitable projects to support our school and wider community. Our focus this term is on collecting essential items to help refugees this autumn and winter. In association with Darwen Asylum Refugee Enterprise, we are hoping to collect warm clothing and toiletries in shoeboxes. The children used their amazing art skills to make RotaKids posters for each classroom.