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Worship with Rev. Matt
Today in worship with Rev. Matt, the children began with an engaging game involving a mystery box. Selected children had to reach inside and guess the hidden item using only their sense of touch. This fun activity led into a meaningful Bible story about effort, kindness, and being present for others. Rev. Matt shared the story of a woman named Tabitha, also known as Dorcas, who lived in the town of Joppa. Tabitha was known for always doing good and helping those in need — especially widows and the poor. She spent her time sewing clothes for people in her community and showing love through her actions. Sadly, Tabitha became very ill and died. Her friends were heartbroken and sent for Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples. When Peter arrived, he prayed for her — and miraculously, she came back to life! This amazing moment reminded everyone that the good we do for others matters, and that God sees and values our efforts. The story encouraged the children to think about how they can show kindness and be a positive presence in the lives of others, just like Tabitha.
Pupil’s RE Conference 2025
This week, two of our wonderful Worship Our Way (W.O.W. ) group members accompanied Mrs Araujo to the Foxfields Country Club for the pupil’s RE conference. The day was filled with imagination and play, developing some deep concepts using Lego models. The children learned how to represent their ideas using Lego, and how to listen inquisitively to generate discovery questions. The girls enjoyed having the freedom to express their ideas in a calm and positive environment. I think they enjoyed the buffet lunch too!
Year 1-Year or Prayer- Knots (Thinking About Our Fears and Worries)
This week, the theme for the Diocesan Year of Prayer, 1 is ‘Knots’. For this, Year 1 had to think about the fears and worries that they experience whilst tying a knot into a ribbon. Year 1 shared worries such as moving into a new classroom with a less familiar teacher, hearing loud noises, our pets or family being poorly, being told off for not making the right choice and coming face to face with scary creatures such as spiders or crocodiles. To symbolise letting go of these worries, Year 1 undid their knot whilst asking God to take away these worries and fears.
Mental Health Awareness Whole School Worship Led by Year 4
Following on from Mental Health Awareness Week last week, Year 4 led a whole school worship this morning. The children in Year 4 have been focusing on mental health, what helps us to better our mental health and they have also delivered random acts of kindness. In the worship, the children shared a lovely video that was created by primary school children on how we can share our feelings, thinking, emotions and moods. We know how to look after our physical health but our mental health is just as important. We learnt that Year 4 like to take part in sport, get a good nights sleep, spend time with friends and family, share problems and eat healthy and drink plenty of water! The children also shared some beautiful kindness poems and buckets of how they fill them to support their mental health. We are very proud of Year 4 for sharing their experiences and it’s great to know how much we can support each other along the way!
Whole School Worship- Your Kingdom Come
During our whole school worship, we continued looking at the special Lord's Prayer that Jesus taught us. We began by imagining what our world might look like if we were in charge for a day. The children shared thoughtful and creative ideas, such as a world filled with kindness, fairness, and care for the environment. This engaging activity led naturally into our focus on the next part of the Lord’s Prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.” We took time to reflect on what God’s kingdom should look like—a place where love, kindness and peace are present in everything we do. Together, we discussed how we can each play a part in God’s kingdom through our actions and behaving the way He would want. We then turned our attention to the concept of heaven and how it connects to this line of the Lord's prayer. The children were encouraged to share with each other their thoughts on what heaven might be like. Their ideas were rich and varied, painting pictures of a world filled with happiness, joy and light. Jesus tells us through the Lord's prayer that God wants His Kingdom to be like heaven on earth so we reflected on how we could create heaven on earth in our school each day. We had some fantastic answers such as showing kindness, respect and generosity to each other. This worship helped deepen our understanding of the Lord’s Prayer and reminded us all of the role we can play in making our world a better place, starting with small, meaningful actions in our everyday lives.
Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our worship by collectively signing our new Makaton signs ‘yes’, ‘no,’ and ‘happy’ and congratulating our amazing Year 6 children for their incredible efforts in their SATs and the way that they have tackled them with nothing but smiles and positivity. We are so proud of you all! We also reflected on many of our other highlights this week which have included prayers for the world as part of our Diocesan Year of Prayer, Reception having a visit from Nightingale Farm, Year 3 visiting Rock & River, Year 5 enjoying their PGL residential, having our DACA students join our school on work experience and our Year 5/6 Netball Squad who represented St Barnabas brilliantly in the DPSSA Netball league last night and came away with three victories. Furthermore, we congratulated Ted in Year 4 for working hard to achieve his pen license, our Year 2 and Year 5 classes for being our attendance winners this week with 99.2% and 100% attendance and River Darwen as our value award winners this week with 226 points. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Minnie, Elsie and Harry in EYFS and KS1 and Alice in KS2. Well done to these children for working incredibly hard, pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and showing our Barny’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready). We also congratulated the whole of the Year 3 & 5 classes for being amazing on their trip to PGL and Rock & River. They were extremely courageous, encouraged each other every step of the way and represented our school amazingly. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 1 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park as our value award winners this week with 161 points. We then moved onto congratulating all of our out of school achievers. Well done to Luna for achieving her Stage 1 in swimming, Olivia, Annie and Thea for being incredibly kind and caring at Rainbows, Hollie for achieving her Stage 2 in swimming, Lyla for achieving a distinction in her recent ballet exam, Jack for being the Player of the Match and achieving the Captain’s Armband in a recent football game, Annabel for achieving an entry level award for her music performance at Rocksteady and being Star of the Week at dancing, Eliza and Darcy for their commitment to Brownies, Maggie for achieving a gold award in Rainbows alongside multiple other certificates and badges, Olivia for being the Player of the Match and achieving the Captain’s Armband in a recent football game, Haydn for incredible football and Poppy, Brooke and Laila for being the EFLA cup winners 2025. To end our worship, we collective listened to this week’s Year of Prayer, said the Grace and sang ‘Sing a New Song.’ Thank you to all of our school family who could attend celebration worship and we thank you for your ongoing support. We send an extended thank you to the rest of our school family. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend in the sunshine. The slides can be found on class dojo or here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/about-us/church-and-worship#tab-4370
Year 1 Class Worship- Young Inventors
Today in class worship, Year 1 explored the theme of Young Inventors. They were introduced to the story of three compassionate teenagers from India who developed a salt-powered fridge to store medicines and aid hospitals in rural areas lacking electricity. As part of this, Year 1 thought about things that they would invent to help our world. Samuel came up with the idea of creating a robot that can roam around playgrounds and provide first aid, Callie’s idea was for a similar invention but for animals in the wild, Ida and Thomas’ invention was to create a jet that could clear up litter in the seas and oceans to protect our animals and Vienna’s invention was a machine that could suck the fumes and gases out of our atmosphere. Well done Year 1. What incredible and thoughtful inventions!
Year 3 - Class Worship- A new Pope has been elected.
Today in our class worship, we learned about the exciting news of the new Pope. Cardinal Robert Prevos, history’s first-ever North American pope. We discovered that the Catholic Church, a worldwide community, has a leader who helps unite everyone. We also touched on how there have been many Popes throughout history, each playing an important role. This leader helps Catholics worldwide feel connected and share the same beliefs. We took a moment to appreciate how important it is to have someone who works to unite people.
Year 2 - Year of Prayer
Today, our class worship looked at amazing people around the world doing their best to keep the world a clean place. We discussed different ways we keep the Earth clean and how we can look after our environment! We wrote a prayer asking for help to keep our planet clean and said thank you for everyone who tries their best to make the Kingdom of God a happy and clean place!
Year 3- Year of prayer-Praying for the World
Today, as part of our Year of Prayer, Year 3 prayed for the world. We talked about how travelling helps us learn more about different people, their cultures, languages, food, and how they live and pray. The children shared stories about their holidays and family members who live in other countries. We thought about how all these experiences help us live life to the full and understand how big and beautiful the world is. We thanked God for creating such a wonderful world and prayed for peace and love for everyone, everywhere.
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Reception: The Church as a Special Place
As part of our learning on special places, Reception class visited St Barnabas Church and met Rev Matt. Rev Matt asked us to explore the church to find things we wouldn't find at home. Reggie said he saw a cross, Harry said a microphone, Beau said the font, Cassius found some musical instruments and Will found a chalice. Rev Matt asked why is church special for people. Ava said we worship here and Thea said we worship Jesus here. Rev Matt shared the chalice and plate and explained that we have a special meal to remember Jesus known as communion or the Eucharist. Rev Matt explained that all churches look different and that is ok. We watched a video to explain why. For Christians, church is a place and a way to describe people who trust in Jesus. It is a place where people meet which makes it really special. Thank you so much Rev Matt for putting our learning into context, we really enjoyed our visit.
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Reception: Collective Worship
We started our Worship across the Diocese with a call and response. God gives us wisdom all the time, Amen. We listened to a story from the Old Testament. We explored where this was in the timeline of God's big story. Mark told the story of 'A Woman's Victory'. Bishop Jill explained the story. A usual person stepped up to stop the chaos that was happening in Israel. Men usually led everything but a woman called Deborah saw an opportunity to find courage to approach and question the leader of the Israeli army. Lots of women have stepped into roles usually led by men to change things for the better. God gives courage to those people to do better for the greater good. Bishop Jill was the first woman bishop in Lancaster. Jesus wants us to be ourselves and it is really important for us to have courage and not to count ourselves out of situations. God gave Deborah the victory to succeed. We discussed things that we need courage for. Evie said writing, Zac said to build a house in our construction area, Thea said to draw a turtle and Willow said she needs courage to carry things from one place to another. We prayed to God to be ourselves and to use the gifts and talents that God has given us. We ended our worship by singing 'My Lighthouse'.