Year 3- Collective Worship- Should we learn sign language at school?
Today in Year 3's class worship, we explored different ways of communicating, including prayer to connect with God and the importance of British Sign Language. The children feel learning sign language at school is vital to support the deaf community, break down barriers, and promote understanding between different communities. They also discussed the importance of respect and celebrate difference. We ended our worship by thanking God for creating each of us uniquely different.
Rev Ben’s Worship- Jesus chooses his disciples
This morning in Collective Worship, Rev Ben started with a fun game where we had to guess the superpowers that our wonderful volunteers, Walter, Lottie, Isabella, Charlie-Rose and Matthew acted out. We guessed the superpowers of speed, strength, sports, invisibility and flight. We then followed on from Jesus' 40 days in the desert and we watched a story from the Bible that showed what happened next. We watched as Jesus chose his followers, called his disciples. They didn't have superpowers and were very ordinary and often made mistakes, just like us. Rev Ben told us that the best followers of Jesus don’t have super-powers and God works today through ordinary people who love Jesus and admit it when they get things wrong. He then told us about Ash Wednesday and how that is a time to ask God for forgiveness for the things we have done wrong. Wilson, our Head Boy, volunteered to have an ash cross put on his head. We then reflected on what we can do when we get things wrong and how God will always forgive us. We finished by singing My Lighthouse and My God's the King of me. Thank you Rev Ben for another wonderful worship.
Whole-School Worship: Understanding Lent
In worship today, Mrs Ham explained that Lent is a time in the Christian calendar in which we observe Jesus’ time in the wilderness and prepare for Easter. We discussed what we could do to observe Lent. Some of the children’s suggestions included giving up sweets, chocolate, crisps, time on devices, or giving back by helping at home or making an extra effort to show kindness to others. We also learned more about THE BIG LENT WALK and how each member of our school family can contribute by walking a few kilometres over the Lenten period and raising money that will go towards ending global hunger. More information is available on Class Dojo.
The Big Lent Walk
During Lent, our school are currently fundraising for CAFOD. We are taking part in the big Lent walk where we are collectively trying to walk 200km. Please help us to raise as much money as possible by sponsoring our whole school family. If you have been on a walk, please either sponsor and leave a message with how many km you have walked or send me a message and I can update our page. We will also be walking during the school day in our classes to achieve our target so any sponsorship will be greatly appreciated. Your sponsorship can change lives. Every £1 raised through the Big Lent Walk will help fight poverty globally in countries like Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. This year, CAFOD’s Lent Appeal is helping fishing communities feed their families in Liberia, and SCIAF’s Wee Box Appeal is focused on women and girls in Rwanda facing gender-based violence. Also in Ethiopia, CAFOD and SCIAF are working together to respond to the devastating food crisis there. Years of drought caused by the climate crisis means families are no longer able to cope, but your support means we are working with people right now, providing them with water, emergency food and healthcare. With your hard work and sponsorship this Lent, we can change families’ lives for good and tell poverty to take a hike. Please access our page here where you can sponsor your child: https://schools.walk.cafod.org.uk/fundraising/st-barnabas-big-lent-walk Thank you for your kindness, Mrs Wilkinson
Dress to Express 2024
What a fantastic day we’ve had celebrating Dress to Express! It was lovely to get together as a whole school to raise awareness for Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Every single member of our school family certainly dressed to express themselves and made themselves heard as we all have a voice. Well done to all of the children that spoke about why they had chosen their outfits and how it allowed them to express themselves.
Celebration Worship- Dress to Express Day
Today, we had a very special worship to celebrate Children's Mental Health Week. We all ‘Dressed to Express’ and danced our way into the hall. We discussed the theme for this year which is ‘Our Voice Matters’ and we watched a video that told us all about the rights and responsibilities that we have such as being free to choose to think what we like and have our own opinions and ideas. Mrs Ham then showed us some pictures of people that have been influential in the past for standing up for their belief. Ross and Wilson named Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parkes, Sonny named Ayanna all of whom worked to end black segregation. Darcy named Marcus Rashford who has been influential in helping to stop racism within football and Charlie added that he has also been helping to support children who are entitled to free school meals. We then heard from some children from each year group about how they’ve chosen to express themselves. Hamza expressed his love of football and fashion, Archie his love of darts, Isaac his love of BMX, Charlie-Rose her love of all things sports, Betsy her love of dancing, Mason his love of smart clothes and attending special occasions such as weddings, Archie his love of football, Grace and Lola their love of gymnastics, Sonny represented all those in the world who live with diabetes, Daisy her love of art and bright colours, Renee’s love of PJ Masks, Olivia’s love of the colour pink and Jewellery, Alfie’s love of playing and watching football, Ella-Grace’s love of dancing and sparkles, Isabella’s loves of wearing pyjamas because you can snuggle and be cosy in them, Naomi’s love of all things pink, Charlie’s love of football, Annabel’s love of Ariel, Joey’s love of Spider-Man and Elijah’s love of superheroes. Mrs Ham then asked some of our members of staff how they had chosen to express themselves. Mr Prescott and Mrs Norris chose to bring their golf clubs to express themselves as golfers, Miss Kachwalla and Mrs Lyons expressed themselves by wearing bright and bold colours to express themselves as creative and Mrs Hegarty wore an apron to express herself as a baker. What a wonderful way to end ‘Mental Health Week.’ We wish you all a restful and enjoyable half-term and we look forward to welcoming you all back on Monday 19th February.
Year 3- Art- Paper Weaving
For our final art lesson, Year 3 explored the work of Anni Albers' weaving techniques. Inspired by her amazing weaving the children picked coloured paper linking back to their mood boards to weave together with another one. Finally, they cut a cross shape and glued it onto their weaving.
Rev Matt’s Worship - Temptation
Today in whole-school worship, Rev Matt talked about temptation and how the devil tried to tempt Jesus in the desert. We thought about what tempts us and what we might do if we wanted to celebrate Lent.
Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our worship by signing the trinity and discussing our week in school. We reflected on our very joyous singing worship that we had on Monday with Mrs Ham and our wonderful worship with Rev Ben about ‘Turning To God’ on Tuesday. We then presented Edward, Ella, Joshua, Luke, Eden, Bella, Ivy, Archie and Isaac as our value award winners this week. Well done to those children for demonstrating kindness, compassion and an excellent attitude and commitment to learning. We also congratulated Year 4 and Year 1 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park who are our value award winners this week. We then moved on to our out of school achievers. Well done to Holly for achieving her Stage 3 at swimming, Sofia for working hard to achieve lots of new badges at Rainbows including her performance badge, Archie for giving 100% during his football training, Dougie for achieving his white belt at jiu jitsu, Isaac for celebrating his successes in drama and performance with achieving a part in Waterloo Road, Tristen for working hard to achieve his yellow belt in kickboxing, Grace for demonstrating incredible talent in both her acro and lyrical dancing, Jack for achieving Stage 4 in his swimming, Scarlett for getting Rainbow Bear at her netball sessions for demonstrating incredible footwork, Matthew for being awarded with a huge celebratory gold cup for his commitment to a recent tournament whilst representing Manchester United U10s football club, Finn for being elected as the sixer at cubs, Ivy and Betsy for their commitment to both lyrical and acro dancing and also performing an incredible duet together. We then ended our worship with a lovely prayer from Rev Ben and a sing along to ‘Build Up.’ We thank our children for another wonderful week of achieving great things and we look forward to next week. Just a reminder that it is our ‘Dress to Express Day’ next Friday 9th February. We thank all those who attended celebration worship and we wish the the rest of our school family a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support too.
Online Safety Rap Prep in Year 4
In preparation for Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 6th February, we have been looking at developing a rap linked to Online Safety. We rehearsed rhyming couplets and looked at pairs of words that we could use such as click and trick, share and beware, friend and send. The children did really well and pushed themselves completely out of their comfort zones! We can’t wait to hear the finished article next week in the special Safer Internet Day Worship.
WOW Group - Messy Church Planning
The WOW Group have been busy planning their lunchtime messy church sessions. This week, they were making posters to advertise the sessions and, next week, they will be explaining what they are all about in worship.
Rev Ben's Worship: Turning to God
This week, Rev Ben told us the story of John the Baptist and how he preached about the importance of turning our lives to God. We spent some time thinking about what it means to turn to God.