Friday Celebration Worship
We had so much to celebrate this week in our special celebration worship, it was lovely to see so many grown ups attending too. Mr Prescott stepped in this week and announced our attendance winners, well done to Reception and Year 5 classes. After our trials for Sports Hall Athletics we took all 31 children to compete this week. We received amazing feedback that our students were so respectful and represented the school superbly, so well done to you all. Their resilience and determination brought them into second place so we are so proud of you all. Thank you for bringing in your out of school achievements, it is lovely to share your success out of school and see such a wide variety of activities being enjoyed. A huge well done to all of our values winners this week who have demonstrated our Christian and British Values. You are all superstars!
Whole School Worship: Thankfulness
It was wonderful to have our worship led by Rev Ben today. Today, we are going to be thinking about thankfulness. To begin our worship, we played a game of guess the animal. Well done to David, Carter, Ivy, Neve and Aisha for taking part. We are so thankful for God’s wonderful creations which include a frog, monkey, a fish, a panda and a lion. As we guess those wonderful animals, they are all very different. Some are big, some are small, some are colourful, some are loud and some are quiet. However, we are not always good at looking after God’s creation. When we don’t look after God’s creation like we should, he will always forgive us. Rev Ben gave us time to think about what we want to thank God for and we also had a think about how we can show our thankfulness for the amazing world we live in. Archie said he is thankful for us, Alice said she is thankful for all of the trees, Sadie is thankful for food and Carter is thankful for nature. Harlee said we shouldn’t litter, Daniel said we need to switch the lights off and Iris said that we need to care for the animals. Rev Ben led us in prayer and we joined in with a new song called ‘God of Science’. We loved the song! A huge thank you to Rev Ben.
Whole School Worship: Martin Luther King Jr Day
We started our worship with our happy tank and we practised our kindness today. We then thought about what Jesus meant when he said you should love your neighbour as yourself. Elsie said your neighbour means everybody. Mrs Ham read a book ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ all about Martin Luther King Jr. It is important to stand up for what is right and love your neighbour, just like Martin Luther King Jr did. If people like Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks hadn’t stood up for what was right then the world wouldn’t be a nice place to live in. Martin Luther King Jr had a dream that people would judge people on their character rather than their skin colour. We had a think about our character today and how others may describe our character. If we show all of our Christian values then we will have a great character. This week we will focus on treating each other fairly. We will also have a think about how we can help other people to make their lives better and we will focus on showing love and kindness towards each other. Freddie said we could be brave and stand up for what is right, Alfie said we could be respectful, Grace said we could donate items to other people, Jack said we could show friendship and Lyla said we could show courage. We then thought about what our dream for the world would be and we had some wonderful ideas such as no violence, no wars, living in peace. everyone being treated fairly and with kindness etc. We finished our worship by singing ‘Make a difference’.
Whole School Celebration Worship
During our whole school Worship this morning, a few of our children shared their special gifts from God; being good at skating, swimming, football, gymnastics, basketball and rugby and some children said having loving and caring parents was their special gift from God. It was also lovely to hear that the children have been reflecting on their daily choices which was our Happy Tank focus for this week. The class teachers presented a value certificate to the child/children that has been demonstrating our Christian and British values and making the right choices. Prizes were given out to our 'Road Safety' winners, the entries were from last year and the children were thrilled with their winnings. Mrs Ham celebrated our sports stars for their dedication and commitments for taking part in extracurricular activities. Our amazing attendance classes this week were reception and Year 3 and the winning team for getting the most value points was Whitehall Park, putting them in first place. Rev Ben ended our Worship with a lovely prayer and blessing. What another brilliant week at St Barnabas and the children really have been achieving great things!
Year 3- Class worship
Today Year 3’s class worship focused on managing our feelings when we are under pressure and how we can do our best when we feel under pressure. We held a class discussion, highlighting what emotions we might feel and how by being brave and showing courage, we can all achieve great things.
Planning our class worship for Children’s Mental Health Week
Today we have been looking at how we can plan our very own worship to highlight Children’s Mental Health Week which takes place on 6th-12th February this year. The theme this year is ‘ Let’s Connect’ so we have looked at what we can do as a school community to promote this.
Year 1- Epiphany
On Friday we learnt about Epiphany. It took 12 days for the kings to meet baby Jesus and so the Epiphany is celebrated on the 6th January. Epiphany comes from the Greek word which means ‘making known’. The kings followed a big star which helped to make people know that Jesus had been born. One important thing that the festival of Epiphany reveals is that God doesn’t have favourites but welcomes people from any background and any nationality. Year 1 painted images of the 3 kings on their journey to find baby Jesus.
Monday Worship: Epiphany
Last week we focussed on breathing with the happy tank. This week, we learnt how to reflect. We spent three minutes thinking about something that has happened to us today. Reflection time for ourselves is important and helps us to relax and fill up our happy tanks. On Friday we started our learning about the Epiphany. It took 12 days for the kings to meet baby Jesus and so the Epiphany is celebrated on the 6th January. Epiphany comes from the Greek word which means ‘making known’. The kings followed a big star which helped to make people know that Jesus had been born. One important thing that the festival of Epiphany reveals is that God doesn’t have favourites but welcomes people from any background and any nationality. Mrs Ham read a story from her rhyming Bible all about the kings journey and everyone joined in with actions for the repeated refrain. Thank you to our amazing actors in Year 6. Sadie, Manni, Isaac, Elsie and Carter did a brilliant job. The kings brought gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. Gold is a gift fit for a king, Frankincense was given as it is a holy fragrance and Myrrh was given to indicate that Jesus’ death would be important. During our reflection, we thought about our special gifts. This week, we will really focus on how we can share them with others and how we can show respect for other people’s gifts. We finished our worship singing ‘We three kings’.
Whole School Celebration Worship
This morning during whole school celebration worship, we learnt about Epiphany and celebrated our achievements in school this week. It was lovely to hear that some of the children had used the breathing techniques that we learnt on Monday from John, the Kindness Coach's, happy tank programme over the week. Class teachers spoke about our first week back in school and how the children have settled back into our school routine brilliantly. Mrs Ham announced our amazing attendance classes of the week in KS1 and KS2. Well done Reception and Year 4! We then celebrated some fantastic sports stars, both in and outside of school!
Whole School Worship: Happy new year!
It was lovely to have everyone together for our first worship of 2023. Happy new year to everyone! We took a few moments as we lit our advent wreath to think about Jesus and how he came to bring hope, peace, joy and love to the world and how he wanted us live life in all its fullness. A few of our children shared their new year resolutions. Alice said she wants to eat more healthily, Tristen’s is to always have a smile on his face, Sadie is to not talk back to her parents and Kaylen’s is to go outside more. Mrs Ham shared hers which is to be happy. Mrs Ham reminded us all of the kindness coach, John Magee. She introduced us all to the happy tank. We watched a video from John who explained what the happy tank was. One of the elements is to take some time to rest. During this time, we need to focus on our breathing which can help us to find peace. We all focussed together on our breathing for 2 minutes. Beau said that it made her feel calm and Jacob said it made him feel happy. Mrs Ham shared with everybody a happy calendar that we will follow throughout January. We watched a clip from ‘The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse’. At the beginning the fox was very angry but by the end he was happy. He filled up his happy tank by the boy, the mole and the horse showing him kindness. This year we need to really focus on how we can be kind to others and to ourselves. Through that, we also need to think about how we can find happiness and spread it to others. We all said a new year prayer together and ended our worship with the song ‘Shine from the inside out’.
Christmas Service at St Barnabas Church, Lead by KS2
This morning, the whole school came together for our Christmas Service at St Barnabas Church, lead by KS2. Over this term, KS2 classes have been preparing short presentations for the service, about an element of Christmas that they have been focusing on in R.E. In Year 3, the class presented pieces of artwork, focusing on the shepherd's visiting Jesus in the stable and being in the presence of God. Year 4 looked at Christingle's and created a fantastic rap, about the meaning of the Christingle and Jesus being the light of the World. Year 5 spoke about how different countries celebrate Christmas around the World. Finally, Year 6 spoke about Advent and what it means to them. Some children also shared their hopes and dreams for the future. The WOW Group also helped to lead parts of the service and we sang a selection of Christmas Carols as a whole school. Overall, we really enjoyed learning about different elements of Christmas and KS2 presented their learning brilliantly!
Carols by Candlelight
A huge thank you to everyone who came along to the Carols by Candlelight Service. Our choir sang brilliantly and well done to Jenson for his lovely reading. It was wonderful to hear one of previous choir members, Isaac, singing a beautiful solo too. It really does feel like Christmas now.