Amazing Awards in Celebration Worship
We celebrated our sports and reading stars this week in ourn Celebration Worship. We had awards for a number of out of school sports such as rugby, highland games, swimming, dancing and horse riding. It was lovely to see so many children pushing themselves out of their comfort zone to achieve great things and encourage others. What little superstars! We also had our amazing attendance winners for the week and they were Year 1 and Year 4!
Year 4 - Prayers for Her Majesty
Today in Year 4, we tied our prayers that we had written to remember the Queen to the front of school to create a remembrance wall. We thanked God for everything she has done for us and how very special she was.
Collective Worship- Launching Our 30 Day Kindness Matters Challenge
This morning, Mrs Ham started our worship by lighting a special candle to remember Her Majesty who sadly died on Thursday after serving our country for 70 years and to think about and pray for our new King Prince Charles III. We also started off our worship by singing the song ‘Kindness’ by Fischy Music to start off our theme of Kindness. Mrs Ham told us that to kickstart our new academic year, we will be taking part in the Kindness 30 day challenge just as we did last year. We discussed why being kind is so important because it can make people feel loved. It is also contagious and can create a ripple effect. We listened to John the Kindness Coach who introduced the 30 day challenge to us and day one of the challenge which is, ‘Don’t say mean words or perform mean gestures to others.’ We then watched a video and talked about the acts of kindness that we could see. Ella-Grace said she saw the man sharing his money so that the little girl could go to school, Harry said he helped the plants to grow by watering them, Carter said he fed the hungry dog and Seb said that he helped the lady with her very heavy cart. Mrs Ham asked us what the effect of this man’s kindness was and we said that people felt loved, valued and special and this is exactly why we should all be kind. We then listened to a story called ‘Kindness Grows’ which shared a special message about friendship and looked at our new display in the library which supports the message that we are all one huge family and need to love and support one another through kindness. Finally, Mrs Ham asked us to reflect on what we can do this week and every week moving forward to create that ripple effect of kindness to make our school an amazing place to be and we sang ‘Rich in Kindness.’ It was also lovely to have Lillian back in worship with us to give us all a blessing.
Celebration Worship- Celebrating the life of Queen Elizabeth II
This morning in worship, we celebrated the life of our longest service monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. We held a special two minutes silence and looked at some photographs of Queen Elizabeth II throughout her reign as Queen. We watched a special edition of Newsround that told us all about the Queen's life. We also looked at a lovely picture of several rainbows that were sent by God yesterday on the day of her death. We recognised this as a sign of her now being at peace with her late husband Phillip in heaven. We thought about the Christian value of service and how our Queen has served our country and the commonwealth for over seven decades which included her carrying out her state and national duties well into her 90s. We discussed how we can take inspiration from Queen Elizabeth II as she lived life in all its fullness just as our school vision encourages all of us at St Barnabas to do so. We then sang the national anthem. The first verse we honoured Queen Elizabeth II in heaven by singing ‘Queen’ and for the second verse, we sang it with ‘King’ to commemorate the new King, King Charles III. We ended our worship with some beautiful prayers from Sofia, Mason, Harlow and Seb who prayed for Queen Elizabeth II in heaven, King Charles III and the people of Ukraine. We also joined the choir in singing the song ‘Sing’ which was created by Gary Barlow to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
Year 2 Class Worship- Inclusivity
Year 2 focused on inclusivity in their class worship this morning. They looked at the new range of Barbie and Ken dolls that are now available to buy in shops. This included the first Ken doll with vitiligo, and a Barbie doll with a prosthetic limb and another with a wheelchair. They also look at the new Barbie doll that Strictly Come Dancing star Rose Ayling-Ellis has also unveiled with a hearing aid. Year 2 talked about how this is wonderful and helps children from different backgrounds and with different disabilities feel included. They ended the worship by singing ‘We Can Make a Difference’ and by saying some beautiful prayers.
Celebration Worship- Fridays at 9.15am
Dear Parents and Carers, you are very welcome to join us for our Celebration Worship each Friday at 9.15am. Refreshments will be served in the hall from 8.45am. This week class teachers will be sharing how well the children have settled into their new classes. From next Friday we will be presenting awards to the child who receives the most Values Points in each class and there will also be class attendance awards. Parents will be contacted on the Wednesday evening and invited to Celebration Worship on Friday. Please send in any awards from home such as sporting clubs, library challenges etc and we will present them to the children and they can stand on the golden podium whilst our school family shows them how proud we are of them. Please note that the Reception class will not be joining us this Friday or next Friday as they are being settled into big school.
Year 6 Class Worship
Year 6 class worship on celebrating differences and how toys can be an amazing tool in order to achieve this.
Year 3: Prayers of Hope
Today in R.E, Year 3 thought about some of their aspirations and hopes for the new academic year. Each child wrote their own prayer of hope to add to our prayer tree, in the worship area.
Collective Worship- Our Values
This morning in worship, we started our worship by reading our school vision, ‘Achieving things through learning and growing together in a love-filled Christian family’ and ‘That they shall have life, life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). We discussed what this meant and Eva and Harlow said that it means enjoying your life and making the most of it, Mason said it means trying hard and striving to do your best and Jake said it means being the best person that you can be and looking out for others. Mrs Ham then reminded us that in order to achieve our school vision and to make St Barnabas a special environment to grow and learn, we must follow our School Christian Values of courage, friendship, service, forgiveness, generosity, respect and encouragement and the British Values of Democracy, Rule of Law, Tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs, Mutual Respect and Individual Liberty. We learnt how each finger on our hand refers to each individual British Value. Mrs Ham then explained that all members of our St Barnabas staff will be looking out for our children demonstrating these Christian Values and British Values and rewarding this behaviour. Please click to read more.....
Our First Whole School Worship- Celebrating 50 Years of St Barnabas
This morning, Years 1-6 gathered together for our first whole school worship of the new academic year and it was wonderful to have all of our children back together again looking smart in their school uniforms. Mrs Ham told us all that our current school building was 50 years old yesterday and this week we will be taking part in some activities to celebrate this. Please click to read more.....
Year 6 Leavers Service
Thank you so much to the Year 6 parents and carers who joined us in church this morning for our Year 6 leavers service. Here is the memories video that I put together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoYNb7KAtck What an emotional day! Here are a few videos of our Year 6 celebrations. For all of the photos of the Leavers Services please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/year-6-leavers-service
Celebration Worship and End of Year Awards
Wow, what a celebration worship! We started off by saying a huge well done to The RotaKids for their fundraising efforts this year. Together with Miss Kachwalla and Mrs Lyons, they have raised an amazing £939.00. With this money, they have bought playground equipment for KS1 and KS2, board games for wet playtimes and donated money to Macmillan Cancer support, Christian Aid and East Lancs Hospice. We then had heard from our Reception to Year 5 teachers who presented their end of year awards for progress, star of the year and pupils’ pupil. A huge well done to all of these children, you have certainly worked extremely hard this year and deserve all the success that you have achieved. A special well done to Sophie in Year 4 for being awarded the Sharon Kay cup for Kindness. What an achievement! We then celebrated and said well done to our children who have achieved success out of school this week. We congratulated Freddie for winning a football tournament, Lyla-Grace who will be starting reception next year for her super tap dancing, Isaac for success at beavers, Lola who received a letter from the queen to say thank you for her jubilee celebration card, Lola, Scarlett, Penelope and Carmen for their swimming success, Eliza for her football and cricket success, Grace for her dance success, Archie for players’ player for football and his darts success and Amelia for her gymnastics success. We also said a huge well done to children who have achieved awards in school. We congratulated our Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 children who attended Witton athletics on Monday evening for wonderful sportsmanship, encouragement and coming 1st place, our Year 3 swimmers for their efforts this year during their swimming lessons and the Year 6 children said a very special thank you to Mrs Gardner for all of her time, continued effort and sports coaching during their time at St Barnabas. They brought her close to tears. Finally, we ended our worship with some beautiful prayers and a blessing from Lillian.