Year 3- Class Worship-Kindness is Viral: Following in the Footsteps of Positive Influencers
In class worship, we explored this week’s Picture News story about how famous people can influence others to make good choices. We looked at the story of MrBeast and his "1 Billion Acts of Kindness" campaign, which highlights how one person’s influence can inspire millions to take positive action. This linked perfectly with Mrs Ham’s whole school worship yesterday. She spoke about how our small, everyday actions can make a big difference, which is exactly what the children practised in their work today. To finish the lesson, we sang the hymn "My Lighthouse," reflecting on how we can be a "guiding light" for others through kindness, and Seb read a lovely prayer.
Reception: Kindness Kites
As part of celebrating 100 years of Blackburn Diocese, our school are taking part in the kindness kites challenge. For the next few weeks, we are focusing on saying something kind. Reception staff have caught three children so far saying something kind to their friends. Well done to Coban, Theo and Poppy. We are sure we will be adding more bows to our kindness kite in the upcoming weeks.
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Whole School Worship - God is Kind
In our whole-school worship, Mrs Ham revealed our first Kindness Kite celebrating the Blackburn Diocese centenary. This week, the focus is ‘God is Kind’. A small selection of Year 6 children were chosen to read three Psalms about God’s kindness and we learned that God is everywhere, always, even when it’s dark, even when we hide. The children were then invited to share some of the kind things that they have heard people say, such as ‘I like your hair’ , ‘Your dress is pretty’ and ‘You are so smart’. We reflected on how kind words make us feel and we all practised paying compliments to our partners. We are looking forward to adding kind words to our classroom kites.
Whole School Singing Worship - Monday
We welcomed our children back into school on Monday with a special story read to us from Bob Hartman, who also wrote the rhyming Bible that we use a lot in our worships. Jesus told us that children are important and should be treated with kindness and understanding and that the rich people of the world are not better than the poor, encouraging them to share their wealth. This turned the way people of the time thought upside down. We then celebrated together through some of our beautiful songs and children were welcomed to perform at the front. A lovely start to our week together.
100 Years of Blackburn Diocese
In order to celebrate 100 years of Blackburn diocese, we took part in a whole-school virtual assembly that focused on the many successes and achievements of the diocese over the past century. Bishop Philip welcomed schools from across the diocese and shared an engaging story about the travels of the Wise Men, linking these to themes of faith, journey and community. The children greatly enjoyed seeing and feeling connected to other schools within the diocese and were excited to take part in a shared celebration. The assembly provided a valuable opportunity for pupils to reflect on their place within the wider diocesan family, strengthening their sense of belonging and understanding of our shared faith. The event was engaging, inclusive, meaningful and it helped bring the history and mission of the diocese to life for the whole school community. We are looking forward to taking part in a variety of centenary 'All for Jesus' activities and worships over the year.
Friday Celebration Worship
What a brilliant first week back! We are so proud of all the children for settling back into school so sensibly, even with the excitement of the snow. We started by celebrating our values awards winners: Elara in Reception, Max in Year 1, Vienna in Year 2, Mila in Year 3, Lottie in Year 4, Carmen in Year 5 and Luca in Year 6. These children are always doing the right thing and working hard, well done! We also celebrated Olivia and Jacob in Year 4 who were awarded their pen licenses this week. A huge well done to all of our house teams this week for earning lots of value points. Darwen Tower came in 4th place, Whitehall Park came in 3rd place, River Darwen came in 2nd place and India Mill in 1st place. We had lots of Sports Awards this week. Well done to Callie for 25m in backstroke, Ralphi was awarded a swimming medal for 5m and a football certificate for courage against older players, Elijah was awarded a 200m swimming certificate, James was awarded a 100m swimming certificate, Renee was awarded a 5m swimming certificate and Carmen won a student of the year trophy in kickboxing and a swimming certificate for 100m and 50m. Additionally, Phoebe was awarded the Olivia doll from Rainbows for excellent colouring, Thea was awarded a gymnastics certificate for backwards and forwards on the bars, Reggie won player of the week in football for scoring 10 goals and finally Scarlett won player of the match in netball. Well done everyone! Our Year 5 and 6 football team also shared that they lost to St Paul’s 2-1 in their most recent football game, but still placed 5th out of 13 schools. This is a brilliant placement! Also, well done to Year 1 and 2 who the best attendance in Key Stage 1 and Year 4 in Key Stage 2. Mrs Ham also reminded us of our upcoming events: Let’s Go Sing, Stay and Play, NSPCC Speak Out and our visit from Harold the Giraffe. Finally, Charlie, Lilly and James said some beautiful prayers to end our worship. Have a restful weekend and please stay safe in the turbulent weather conditions.
Worship with Rev Matt- Courage
This morning, we were delighted to welcome Rev. Matt for our whole school worship. We spent time exploring our current Christian value of Courage, using the story of Epiphany as our inspiration. Through the journey of the Wise Men, we discussed how they demonstrated incredible bravery. It wasn't just the long journey that required strength, but their decision to listen to God’s warning and defy King Herod’s orders. They showed us that courage often means doing what is right, even when it feels difficult or uncertain. We reflected on how God can provide us with the inner strength to face our fears. And how courage isn't something we have to find alone; we can encourage and support each other to be brave in our daily lives. Like the Wise Men, we can choose to do the right thing, even when faced with pressure.
Whole School Worship - Epiphany
To continue our Epiphany celebration, in worship, we learned about the significance of the wise men’s gifts. We were entertained with some fantastic acting from a few of our Year 6 children as they acted out the story of the wise men meeting Herod on their way to visit Jesus. We all joined in with actions for repeated sections of the rhyming Bible story too. As the wise men presented their gifts it was revealed that each had a specific significance: gold to represent the King, frankincense to represent God, and myrrh to represent the great sacrifice to come. Following this we took the time to reflect on the true wonder of this significant event and then enjoyed singing We Three Kings together to bring this festive season to a close.
Welcome back worship & Epiphany
It was a joy to gather for this morning’s Welcome Back and Epiphany Worship. Just how did the news of the arrival of Jesus 'the light of the world' spread beyond Bethlehem? Today we heard from the Diocese as part of the Living out God's big story, the story of the Wise Men visiting Jesus and why the Feast of Epiphany is so important. Jesus was a gift sent by God that needed to be shared with everyone. We reflected on our God given gifts and how we should celebrate them. We then filled the hall with the joyous singing of our favorite worship songs in celebration of being back together again after the Christmas break.
Whole School Worship with Rev Matt
Rev Matt led our Whole School Worship today and we started by lighting the Advent Wreath. We have already lit the candles that represent Hope, Peace and Joy and we signed the name of The Trinity. Next we had our weekly challenge. Rev Matt put various items in a stocking and as we removed items Theo, Jacob, Mason and Harry had to guess which ones had gone missing. One of the items was a birthday candle which represents the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day. Our Bible story this week was The Birth of Jesus. An angel told Mary she would have a special baby, Jesus, the Savior. Due to a Roman census, Mary and her husband Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in a stable (barn) and laid in a manger. Angels announced the news to shepherds, who then visited Jesus, and later, Wise Men followed a star to find and worship the baby, bringing gifts. The story is about how Jesus is a surprise gift of compassion from God. The children then reflected on what would be the best thing that they could give this Christmas. We had love, a smile and kindness which were all beautiful examples.
Church Carol Service
A huge thank you to the children who came to our church Carol Service on Sunday evening. Your lovely singing has helped to get everyone in the festive mood. Thank you St Barnabas Church. Darwen. for inviting us to take part in the special service. Thank you for the chocolates too, the children loved those on Monday morning.
Whole Class Worship - Joy
This week of advent, our focus is Joy. We began by recounting the advent themes we have explored so far: Hope and Peace. Mrs Ham chose Lyla from Year 4 to come to the front to light the three advent candles and she highlighted some of the ways our school family have brought joy to others over the past few weeks. It was heartwarming to hear about some of these, including the Reception class nativity, Year 1 and Year 2’s Christmas Cracker, the choir singing at Acer Lodge care home, and Year 4 writing letters to the residents, plus all of those who have been supporting our latest charity campaigns. We reflected on what true joy looks like and how we can sometimes forget about the simple things when our minds are preoccupied with expensive gifts and the hustle and bustle of the season. Our focus was brought back to the gift God sent - his only son - and how Jesus’ incarnation was the joyous gift that changed our world forever.