Friday Celebration Worship
In today’s celebration worship, our youngest member of the school Iris helped us to finish off our Christmas tree by putting the star on the top! We celebrated lots of sporting and personal achievements from our children and talked about our Christian value of Respect and especially how important it is to show this value to others over the Christmas period.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Every child in school helped to decorate the Christmas tree yesterday. This morning in Worship, Iris, our youngest child in school got to put the star on top of the Christmas tree. It certainly is starting to look, feel and sound like Christmas at St Barnabas.
Advent worship with Rev Nick
Today we celebrated the start of advent with a visit from Rev Nick. He read us a Bible story about Zechariah and Elizabeth who had to wait a very long time to have a baby. We talked about patiently waiting and being hopeful as we lit the first candle of Advent. We reflected on how we can bring hope to others this Advent and sang 'Shine from the inside out'.
Knife Angel Message
Two of our WOW (Worship our way) group members told our whole school, in Worship on Friday, about the Knife Angel. They attended a conference at Blackburn Cathedral a couple of weeks ago and learnt about angels being special messengers and they particularly focused on the special Knife Angel. It is made up of over 100,000 knives that have been used in knife crimes around the country. Many of the knives have writing calved into them which are messages asking for forgiveness to the victims and their families from the person who used the knife. The message is to try to eliminate knife crime in our local area and a knife amnesty box is next to it to encourage youngsters to surrender any weapons they may have. Most knife crimes occur by accident and it’s usually the person carrying a knife that becomes injured. Thank you to our WOW group members for delivering the important message of the Knife Angel to our school family. We hope this will discourage any of our children from carrying weapons when they are older. The Knife Angel will be at Blackburn Cathedral till 30th November if you are in the area and would like to admire it.
Celebration Worship
Today in celebration worship, we revisited our focus from Monday’s whole school worship which was tolerance. We reflected on how we had lived this out by showing respect to each other and celebrating each other’s differences. We heard from some members of WOW group who told us about the knife angel and it’s very important message. The knife angel is currently outside Blackburn Cathedral until 30th November. We also heard from Mrs Govan who told us about a wonderful advent art competition that the children can take part in. We are asking the children to create a piece of artwork to show a part of the Christmas story e.g. The 3 wise men, the star of Bethlehem or baby Jesus. This can be done in any media such as painting, drawing, photograph, collage and 24 pieces will be selected to go on display at Whitehall park. The deadline is Monday 6th December. Finally, we celebrated some out of school achievements and Mrs Ham read some of the beautiful prayers that our children have added to our prayer tree.
Class Worship- Year 5
During our class worship this week, we have been discussing the news about one travel company ‘expedia’, who have banned all trips that include experiences with dolphins. We discussed why some people don’t agree with keeping dolphins and whales purely for entertainment.
Interfaith Whole School Worship
In worship today we talked about the importance of having respect and tolerance for others, no matter what their beliefs. We are learning to celebrate each other’s differences.
Celebration Worship
A huge congratulations to River Darwen house for winning the inter-house competition last week which was organised and led by our Sports Leaders. Well done to everyone who was presented with an award that they have achieved out of school. You are all superstars!
Interfaith Week-Sikhism
As part of our Interfaith Week, we have had a special visitor in today. Prags taught us all about Sikhism. We looked at the 5Ks- Kesh, Kara, Khanga, Kachera & Kirpan and what they all mean. We have loved learning about another faith and asking questions to find out even more.
Anti-Bullying Worship
Today we launched anti-bullying week. The children today have all celebrated how they are unique by wearing odd socks. The children discussed what to do if somebody is being mean. “You can tell your parents…tell a teacher…tell your family.” We discussed what bullying means. It is about when somebody is mean on a number of occasions. This year's focus is ‘one kind word’. The children talked about lots of kind words “friendship, respect, kindness, care, joy.” This week, we are aiming to cause a ripple effect of kindness. If somebody is kind then this kindness could then spread to others. We did a Mexican wave of kindness. We shouted “hello, share, are you ok?”
St Barnabas Remembers
Our Year 6 heads and deputies plus Year 5 and 6 WOW group members paid their respects on Friday in a special remembrance service at Darwen Cemetery. They laid a wreath made of poppy prayers, remembrance poems and art work. Please remember to come along to the Rose Garden in Whitehall Park to see a selection of remembrance artwork from each class.
Anti Bullying Worship led by Year 4
Next week is the start of Anti-Bullying week and to highlight this, Year 4 led our worship this morning. The children discussed different types of bullying and the upset this causes. This year The Anti- Bullying Alliance want people to focus on “One Kind Word”. We hope that the children have made their messages clear and we can make a difference.