Year 5 - Literature Festival
Today, Year 5 had the exciting opportunity to attend the Darwen Literature Festival at Darwen Library. As part of the event, they took part in an inspiring author session led by the brilliant poet and performer Rappaman. The children were captivated by his energetic performance and powerful poetry, which explored themes like identity, creativity and resilience. They listened, laughed and even joined in with some of the rhythmic wordplay, leaving the session buzzing with ideas and inspiration. It was a fantastic celebration of language and the joy of reading and writing. A big thank you to the festival organisers and Rappaman for such a memorable experience!
Year 4 - The Children’s Literature Festival 2025
On Tuesday, the Year 4 class walked to Darwen Library Theatre to take part in the Children’s Literature Festival. Their workshop was a session on developing rhyming patterns and creating poetry. It was delivered by Rappaman - a poet that does a lot of work with communities in the North West. The children had great fan creating rhymes and repeating tongue twisters. There was even a joke or two thrown in!
Y4 English - The Mousehole Cat - Noun Phrases
As part of our new English unit, Year 4 have been reading ‘ The Mousehole Cat’. In today’s session we concentrated on identifying noun phrases. We looked at what Mowzer the cat ate for his meals on different days and then adapted this to what a dog would like to have instead. The children came up with some fantastic ideas which included baker brisket pie in a bed of mashed potatoes, spicy salami roasted on a burger bun and fillet steak fried in onion gravy.
Year 6 English
Year 6 have been identifying the key features of a formal letter. They then linked this with their previous work on "Good Night, Mister Tom" and WWII to write a formal letter to parents, informing them that they would need to evacuate their children.
Year 2 - Setting Descriptions
This week, in year 2 have been engaged in exploring Aaron Becker's "Journey," a wordless picture book that encourages them to develop their own narratives through imagination. Today's lesson focused specifically on the book's enchanting woodland setting. Using their prior learning of using expanded noun phrases and incorporating similes, the children demonstrated significant effort and produced a collection of highly descriptive and engaging setting descriptions. The effort they put into their writing was evident in the quality of their work.
Year 1 Attend the Children’s Literature Festival at Darwen Library
Today, Year 1 had an exciting adventure at the Children’s Literature Festival 2025, held at Darwen Library—and what a fantastic time they had! They had the wonderful opportunity to meet the delightful author Saira Shah, who engaged the children with her inspiring story Super Nani and Captain Yaz. The book explores the heartwarming beginning of a unique friendship between two characters—Yasmin and her Nani—who speak different languages, English and Punjabi. Despite the language barrier, they found a magical way to communicate through gestures, key words, and a dash of imagination, all with the help of Yasmin’s favourite superheroes and a special rag doll. Following the story, we continued with the superhero theme. Our Year 1 children were given a thrilling mission. A meteor was hurtling toward Earth, threatening to erase all the wonderful books in the library. To save the day, the children had to transform into superheroes—choosing their own superhero names and special powers. Working together, they rose to the challenge and saved the library from disaster. A huge thank you to Darwen Library for inviting us to the Children’s Literature Festival 2025, and to the wonderful Saira Shah for inspiring our children and helping to spark a love of reading. We’re excited to share that Saira Shah will be launching her book at Waterstones Blackburn on Saturday, June 28 at 11am. All children are warmly invited to join a special Storytime session, followed by superhero fun! If today’s excitement is anything to go by, it promises to be a wonderful event.
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Year 3- Celebrating Literature Festival at Darwen Library
Today, as part of the Children's Literature Festival, Year 3 went on an exciting adventure, walking to Darwen Library to meet the wonderful Blackburn-born author, Christina Gabbitas. She shared a fascinating glimpse into her background, highlighting the importance of living life to its fullest. Christina also spoke about her love for audiobooks, explaining how she enjoys listening to stories. The children then had the amazing opportunity to read one of her powerful poems about saving our oceans aloud. Christina also captivated us by reading a section of her book, 'Believe in Magic', using wonderful expression in her voice that brought the story to life. Christina generously gave every child a signed copy of her book, 'Believe in Magic'! It was a truly inspiring session!
Year 2 - Literacy Workshop at Darwen Library
On Tuesday afternoon, Year 2 students were very fortunate as they had the opportunity to attend a workshop by Donovan Christopher at Darwen Library. Donovan is a rapper, singer, author, and poet all in one, and the children got to see a little bit of everything he can do. As a whole class, we created a rap with instruments and rhymes, which was amazing. Then Donovan read some of his favourite poems to us and allowed some children to read them to the whole class. It was amazing to see the children participate in something they wouldn’t normally and learn new skills along the way.
Year 6 - English
In year 6, the children have been working extremely hard on their writing and trying to apply many of the skills they have learnt throughout the year. They produced an amplification to highlight the sounds and smells the soldiers may have encountered in the trenches during World War Two.
Reception- Phonics-We’re going on a word hunt
This afternoon our Reception children went on a word hunt. Their challenge was to find words hidden around our playground. They took a clipboard and a pencil and they went hunting for the words. Once they found one they read it and wrote it on their clipboard, they could use the sound mats for reference. Once they had collected all the words they could find they chose one of the words to put into a sentence.
Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 Story Club with Miss Flynn and the Librarians
Today in Story Club, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 read ‘The Great Dog Bottom Swap’ with Miss Flynn and the librarians and then did a fabulous dog themed craft. They had great fun!
Year 1 English- Identifying the Features of a Non-Fiction Book
As part of their English unit, Year 1 have been exploring the features of non-fiction books. After seeing and reading a number of non-fiction books and familiarising themselves with the features, they independently looked for the features in a non-fiction book themselves. They looked for the title page, the contents page, the glossary, labels, captions and headings. Year 1 will now be writing their own non-fiction booklets about the Crocky Trail after their class visit last week.