Year 4 - Linking Schools: Social Action
We are now in Phase 2 of our Linking Schools journey and we have discussed issues we are passionate about in our community. It became evident quite quickly that the children took umbrage with inconsiderate road users. They reported concerns about drivers breaking the speed limits near their homes and around town, and they listed a number of problems they’d encountered due to inconsiderate parking. Following this discussion, we decided to look at the Highway Code and create posters to remind road users to show courtesy. The children created some super posters that were colourful, eye catching and delivered clear messages for drivers. We will be writing to our local MP and sending in our posters, requesting that they may be used to create signs for the worst affected areas of Darwen.
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Year 4 - Class Worship: Helping To Make Peace
Our class worship this week tied together our kindness kite theme of 'helping to make peace' and phase 2 of our Linking Schools project - Social Action. We watched the God's Big Story worship from Blackburn Diocese, which was about serving others, and we drew pictures on our whiteboards to show one thing we had taken from the worship. Then we joined in with actions to the Starfish Story and discussed the things we are passionate about and that we can help to change in our community. We have shared a number of ideas and we will vote on a project to undertake in the Summer Term.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Zoom Call
This week, the Year 4 class had the opportunity to meet their link class from St Matthew’s in Blackburn via a Zoom call. The call began with a brief introduction and a chance to share some Makaton/Sign Supported English they had learned. Together, the children from both classes laughed and played games. They also asked and answered curiosity questions, such as, ‘What after school clubs does your school offer?’ Or, ‘What’s your favourite book, and why?’ It was great to meet our link class and to see who we sent our identity maps to.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Who Am I?
Our Linking Schools project in Year 4 is well underway, beginning with a discussion around the question: Who Am I? We played the Speed Name Game and talked about our likes and dislikes. We then decorated a piece of bunting with our names and symbols to represent the things we like. Next, we will be exploring aspects of our identity and sharing our bunting with our linking class.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: End of Year Celebration
What a brilliant way to finish our Linking Schools journey! We all had great fun in Year 4 on the Schools Linking Celebration Zoom. We reminisced about all the enriching activities we took part in this year and shared some of our favourite moments, such as playing the whiteboard game, meeting St Matthew’s and making new friends. We have learned so much about ourselves and who we are, as well as learning about our link class. Tolerance, respect and friendship were definitely key themes as we realised that, although we were different to our new friends in many ways, we also had so much in common. There is just one more step for us to complete, which is our social action project. After collating ideas about improving God’s world, we voted for the most popular idea and decided we would act on it - writing to residents of a care home. Look out for more news about our happy post soon.
Year 4 - Linking Schools Visit to St Matthew’s
Our Linking Schools project reached its final part on Monday with Year 4 visiting St Matthew’s C of E Primary in Blackburn. We had a fantastic day designing “together towns”, creating poetry about living well together and even joining an assembly with local author, Dan Worsley. We have thoroughly enjoyed learning about our new friends and sharing work throughout this year; it has helped us to realise our similarities and celebrate differences.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Visit One
The Year 4 class were excited to welcome their link class from St Matthew’s on Monday. They started the day telling their visitors what they love about our wonderful school and about Darwen. They spent the day in teams collaborating and sharing through building towers and taking part in team games. We are so proud of how well our children welcomed their new friends. They were polite and accommodating and everyone had a wonderful day. We are looking forward to going to St Matthew’s for visit day two.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Why Social Action?
As our Linking School project continues, the Year 4s have been considering things in their relationships, the school, the local area, the environment and the wider world that they care about. In today’s session, we listened to the Starfish Story and talked about how small, kind actions can have a big impact on others. We looked at the world around us and decided on some actions we could take to improve it. After sharing our ideas, we voted and decided that we would like to go on a class litter pick, and write to residents of a local care home. We will be carrying out our actions over the Summer Term.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Social Action
Today, Year 4 began the scene phase of our Linking Schools project, looking at different types of social action and discussing issues that they are passionate about changing. Each group recorded ideas for problems to tackle on a leaf, ready to add to our class kindness tree. In the next session, we will talk about how we can bring about change and vote on one idea to implement. Watch this space…
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Zoom Meeting
What an exciting day on Monday! The Year 4s had the opportunity of linking live via Zoom with their linking class from St Matthew’s in Blackburn. The children showed St Matthew’s some of the Makaton signs they’d been learning and asked their new friends some curiosity questions they’d prepared, before answering questions from the link class. We then finished our session playing a couple of games together. It was a great first meeting and we can’t wait to meet our new friends in the summer term.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Curiosity Questions
In Year 4, we are preparing for our first online meeting with our linking class by thinking of curiosity questions. Before we can write good questions for our linking class, we needed to explore curiosity questions with each other. We played human bingo, in which we had to work in pairs to find one person to match each statement on our grid. We asked questions such as, “Are you left-handed?” and “Do you like pizza and chips?”, to get to know a bit more about each other. Then in our next session we will be considering questions for our friends at St Matthew’s.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Who Are We?
In Year 4, we have been spending some time exploring what makes us who we are. We started creating identity maps ready to send to our link class at St Matthew’s. We can’t wait to receive some work back and find out more about our new friends.