Whole School Harvest Celebration
This morning, we celebrated Harvest with a very special worship service at St Barnabas Church, led by our wonderful WOW group and Mrs Araujo. It was a joyful celebration filled with singing, gratitude and reflection. A huge well done to Reception, Year 1 and Year 3, who did a tremendous job of sharing what they have been learning in their RE lessons. Reception bravely opened our worship by singing ‘Thank You for the Harvest’, followed by Year 1, who expressed their gratitude to our farmers for all their hard work with a lovely rendition of ‘Thank You to the Farmers’. We also heard from Year 3, who shared beautiful prayers expressing their gratitude for all that we have, as well as leading us in a shared prayer using Makaton. We are incredibly proud of all the children for their thoughtful contributions. This year, we are supporting DARE, RotaKids and The Bishop’s Appeal. A heartfelt thank you to our school community for your generosity in donating non-perishable food items and pre-loved winter coats. Your kindness and support make a real difference to others. Looking ahead, please remember that we will be taking part in the Big Barney’s Assault Course Challenge on Friday 6th November to raise money for the Jehovah Rapha Healthcare Centre in Liwolo. The funds raised will help ensure that people can access essential healthcare. We would be very grateful if you could ask family and friends to sponsor your child and support us in this important mission. Finally, thank you for your continued support throughout this half-term. We wish all our families a wonderful and restful half-term holiday!
The Great Big Barney's Assault Course Challenge
An urgent need in South Sudan! A serious healthcare crisis is emerging and support to local healthcare centres such as Liwolo will end by September, with hospital services stopping by December. Without this support, many communities will be left without accessible medical care. The nearest healthcare facilities are several hours away and remain out of reach for many families due to distance and cost. Through the Bishop's Harvest Appeal, our Diocese will support the Jehovah Rapha Healthcare Centre in Liwolo, ensuring that people are able to access essential healthcare. Each child will take part in our Great Big Barney’s Assault Course Challenge, which has been planned by our WOW group, at school on Friday 6th November. Please ask family and friends to sponsor your child to complete the course and help us raise funds for this year’s cause. We would love to see photos of your children in training over the half term ready for our assault course challenge, so please send them via Class Dojo. Donations can be made through the QR code or here: https://www.parishgiving.org.uk/donors/find-your-parish/bburn-diocesan-harvest-appeal-blackburn?fbclid=IwY2xjawVEK0JleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mAWJyaWQRMDgwVEJYN0EzQ2lGbWVYT2VzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEebvIKZ7uGENPZjIfVN8P5b-WLjoYcHdWChA0xXbNPY1YwSgVkEwXRXG-vFV0_aem_70SfP6U3cGv2vCM-UXD3YA
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Reception: Phonics
In Reception, the children have been working extremely hard this half term learning their Phase 2 sounds. We have been focusing on our segmenting skills to help with spelling, carefully sounding out each word step-by-step. The children did a fantastic job of saying the individual phonemes aloud and matching them to the correct graphemes to build their words. We are so proud of their persistence and progress—well done, Reception!
Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our Celebration Worship by singing a wonderful Harvest song in preparation for our Harvest Worship next Thursday at St Barnabas Church. We recapped on all the great things that we have been achieving over the last couple of weeks. We then presented our Barney’s Brilliant Beacons. A huge well done to Louie, Noah S, Indie, Chester C, Olivia and Archie in EYFS and KS1 and Millie, Alayna, Charlie, Eddie, Cassius, Scarlett, Lilly and Peyton in KS2. Well done to these fantastic children for always demonstrating the Barney’s 4Bs, demonstrating an amazing attitude to learning and being fantastic role models. Mrs Araujo and Mrs Gardner then awarded lots of children with their pen licenses. Well done to Archie and James in Year 3 and Harry, Eva, Albie, Molly, Alicie, Elijah and Eddie in Year 4 for working extremely hard to excel in their handwriting. Mrs Gardner also presented James and Archie with a certificate for excelling on TT Rockstars. We then congratulated our Year 5&6 Girls’ football team who have been playing well in the DPSSA League’s Girls Football Tournament over the last couple of weeks. We then ended our worship with some beautiful prayers from Mrs Ham, Jack and Renee and Mrs Ham reminded us that we are accepting food items for our Harvest to donation to DARE and winter coats to donate to Rota Kids.
Reception Interhouse Sports
Today the Reception class enjoyed taking part in the Interhouse Sports activities led by the Year 6 Sports Leaders. The children worked hard to complete a circuit of physical activities, such as throwing beanbags onto a target, jumping over hurdles and balancing on stepping stones. The children listened brilliantly and put in 100% effort to support their house team. Well done Reception!
Reception Maths Bingo
This week in Maths, we have been revisiting our subitising skills to play a game of bingo with our friends. We rolled a 1-3 die and subitised the pictures on the bingo board to identify the matching amount. The children are doing so well at thinking fast and can identify amounts quickly.
EYFS Stay and Play
A huge thank you to all the parents who joined us for our stay and play session! At the end of the session, it was wonderful to see the children light up as they shared their phonics knowledge with you, enthusiastically showing off the sounds they have learnt alongside all the matching actions. A real highlight of the session was listening to them proudly retell the story 'The Something' through song, where they amazed us all by weaving in fantastic vocabulary like remarkable, peered, delighted, and wondered. They were equally excited to play teacher and explain the four key parts of a story using our friendly characters—Octopus Opening, Build Up Bear, Problem Penguin, and Elephant Ending. We are so grateful for your continued support and partnership, and we hope you enjoyed seeing your children's learning in action. Our next Stay and Play session is on 12th November at 2.30pm.
Hello Yellow Day Collective Worship
This morning, Mrs Gardner, our PSHE leader, The Wellbeing Warriors, some of our Year 4 children and our Head and Deputy Head’s led a special Collective Worship in celebration of Hello Yellow Day. They raised awareness of mental health and the importance of discussing our feelings, doing the things that we love and spreading kindness. Last week, Year 4 wrote some beautiful wonder poems in celebration of National Poetry Day and they shared these with us this morning and Thorncliffe Nursing Home last week. This was a wonderful act of kindness that brought huge smiles to the resident’s faces. They set us the challenge of spreading kindness and positivity today. We all then joined with a Hello Yellow Parade with each class showing off their amazingly yellow outfits. Thank you to our wonderful school community for all of their efforts… we were a sea of yellow. We then finished our worship with a very special prayer and sing along. What a joyous worship that helped to make us all feel brighter on a wet and miserable morning! 💛✨😁
Reception - Hello Yellow Day
Our Reception class was transformed into a sea of sunshine today as we came together to celebrate Hello Yellow Day in support of YoungMinds and young people's mental health. Dressed in vibrant yellow clothing, our Reception children looked like a true ray of sunshine! Throughout the day, the children took part in a range of uplifting activities designed to boost their mood and promote wellbeing. The classroom was filled with calm and focus during mindfulness colouring sessions, where we enjoyed taking time to relax and create. We also let loose with some fun dancing to boost our energy, filling the room with smiles, music, and feel-good fun. Hello Yellow Day was a wonderful opportunity for our Reception children to learn about kindness, taking care of their feelings, and supporting one another.
Reception Mystery Reader
Our Reception children were treated to another Mystery Reader this afternoon. Liliana's Mummy joined us to read 'The Wonky Donkey' and 'There's a bear in your book!' The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to these funny stories and were so engaged. A big thank you to Liliana's Mummy for giving up her time to share these wonderful books with the children.
Reception Stay and Play
Our Reception children were thrilled to welcome so many parents and carers to their very first Stay and Play session this week! It was wonderful to see such a brilliant turnout, and we want to extend a massive thank you to everyone who joined us. The children took great pride in taking their visitors on a tour of their learning environment, showing off all the hard work they do every day in both the classroom and the outdoor area. From creative crafts and construction to exploring the outdoor learning zones, the room was buzzing with excitement and collaborative play. To top off a fantastic session, the children gathered together to perform 'Our God is. Great big God' for their special guests. Thank you once again to all the families who came along. We look forward to welcoming you back for the next one! It was great to see some pre-school children there too and thank you to the families who came to visit our school yesterday at one of our open days. It was lovely to meet you and we hope you will bring your children back to one of our upcoming stay and play sessions or open days. All of the dates can be found here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/events
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Whole School Worship
Today in worship, the children were treated to an exciting online worship from Picture News exploring the importance of inclusive sport and how we can break down barriers that may prevent people from taking part. We learnt about the struggles that Stef Reid, a Paralympic athlete, faced when she lost her foot in an accident. She was determined to run again though after being a keen sportswoman before her accident and she went on to win many medals in a number of Paralympic Games events including running and long jump. She then retired from athletics but then took up figure skating and competed in Dancing on Ice. What an inspiration! The children discussed how everyone has different strengths, abilities and experiences, and explored the idea that there is always more than one way to achieve something and to never give up, just like Stef. It was a fantastic opportunity for the children to think about inclusion, resilience and the importance of supporting and encouraging others.
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