Whole School Worship - The Widow’s Offering
Today in our Collective Worship we acted out the Bible story of the Widow’s Offering. Mr Norris kindly acted in the role of Jesus, and we had 4 children from across Years 4 and 5 acting as the money givers. Each person acted out sharing a small portion of their wealth to charity, and then a poor widow came along and donated two coins. Jesus explained that the widow gave the most because she gave all she had. We all spent time reflecting on how we could give to others during Lent. Some ideas were we could take part in the Big Lent Walk and help to raise money for those who don't have as much food as us and we could show kindness to each other through our 40 acts of generosity such as donating our clothes and toys to charity. We said a special prayer for all of the things we are thankful for and each time Mrs Ham dropped a coin, we said Amen. We are thankful for our family, friends, pets, teachers, food, warm beds and God's creations. We finished our Worship by singing Rich in Kindness and Year 6 modelled the actions at the front.
Singing Worship and Year of Prayer
This morning in Worship we started by introducing the Year of Prayer to our classes this week which is about using rubbish to create sorry prayers and then throwing them away. We then learnt a special action prayer to help our love to grow as part of the Year of the Prayer. After that we had a joyous time singing some of our favourite Easter songs and hymns in preparation for Easter. We sang Lord of the Dance, We have a King who rides a donkey, Rich in Kindness and Give me oil in my lamp. We also started to learn a new upbeat song called 'He's Alive!'. What a joyous way to start a Monday morning together as a school family!
A Disco For the Value Award Winners
Today, Whitehall Park and India Mill celebrated their success of achieving the most value points last half-term with a non-uniform day and a disco. A huge thank you to Miss Flynn, Mrs Irshad and Miss Woods for the leading the disco and games! The children had a fantastic time!
Biggest Ever Girls Football Event
Today, we proudly took part in the FA’s Biggest Ever Girls’ Football Event, celebrating the joy of football and encouraging more girls to get involved in the sport. Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 participated in a fun, game-based session where they had to dribble the ball and score in any of the four goals while defenders tried to stop them with tackles. The session helped develop their dribbling, spatial awareness and teamwork skills in an exciting and engaging way. Years 3, 4, 5, and 6 took part in a series of competitive matches, showcasing their skills and teamwork. They then tested their nerves in thrilling penalty shootouts, demonstrating confidence and precision under pressure. It was fantastic to see so much enthusiasm, determination and teamwork throughout the morning. The event truly highlighted the growing passion for girls’ football in our school!
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by signing the trinity and reflecting on our very busy yet enjoyable week in school. This week, we launched our challenge called ‘THE BIG LENT WALK’ which involves our whole school community working together to raise money to make a difference to the lives of those who don't have enough food. Please continue to let either Mrs Wilkinson or Mrs Ham know if you have walked anywhere and send photos if you can. We have also been thinking about how Lent is a good time to give things back so we have launched our 40 Day Kindness Challenge. This week, we have also celebrated Shrove Tuesday, World Book Day and enjoyed a great variety of after school clubs such as Craft Club led by Fred and Pearl, Cross Country, Mad Science, Choir , Dodgeball and Gymnastics clubs led by Edstart. We then congratulated this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Evie, Alessia and Heidi in EYFS and KS1 and Lottie, Penelope, Nevaeh, Seb and Laila in KS2 for their fantastic work ethic, their commitment to demonstrating the Barney’s 4Bs (being ready, respectful, kind and safe) and showing full participation and engagement in lessons. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 2 and Year 3 classes for being our attendance winners this week with 99.2% and 99.3% attendance, River Darwen as our value award winners this week with 509 points and our Year 4 Football team who kicked off their journey in the BRFC league with three exciting matches on Tuesday evening and represented school amazingly well. We also congratulated Year 3 and Year 6 as being the WOW (Walk to School) winners for the month of February. Well done to these classes for earning the most badges. We then moved on to congratulating our out of school sports award winners. This week, it was a week full of congratulating super swimmers. Well done to Zac for being a super swimmer and achieving his Puffin award, Phoebe for achieving her Stage 1 swimming certificate, Annabel for achieving her 15m swimming certificate, Ava for achieving her Stage 2 swimming certificate, Desmond for achieving his silver and gold swimming certificates, Iris for achieving her Stage 6 swimming certificate and Bluebelle for swimming an amazing 50m. We also said a huge well done to Carter for being a fantastic footballer and Lana for being the Star of the Week at Performing Arts. To end our worship, we read a beautiful Lent prayer together as a school and sang ‘We Have a King Who Rides a Donkey’. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.
British Science Week- Reception- What can we 'Flush Away'?
We have kicked off Science Week with a blast! Miss Kachwalla, our Science Lead initiated a discussion about what can and cannot be flushed down the toilet, encouraging the children to think critically about the impact of their choices. This activity helped develop observational skills and apply knowledge to real-life situations. The class explored key questions, such as: Have you ever flushed any of these items? What happened to them? Which materials broke down when flushed, and which did not? Why is it important to only flush items that break up easily? To investigate further, the Reception class conducted a practical experiment by shaking a bottle containing tissue, paper towel, and toilet paper for 15 seconds. They then observed how each material responded to water, noting which broke down and which remained intact. This helped them understand why only toilet paper, wee and poo should be flushed, while other materials can cause blockages. Science Ambassadors Cassidy and Naomi were on hand to support the lesson, helping to guide discussions and assist with the experiment. As an extra challenge, the children planted mung seeds in a sealed bag with moist cotton wool and used talk tactics to predict what might happen next. Will they disappear? Change colour? Explode? After just 24 hours, the seeds should start to pop open and sprout. Within 3 days to a week, they’ll be fully sprouted, and after a few more days, tiny leaves will start to emerge. This hands-on activity will allow them to observe germination in action and track the changes over time.
World Book Day- Storytime Across School
To celebrate World Book Day, our children voted for the story that they wanted to listen to and moved around school to listen to their chosen one. Miss Flynn read ‘The Monkey With a Bright Blue Bottom,’ Mrs Wilkinson read ‘The Wonky Donky,’ Mrs Govan read ‘Taylor Swift (Little People, Big Dreams), Mr Norris read ‘Sammy Striker and the Football Cup,’ Mrs Hegarty read ‘The Great Dog Bottom Swap,’ Miss Woods read ‘I’ve Broken My Bottom,’ Miss Kachwalla read ‘There’s a Snake in My School,’ Mrs Gardner read ‘Revolting Rhymes,’ Mr Bloomfield read, ‘The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors,’ Mr Prescott read ‘The World’s Worst Children’ and Miss Lyons read ‘Absolutely Awful Adults.’ Most of these stories were new to our children and they thoroughly enjoyed listening to and engaging with them. There were lots of giggles!
Reception World Book Day
Reception have been enjoying taking part in World Book Day activities. They have been looking at lots of different books in class and have been decorating their own bookmarks to take home to use with their own books.
World Book Day Worship
World Book Day Worship This morning we launched World Book Day 2025 with a lovely Worship led by Miss Flynn and the librarians. We started with a book- Do Not Open This Book by Andy Lee. The children absolutely loved listening to the story and definitely did want to OPEN THE BOOK and turn the pages so that they could read the whole book! The theme for this years World Book Day is Get Ready to Read Your Way which encourages us all to read wherever and whenever we want. Next the librarians, Walter, Elliott, Tristan and Ivy, led a quiz where the children had to guess where you might enjoy a good book from the pictures on the screen. We had some great answers which included: in the car, whilst walking the dog, at the park, in the library, in bed, in a den, outside with our friends, in the bath, in the dentist or at school. The children that guessed correctly won a special WBD prize. In the next part of the quiz, the librarians shared a slide with four pictures of our school staff with their faces covered reading books in their favourite places. There was A - Miss Kachwalla in the bath, B - Mr Bloomfield in the living room, Mrs Singleton in the staff room D , - Mrs Govan in her bedroom, E - Mr Norris on the sofa - Miss Lyon’s reading with her daughter in bed,- G - Mrs Wilkinson - sat on the sofa, H- Miss Flynn reading to her child. To end the special Worship we shared The Story of The Little Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch. We can’t wait for the rest of our World Book Day activities which include a live workshop, teachers sharing their favourite books and how we can use our WBD token so that we can get a free book.
Reception- Kindness Ripples
In PSHE we watched a video showing how kindness can have an impact on others and can be passed on. We then made a circle and created some kindness ripples by dropping a stone into water and watching the ripples grow and spread to represent how kindness can spread. We are aiming to spread kindness through our 40 acts of kindness challenge for Lent.
Reception- Year of prayer- Pipe cleaner prayers
In class we each chose a pipe cleaner and a button charm and then chose a partner. We made our pipe cleaners into bracelets and linked them together with our partner we then prayed for people who may be lonely and have no friends. We then unlinked our pipe cleaners and looped them around our wrist and thanked God that he cares for us and is always with us.
Little Craft Club
Today at The Little Craft Club, the children designed and decorated their own pencil cases. They thought of their favourite things so the final products represented each of them! Some of the children delved into our Imagination Station box to find things to creatively decorate the zip pull too! This activity is going to be part of a special Craft Club session at The Carus Centre in Hoddlesden during the Easter holidays. In the session, we will also be painting canvases and making bracelets/phone charms. The session is open to the public and can be booked here: https://fredandpearl.com/collections/easter-holidays