Reception - Father's Day Stay & Play
What a fantastic afternoon we had in Reception! To celebrate Father's Day this coming Sunday, we welcomed some very special grown-ups into school for a brilliantly active 'Stay and Play' session. Our classroom and outdoor areas were buzzing with excitement as the children proudly showed their special visitors around. The children loved exploring our outdoor areas alongside their grown-ups, building, creating, and sharing their favorite daily school activities and it was clear that many of the boys had an absolute ball playing football on the MUGA together! The teamwork, laughter, and skills on display were wonderful to see. We would like to say a huge thank you to all the Dads, Grandads, and special grown-ups who took the time to join us. You made the afternoon incredibly memorable for the children. We hope all of our school families have a wonderful, relaxing Father's Day this Sunday!
Year 5 - Children’s Literature Festival
On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to walk down to Darwen Library to participate in Blackburn with Darwen’s Children’s Literature Festival. We had the privilege of talking to Sarah Surgey, author of books such as Subject Society, Jumping Hurdles and The Heavy Bag. She gave us a great insight into the process of writing and the business of publishing, before reading some of her latest book. The children asked some really interesting questions and we all enjoyed this rare opportunity to gain advice and understanding from an accomplished professional.
Year 4 - Visit to St Matthew’s
This week was the Year 4 class’s long anticipated trip to meet their link class. After a short minibus ride into Blackburn, we arrived at St Matthew’s CE Primary School to the most wonderful welcome from Doves class. We had a short getting-to-know-you session and then split up into our mixed groups. We had great fun creating handshakes, decorating friendship poems and having a picnic lunch together. We can’t wait to welcome St Matthew’s to our school next week.
Year 4 - Mosque Visit
Whilst we were visiting St Matthew’s, we had the opportunity to enhance our RE unit on places of worship by visiting the mosque next door. We had a tour of the main hall and the washroom and learned about some religious artefacts and practices that are customary to Islam. It was great for the children to see these features in real life so that they could make comparisons with the other places of worship we’ve studied this term. The imam arranged a special surprise as well, allowing all the children to choose a drink, some crisps and a chocolate bar, followed by treating them all to an ice cream from the ice cream van. All in all, I think they had a fantastic day.
Year 4 - The GULP Project - Effects of Sugar
In this week’s GULP session, the Year 4 children were learning about the effect that sugary drinks can have on our teeth. They learned how to make healthy choices when deciding how to hydrate themselves and they started an experiment to see which drinks have the worst effect on our teeth. We will find out the results next week. The second part of the session involved physical activity. The children played invasion team games and discussed tactics, giving them the opportunity to adjust their strategies in order to score the maximum points.
Year 3 Trip to the Darwen Children’s Literature Festival
Today, Year 3 walked to Darwen Library to celebrate the Children's Literature Festival with author and poet Dommy B! The children were completely wowed by his high-energy poetry performance of The Dinosaurs Are Back. He had the entire class up on their feet, joining in and dancing along with him. We were also given a copy of his book to keep in our classroom. It was a brilliant day.
.jpg)
Year 5 RotaKids Conference
On Friday, six pupils from Year 5 attended the annual RotaKids Conference at the University of Cumbria. They had the opportunity to take part in a variety of different fascinating activities, such as: learning how to keep our bodies healthy, extracting DNA from a strawberry and making poo; learning all about the life cycle of hornets and tasting local honey straight from the hive; learning about water safety from the Fire and Rescue Service; getting the chance to look inside a fire engine and even having a go with the powerful water hose! The children had a fantastic day and demonstrated excellent behaviour, with the staff commenting on how polite our pupils were.
Year 5 - Chicks
We were lucky today to have some special visitors in class today when chicks Dixie, Coco, Chanel and friends came in to say hello. Lilly’s mother Laura was kind enough to bring in the family’s newest additions and the children loved getting the chance to pet them.
Year 4 - PSHE: Kindness Workshop
On Tuesday, Years 1-6 took part in a kindness workshop delivered by 52 Lives. Following the workshop we were tasked with creating something for somebody else in an act of kindness. The Year 4 class had a plethora of fantastic ideas to make some very thoughtful and imaginative gifts for friends and family. These included chatterboxes containing positive affirmations, cards with moving parts revealing messages of love, paper aeroplanes delivering kind notes, friendship bracelets and much more. Krish from 52 Lives was amazed with the children’s creativity when he came to our classroom to see what we were making. The children were very proud of the items they had made and couldn’t wait to give them to their friends and family members.
Year 4 - PE: Introduction to The GULP Project
One of the weekly PE sessions in Year 4 this half term will be delivered by Blackburn Rovers FC in conjunction with Blackburn with Darwen Council. The GULP Project aims to get children active and also think about the drinks they consume, encouraging them to make healthy choices. This week was our first session in which we completed a sugary drinks quiz and an A to Z of drinks. We also received our free reusable GULP water bottles and were given a brief idea of the exciting activities that we will take part in over the next 4 weeks.
Whole School- Be the Change: Our Kindness Workshop
This morning, Years 1-6 took part in an inspiring 'Kindness Workshop' delivered by Krish, centred on Mahatma Gandhi’s famous quote: "Be the change you want to see in the world." The children explored the three pillars of kindness, being friendly, generous, and considerate, and brainstormed simple everyday actions like smiling, sharing, hugging, complimenting, etc. We looked at powerful, real-life examples from 52 Lives, a charity founded by Jamie in 2013, including Clare from Australia and Andrea from Romania, whose £5,000 operation goal was doubled to £10,000 by kind strangers. This sparked a wonderful discussion about how fortunate we are to have the NHS in our country compared to places where healthcare is very expensive. After watching a video of a young boy comforting an upset football fan after Portugal beat France, the children learned that kindness is actually scientifically proven to make us happier, give us healthier hearts, slow down ageing, and help us live longer. Best of all, kindness is contagious; a single act can spread to 125 people! During the workshop, the children had the opportunity to share kind words with their peers in pairs. They mentioned that giving and receiving compliments felt anywhere from a bit "weird" to really "joyful". At the end of the workshop, the children had a quiz with a series of questions. Arlo, Jack, Molly, Beau, Sophia, Phoebe, Elijah, Eden, Isaac, James, Desmond, Chay, Declan, and Archie did a brilliant job answering the questions, showing great listening skills, and everyone demonstrated our 4 school rules exceptionally well. Afterwards, the children went back into their classrooms to complete their kindness activities. They had a fantastic time making chatterboxes, bracelets, letters, poems, and posters. Lots of kindness has been shared today, and we will definitely continue to share it. We must remember that kindness doesn't cost anything, so we should all use it more.
Year 1: Making Kindness Cards and Bracelets
Year 1 loved learning more about kindness from 52 Lives. They learnt about empathy, friendliness and generosity. In class, they designed cards and bracelets for each other to spread kindness. It was lovely to see them all making things for their friends and the smiles on their faces when they received a card.