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Children's Mental Health Week Launch Worship & YOP- Talents
This morning Mrs Ham launched our Children's Mental Health Week theme of 'Know yourself, Grow Yourself'. We started by looking at our school vision that says 'Achieving great things through learning and growing together'. We thought about what the growing together means and we had some super suggestions such as growing emotionally and mentally, getting better at things and not giving up when we find things hard. We then looked at our emotions and how they control our brain, just like in the film Inside Out. We thought about the times when our brain tells us that we aren't good at things and we had some great examples such as in acro when doing cartwheels, in maths or art and when we do things for the first time. We thought of ways to challenge our brains and help ourselves grow by doing things that we enjoy such as listening to music, taking part in sports or other hobbies, showing courage to try new things etc. We then focused on our Year of Prayer for this week which is thanking God for our talents. We shared our talents and thought about ways we could express our talents this week and especially on our dress to express day on Friday. We reflected on how we should shine from the inside out and always respect each other's God given talents and the way we like to express ourselves. We discussed that if we laugh at the way someone likes to express themselves then that might hurt their feelings and they will feel sad and won't want to express themselves that way again. We said a lovely prayer thanking God for our talents and how we promise to share them with others and respect others' talents. We finished with singing one of our favourite songs 'Shine from the inside out' which reminds us that God knows us, loves us and fills us with talents that we need show to everyone we meet.
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship thanking our whole school for coming to school in non-uniform to raise funds for food, shelter and first aid supplies for those in America who are being affected by the LA wildfires. Thank you to our Rotakids for organising the non-uniform day to help make a difference . We then reflected on a busy week in school. This week, we held in our thoughts all the Jews who suffered in the holocaust and thought about how we can show love, kindness and generosity to our neighbours and again we have enjoyed some wonderful dance and gymnastics sessions led by Rothwell Arts and some amazing extra-curricular clubs such as Foodie Friends, Craft Club, Basketball and Multi-Sports Club led by Edstart. We then congratulated Haydn, Eve and Eddie in EYFS and KS1 and Jack, Leo, Luca and Leonora in KS2 for pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and trying new things, demonstrating hard work and perseverance in their learning and showing all of our Barny’s 4Bs (being ready, respectful, kind and safe). Furthermore, we congratulated Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, India Mill as our overall value award winners this week with 431 points, our Sportshall Athletics squad for winning their heat on Tuesday evening and getting through to the finals and our new Science Ambassadors (Noah in Year 6, Matthew in Year 5, James in Year 4 and Naomi and Cassidy in Year 3) for their fantastic applications. A huge well done to these children- we know that you will be amazing in your new role! We then congratulated our out of school sports award winners. Well done Ava for being awarded two gold trophies in her dance, Reggie for demonstrating fantastic football skills, Alice, Olivia and Daisy for their ‘Inspiring Women’ creation that won them a trophy at Brownies, Luna for winning ‘The Tiny Ballet Dancer of the Year’ award, Archie for achieving listening and follow the instructions at swimming, Lilly for achieving a special award in dance, Darcy for being a super gymnast, Lyla for working hard to master the aerial (a cartwheel with no hands), Grace for achieving two medals for song & dance and her own choreography, Annabel for achieving Star of the Week at Musical Theatre, Scarlett for being a super defender at netball and achieving the gold award and Beau for achieving Stage 5 in her swimming. To end our worship, Mrs Ham reminded us that it’s Dress to Express next Friday 7th February for Children’s Mental Health Week and we had some beautiful prayers from Vienna and Ralphi who prayed for those less fortunate than ourselves, including those who don’t have food and drink at their disposal as we do and those are in the midst of war, conflict and natural disasters. We then sang ‘Sing a New Song’ and thanked those who could attend celebration worship. We thank the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely weekend.
Worship with Rev. Matt
This morning’s worship with Rev. Matt focused on the theme of perseverance. It began with a challenge where the children had to work together to keep an inflatable in the air without letting it touch the ground. As the game went on, they quickly realised that success required teamwork, determination and persistence. Following the challenge, Rev. Matt introduced a parable from the Bible—the story of the unjust judge. He explained how the woman in the story kept returning to the judge, refusing to give up until she received justice. This demonstrated the power of persistence, showing that when we truly believe in something, we must keep trying and not lose heart. Rev. Matt linked this to prayer, reminding the children that when we speak to God, we should be just as persistent. The children then took a moment for reflection, considering the question: What is something you could pray for this week? They were encouraged to think about personal challenges, hopes for others or things happening in the world that they could bring to God in prayer. To conclude, Rev. Matt left the children with a powerful message: when we knock on God’s door through prayer, He will answer. This message reinforced the importance of faith, patience and perseverance in our relationship with God.
Join our PTFA
Friends of St Barnabas (FOSB) are always looking for volunteers. We would love for you to join us to help fundraise for our wonderful school. If you would like to volunteer, please contact us via email: [email protected] Thank you in advance for helping.
Year 2 - Counting pounds and pence
This week in Maths we have been practising counting pounds and pence. On Monday, we counted just pence and Tuesday just pounds. Today we counted both together. This relied on our 2, 5 and 10 times tables being well learnt. It needed a little practice to transfer our knowledge of counting into the coins. We compared them to base 10 in order to see that a 50p coin has 5 tens in it. This helped us to notice all of the tens and ones we needed to count. After we had been successful, we removed the base 10 and the coins were less abstract allowing us to count with more confidence.
Year 2 - Class Worship led by the WOW group
Year 2 had the privilege of welcoming Grace and Jess from our WOW group. They led our class worship on topic of YouTube. The question they posed was should YouTube have more videos to help us learn? They helped us discuss both sides of the argument with the majority of our class deciding YES YouTube should have more educational videos! Thank you Grace and Jess.
Collective Worship: Year of Prayer
This morning in our Collective Worship, some of our WOW (Worship our Way) group members told everyone about the special way we would be praying in class this week as part of Blackburn Diocese's Year of Prayer. In class we will be saying special fingerprint prayers to say thank you to God for making us all unique and special, just like our fingerprints. They then handed out ink pads for each class. Then we moved on to our whole school year of prayer focus and this week it was special toe prayers for our friends. The children enjoyed wiggling each of their toes whilst saying prayers for 5 special friends. Sofia put the special toes sticker onto our Year of Prayer poster. We then sang some of our favourite worship songs and each class had the chance to perform the actions at the front. This week we warmed up our voices by singing and dancing to Sing a new song to the Lord and then we sang Jesus strong and kind, Waymaker, Life in all its fullness and finished with Build Up.
Holocaust Memorial Day Worship
Our first collective worship of the week had a serious and somber tone as we held in our thoughts and prayers all of the Jews who suffered in the Holocaust. We looked out of our spirituality windows to learn how the Nazis did not show love to their Jewish neighbours like God commanded but instead treated them really badly during World War II. We watched a BBC interview with a Jewish survivor, who described some of the personal tragedies he faced at the young age of 6 when his family sent him away to save his life from the Nazi regime. He shared how he travelled on the Kindertransport and a British family showed him love and compassion and became the light in the dark. Through our spirituality mirrors we were able to reflect on how hearing of these events made us feel, and how the Jews must have felt back then. Finally, through our spirituality doors we learned of the many survivors who have worked tirelessly to make people aware of the devastation that was caused so that it would never happen again. We reflected on how we should always love our neighbours regardless of whether they look like you, pray like you, speak like you or think like you and stand up to anyone who is being mean to others.
Year 2 - The importance of the Gospels
Today we continued to look at all of the miracles Jesus had performed in his life. We looked at where many of these miracles can be found in the Bible. The gospels are where lots of these stories are told as they are the start of the New Testament which tells stories from when Jesus was alive. We discussed why Christians believe these are important and therefore why they are important to us. Next week, we will explore the teachings we can find and use in the Gospel stories.
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by reflecting on another busy week in school. This week, our school staff have had some Makaton training which was wonderful and we can’t wait to roll some of the key signs out across school. We’ve also enjoyed some fantastic Life Education sessions led by Karen and Harold the Giraffe and Reception, Year 1, 2 and 4 have continued with their wonderful dance and gymnastics sessions led by Rothwell Arts. We then congratulated Hadi, Samuel and Eve in EYFS and KS1 and Joshua, Layla, Millie and Will in KS2 for demonstrating an outstanding attitude to learning, pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and always showing our Christian Values of respect, friendship and courage. Furthermore, we congratulated Reception and Year 6 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, River Darwen as our overall value award winners this week with 304 points and our Year 5/6 football team who represented our school amazingly well last night in the DPSSA football league winning 6-2 in their first game and 7-1 in their second game and achieving 2nd place overall- well done boys! We then congratulated Ava for being awarded ‘Star of the Day’ at Multi-Sports Club, Olly for swimming an incredible 50m, Samuel for developing his confidence in swimming and swimming with only a one-arm disc, Grace for achieving a distinction in her ballet exam and a platinum award for scoring 90 or marks in her classical ballet exam, Eliza for being a phenomenal horse rider, Sofia for achieving ‘Star of the Week’ at musical theatre and Millie for being awarded with her a Stage 1 swimming certificate. We then heard from our well-being warriors who launched a competition. They are inviting our whole school to design a badge for our ‘WOW’ campaign. The theme for this is ‘Walk With Joy’ and the designs must be big, bold and colourful. There will be a winner in each year group (Rec-Year 6) who will receive a special prize from Mrs Gardener and the well-being warriors and the overall top 5 designs will be sent off, printed and made into one of the ‘WOW’ badges for the 2025/2026 ‘Walking to School’ campaign. Examples of badge designs could include wildlife or pets, local buildings or landmarks and hobbies. We also heard from our Rotakids in Year 5 who told us about a non-uniform day that we will be having next Friday 31st January to raise funds for food, shelter and first aid supplies for those in America who are being affected by the LA wildfires. Please make a minimum donation of £1 for this worthy cause. To end our worship, we had some beautiful prayers from Archie, Max and Phoebe who prayed for those less fortunate than ourselves, including those in America who are amidst the wildfires and having to live through fear and heartbreak. We then sang our 'Life in all its fullness' song and thanked those who could attend celebration worship. We thank the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely weekend.
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Rotakids Non-uniform day to support those affected by the LA fires.
As part of Year 5 RotaKids, we are determined to make a difference and support the 180,000 people who have been affected and forced to flee their homes due to the devastating LA wildfires. On Friday, 31st January, RotaKids will be hosting a non-uniform day to raise money for those impacted by this tragic event. We encourage everyone to get involved by wearing their favourite clothes and contributing to this important cause. We kindly ask for a minimum donation of £1, but any additional contributions will be greatly appreciated. This will be available on parent pay next week. Every penny raised will go towards helping families rebuild their lives and providing essential supplies to those in need. This is a wonderful opportunity to teach our children the value of helping others and making a positive impact on the world around us. Thank you for your generosity and support, Year 5 RotaKids
Worship with Rev. Ben
Today’s worship with Rev. Ben began with a lively game of Captain’s Orders. In the game, forgiveness was straightforward—a simple cue to face the window—but in real life, forgiving someone is often much harder. Rev. Ben explained that one of the things Jesus taught us is that forgiveness can be challenging because we may not always have the right perspective. The children then listened to The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, which highlighted that true forgiveness comes from the heart. Through this parable, Jesus illustrated the importance of showing others the same grace and forgiveness that we receive. Afterward, the children engaged in a thoughtful discussion, exploring key questions such as: What did Jesus want people to learn about forgiveness from the parable? and How could this story help you in situations where you need to forgive others? The discussion encouraged the children to reflect on the value of forgiveness and how it can bring peace to their lives and relationships.