Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our worship by collectively signing our new Makaton signs ‘yes’, ‘no,’ and ‘happy’ and congratulating our amazing Year 6 children for their incredible efforts in their SATs and the way that they have tackled them with nothing but smiles and positivity. We are so proud of you all! We also reflected on many of our other highlights this week which have included prayers for the world as part of our Diocesan Year of Prayer, Reception having a visit from Nightingale Farm, Year 3 visiting Rock & River, Year 5 enjoying their PGL residential, having our DACA students join our school on work experience and our Year 5/6 Netball Squad who represented St Barnabas brilliantly in the DPSSA Netball league last night and came away with three victories. Furthermore, we congratulated Ted in Year 4 for working hard to achieve his pen license, our Year 2 and Year 5 classes for being our attendance winners this week with 99.2% and 100% attendance and River Darwen as our value award winners this week with 226 points. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Minnie, Elsie and Harry in EYFS and KS1 and Alice in KS2. Well done to these children for working incredibly hard, pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and showing our Barny’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready). We also congratulated the whole of the Year 3 & 5 classes for being amazing on their trip to PGL and Rock & River. They were extremely courageous, encouraged each other every step of the way and represented our school amazingly. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 1 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park as our value award winners this week with 161 points. We then moved onto congratulating all of our out of school achievers. Well done to Luna for achieving her Stage 1 in swimming, Olivia, Annie and Thea for being incredibly kind and caring at Rainbows, Hollie for achieving her Stage 2 in swimming, Lyla for achieving a distinction in her recent ballet exam, Jack for being the Player of the Match and achieving the Captain’s Armband in a recent football game, Annabel for achieving an entry level award for her music performance at Rocksteady and being Star of the Week at dancing, Eliza and Darcy for their commitment to Brownies, Maggie for achieving a gold award in Rainbows alongside multiple other certificates and badges, Olivia for being the Player of the Match and achieving the Captain’s Armband in a recent football game, Haydn for incredible football and Poppy, Brooke and Laila for being the EFLA cup winners 2025. To end our worship, we collective listened to this week’s Year of Prayer, said the Grace and sang ‘Sing a New Song.’ Thank you to all of our school family who could attend celebration worship and we thank you for your ongoing support. We send an extended thank you to the rest of our school family. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend in the sunshine. The slides can be found on class dojo or here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/about-us/church-and-worship#tab-4370
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Year 4/5 Multi- Skills PE in the Sun
In our PE session today we mixed with Year 5 so that half of us could trial for the cricket team whilst the rest tackled various multi skill challenges. The children worked so well in mixed teams and actively encouraged each other to strive for the best in true St Barnabas the Encourager style.
Y4 DT - Food Technology - Biscuit Making
Today Year 4 moved onto our third food technology session where we were making our biscuit designs. We have adapted the original review by adding various topping ingredients. First we made our shortbread mix, rolled it out and then cut it into our individual shapes and designs. Miss Carol then laid all the biscuits on the baking trays and put them in the oven to cook. We can’t wait to decorate them tomorrow and finally get to taste test the end product.
Year 4 - Science: How Sound Travels
Our Year 4 scientists enjoyed exploring changes in sound this week. They investigated differences in sounds when travelling through different mediums. Their investigations included talking through a balloon, listening with a cone, listening to rocks banging under water, sending vibrations through a metal coat hanger straight to the ear, holding tuning forks on water, and observing how sugar granules react next to a speaker. We learned that when sound travelled through solids it seemed more powerful because the particles inside the solids were densely packed together.
Year 4 - English: Summarising a Story
One of our favourite ways to recall the main details from a story is to make it into a game. We used dice to choose a question to answer and then shared details about How to be a Viking with our friends. We then looked at some statements taken from the story and decided how important they were to the theme of the story.
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VE Commemoration- Red, white and blue day
Today, our pupils and staff dressed in red, white and blue to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day. We came together to remember and honour those who served, and to reflect on the importance of peace and unity. As part of our celebrations, we’re supporting the Royal British Legion. If you’d like to make a donation, you can do so easily via ParentPay. Every contribution helps support veterans and their families. Thank you for helping us make this day meaningful for our school family! #VEDay80 #StBarnabasRemembers #RoyalBritishLegion #RedWhiteBlueDay
Friday Celebration Worship
This morning in a special worship, we came together to remember and celebrate Victory in Europe (VE) Day, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Thank you to our whole school family for dressing in red, white, and blue today to help us to show our support for this important moment in history and raise money for the Royal British Legion. We also reflected on many of our other highlights this week which have included further exploration of the Lord’s Prayer and learning about VE Day in our collective worships, focusing on reflective prayers as part of our Diocesan Year of Prayer, Reception having a visit from the Animal Garden pet shop, who brought along a fascinating collection of minibeasts for the children to explore, Year 1 visiting St Barnabas Church for a mock baptism , Year 1&2 visiting the Crocky Trail and showing extreme courage, Year 5 have enjoying another Peer Mediation session, our Year 4 tennis team who represented our school with pride and positivity at the Blackburn Northern Tennis Club on Wednesday afternoon and our Year 5/6 Netball Squad who represented St Barnabas brilliantly in the DPSSA Netball league in the first round of games. We then moved onto congratulating this week’s individual value award winners. Well done to Willow in EYFS and Oliver, Alexis, Beau and Austin in KS2. Well done to these children for showing our Barny’s 4Bs (being kind, safe, respectful and ready) and consistently pushing themselves to achieve great things. We also congratulated the whole of the Year 1 & 2 classes for being amazing on their trip to the Crocky Trail. They were extremely brave, encouraged each other every step of the way and demonstrated impeccable manners. Furthermore, we congratulated our Year 1 and Year 5 class for being our attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park as our value award winners this week with 161 points. We then moved onto congratulating all of our out of school achievers. Well done to Piper-Jo for achieving her white belt in kickboxing, Marnie-May for being awarded her 20m swimming certificate, Mikey and Marley for achieving their 5m swimming certificates, Eleanor for being awarded Olivia at Rainbows for super behaviour and achieving her 5m and 10m swimming certificates, Charlie for being a super football star and competing amazingly well in a recent football tournament, Olivia, Olivia and Ivy for their recent success in winning the under 8s Cup Final 2025, Eliza for achieving ‘Girl of the Game’ in her most recent football match and Grace for achieving a distinction and a merit in her recent tap and jazz exams. To end our worship, we wished our fabulous Year 6 children good luck in their SATs next week, Olivia, Lana and Percy shared some beautiful prayers and we sang happy birthday to those who have an upcoming birthday or have celebrated their birthday recently. We then invited our Year 6 children to lead us in singing the National Anthem. Thank you to all of our school family who could attend celebration worship and we thank you for your ongoing support. We send an extended thank you to the rest of our school family. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend in the sunshine.
Year 4 PE - Athletics - Throwing and Sprinting
PE this week focused on sprinting and throwing. We looked at developing a throw using a sling action, discussing the differences to the push and pull throw. We worked on zones to see how far the children could reach and discussed how you can use your body to generate force when throwing. Finally, we finished off with sprint races working on sprint starts and fast finishes.
Year 4 British History - Exploring the features of a Viking longboat
In our history lesson this week we have been exploring the features of a Viking longboat, describing how these features contributed to Viking success and identifying the most important parts of the boat. Whilst researching, we found that the Vikings built longboats to raid, battle, explore and transport goods. They were between 13 and 23 metres long and were long, narrow and light so they could move around quickly. The children worked hard to identity the key features by adding labels following watching a short clip.
Year 4 Tennis Competition
A huge well done to Carter, Eliza, Ivy and Ted who competed in a tennis competition at Blackburn Northern Tennis Club this afternoon. This was the very first time the children had played on a tennis court and they approached each game with lots of enthusiasm. We are so proud of them all and they tried their very best in each game. They represented our school with pride and positivity and came 3rd overall. Well done! A huge thank you to Mrs Wilkinson for supporting and umpiring and to the parents who collected.
Random Acts of Kindness around our community
As part of our PSHE sessions we have been looking at mental health awareness, what fills our buckets and how we can spread kindness. We decided to complete random acts of kindness by sharing our kindness poems that we had written in class. Inside the poems we wrapped a hot chocolate and a biscuit for people to enjoy. It was so lovely to share these with our local community and the children were super excited to give them out. We put a smile on so many peoples faces and they really appreciated how much effort Year 4 had made. We look forward to sharing more about this in our Presentation of learning next week whilst it’s Mental Health Awareness week too !
Year 4 Food Technology - Biscuit sampling and package evaluation
This week we started our new food technology unit on adapting a recipe. We have chosen to focus on biscuits and we started by evaluating package design and what a target audience is. We then tasted several biscuits including chocolate cookies, fruit shortcake and pink wafers looking at taste, texture and appearance. The children discussed the products in lots of detail and shared reasons as to why they liked/dislike certain biscuits, giving them a star rating.