Year 4- Creating Patterns in Art - Fabric of Nature
In art, we have been exploring using a textile technique to develop patterns. Our success criteria included: to discuss the work and patterns created by William Morris, creating a pattern using a drawing and developing a pattern using inspiration taken from research. The children used their artwork from the previous lesson - One picture, four views and using tracing paper they traced their drawings, picking out main shapes. They then transferred their traced shapes and patterns into a piece of paper in preparation for the next stage which involves Batik artwork. We can’t wait to see the final result in a few weeks.
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.
The W.O.W. Group: Year 4 Class Worship
Thank you to the W.O.W. group today for leading our class worships across school. The theme was online content. Our worship leads began by introducing the topic and the news story linked to the topic. They played a couple of games of ‘Follow me’ and that we have the choice not to do something that makes us feel uncomfortable. They talked about the Christian value of courage and how we can show courage in the way we protect ourselves when viewing content online. The Bible link was from St Paul’s teachings, that we should seek out what is true, pure and trustworthy. In reflection, the Year 4s were in agreement that strict rules should be in place for children accessing content online.
Year 4 - Science: Air Pollution Investigation
On Monday, the Year 4s went out into the local area to conduct an investigation into levels of air pollution. We placed cards smeared with Vaseline outside school, in a park, near a factory and close to the main road. We predicted that the cards that are nearer to traffic or plant machinery will be dirtier due to more air pollution being produced. We always used data loggers to measure the sound in decibels in these areas. The children predicted the noise levels in each area too. We will analyse the results next week and write up what we found out.
Year 4 - English: Debates
We love a good discussion in Year 4, and with our new English topic being “Debates”, we certainly have a chance to shine! After a little research into deforestation, we recorded some of the reasons mass tree felling occurs, followed by a look at the positive and negative effects. We then went on to sorting the effects into two piles - for and against. It became evident to the children that there were more reasons not to fell so many trees than to continue, we will see what their finished balanced arguments look like.
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.
Foodie Friends club- Delicious Flapjacks
Today in Foodie Club, the junior bakers' made delicious flapjacks, some with raisins and some without. They carefully measured the flour and sugar, but the syrup was the trickiest part, sticky and stubborn, it clung to the spoon and added an extra challenge. They chopped the butter into small pieces and mixed everything thoroughly. It was a fun and messy experience that everyone enjoyed.
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.
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.
Choir - Let’s Go Sing Workshop
Today our Choir took part in their final workshop with Gaynor in preparation for the Let’s Go Sing concert in March. The children are working really hard on the lyrics to each song and Gaynor was super impressed with their confidence, enthusiasm and actions. As we’ve said before, we are certainly a small but mighty choir! I’m sure they are going to blow us all away when they perform on the second biggest stage in the world at Blackpool Winter Gardens, and we can’t wait to watch them singing their hearts out.
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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