Friday Celebration Worship
This morning, we started our worship by signing the trinity and discussing our week in school. We reflected on our wonderful Lent worship with Rev Ben and the launch of our Big Lent Walk to fundraise for CAFOD to help to fight poverty globally and boost our mental health and well-being. At present, we have walked 129.7km and raised £91. We are confident that we can exceed our 200km target and raise even more money so please get involved and send your pictures through to Mrs Ham or Mrs Wilkinson. We then presented Olly, Charlie, James, Iris, Charlie, Lola, Neve, Rosie and Molly as our value award winners this week. Well done to those children for consistently demonstrating our 4Bs, working hard and participating whole-heartedly in class discussions. We also congratulated Reception and Year 4 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and Whitehall Park who are our overall value award winners this week with 619 points. The Year 6 Heads and Deputies announced that over the past two weeks, we have collected 2067 values points as a school-how amazing! We also said a huge well done to Luca in Year 4 who achieved his pen license this week, our Year 5/6 Sportshall Athletics who achieved 4th place in BwD just before the half-term, our KS2 gifted and talented gymnastics team who attended a competition at St Bedes before the half-term and demonstrating wonderful skill and sportsmanship and our Year 3/4 Sportshall athletics team who came 4th place last night at St Bedes. We then congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Charlie and Isabella for being awarded their green belt in martial arts, Grace for achieving several medals in her song and dance and improv dancing, Jacob for achieving his water skills stage 3, Lyla for achieving a medal for her incredible ballet, Finn for achieving 2k Winter Warmer running challenge, Isaac for achieving a medal for great leadership in his performing arts and taking part in some wonderful fundraising, Archie for being awarded a trophy to be proud of for exceptional darts, James for achieving his stage 1 in his swimming, Annabel for her successes in achieving stage 2 in skating and being star of the week at dancing, Naomi for being awarded her Stage 3 at swimming, Mila for achieving her ‘World Thinking Day’ badge at Rainbows, Cassidy for achieving her ‘World Thinking Day’ badge at Brownies, Annabelle for showing commitment and achievement in her keyboard lessons, Eden for achieving her ‘World Thinking Day’ badge at Brownies and Heidi for being awarded her First Aid Badge at Rainbows. We then ended our worship with a lovely prayer about being generous, especially during Lent and sang ‘Build Up.’ We thank our children for another wonderful week and we look forward to next week. Just a reminder that ‘The World Book Day competition’ entries need to handed in by next Friday 1st March so please get your entries in by then and also the Mother’s Day Breakfast that FOSB are running on Wednesday 6th March. You can find further details on Class Dojo. We thank all those who attended celebration worship and we wish the the rest of our school family a lovely restful weekend and thank you for your ongoing support too.
FOSB Disco
A huge thank you to everyone who attended our FOSB Disco. It was lovely to see all of the children dancing and having lots of fun. A huge thank you to our FOSB members for giving up their time to prepare and stay for the disco- you are all superstars! A massive thank you to DJ Dunn, one of our parent governors for providing the music and games! For all the photographs from the EYFS and KS1 disco, please look here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/fosb-eyfs-and-ks1-school-disco For photographs from the KS2 disco, please look here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/fosb-key-stage-2-disco
Year 3/4 Sportshall Athletics
A huge well done to our Year 3/4 Sportshall Athletics squad as they tried so hard tonight, behaved brilliantly and were amazing at encouraging each other. For several of our children, it was the first time they had represented our school. They just missed out on a medal and came 4th place out of 8 schools. Well done Team Barney’s! For all of the photos, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/year-3-4-sportshall-athletics-1
Year 4 History - Who were the Anglo Saxons and the Scots?
We started our new history topic on Anglo Saxons this afternoon where we looked at identifying where Angles, Saxons and Jutes came from and then we went on to why Anglo Saxons chose to invade Britain. They travelled on longships and some of them were invited by the Romans but some were raiders. Britain offered plentiful resources and the children worked hard to investigate other reasons as to why invading our land was so popular.
The Big Debate Club - Should all children receive pocket money?
This morning we took part in Smart Schools Council Big Debate. It asked us to discuss whether children should all be given pocket money or not? We found that the average pocket money for 11-16 year old is on average £16.30 per week which seems an awful lot, especially with the cost of living crisis! The children debated confidently and used their speaking and listening skills to get their points across. As a class we decided that not all children should receive pocket money for a variety of reasons and if children are old enough they should earn their own money by getting a part time job which will benefit them greatly.
The W.O.W. Group - Messy Church: Faith in Action
The W.O.W. Group have done a fantastic job in planning some exciting lunchtime Messy Church sessions. The first one was for KS2 children and the theme was “Faith in Action”. Participants had to think of someone who is their hero and make them into a superhero. They also listened to the story of Samson and his strength, and they were treated to a drink and a biscuit whilst they worked on their superheroes. The W.O.W. Group are looking forward to the second KS2 session next week.
Year 4 - Meeting Our Linking Schools Class
The children were so excited to meet their Linking class this week. We had a Zoom meeting with the Kestrels class from St Matthews in Blackburn, in which we introduced ourselves, taught and learned some sign-supported English and played games. I think their favourite game was ‘Draw An Object’; the children had to hold their whiteboards on their heads and draw the instructed object without looking. Needless to say our attempts were hilarious and nothing like what they were supposed to be!
Year 4 - English: Grammar
In Year 4, we started our new novel this week: The Firework-Maker’s Daughter. We began the topic with some grammar work on word types and created a fast poem about fireworks. The class really enjoyed creating their poems and a few children chose to perform theirs for the class.
Year 4 - PE: Orienteering
In Year 4 this half term, one of our PE sessions each week is orienteering. Our first lesson with our orienteering leader Jack went brilliantly, with the children working well in their pairs. They worked cooperatively to locate the markers and remember the details on each one. Back in the classroom, we learned how to create a birds’ eye view diagram of the classroom, paying attention to furniture and the location of fixed points such as doors and windows. We are looking forward to next week’s session.
Rev Ben’s Worship- Jesus chooses his disciples
This morning in Collective Worship, Rev Ben started with a fun game where we had to guess the superpowers that our wonderful volunteers, Walter, Lottie, Isabella, Charlie-Rose and Matthew acted out. We guessed the superpowers of speed, strength, sports, invisibility and flight. We then followed on from Jesus' 40 days in the desert and we watched a story from the Bible that showed what happened next. We watched as Jesus chose his followers, called his disciples. They didn't have superpowers and were very ordinary and often made mistakes, just like us. Rev Ben told us that the best followers of Jesus don’t have super-powers and God works today through ordinary people who love Jesus and admit it when they get things wrong. He then told us about Ash Wednesday and how that is a time to ask God for forgiveness for the things we have done wrong. Wilson, our Head Boy, volunteered to have an ash cross put on his head. We then reflected on what we can do when we get things wrong and how God will always forgive us. We finished by singing My Lighthouse and My God's the King of me. Thank you Rev Ben for another wonderful worship.
Mad Science After -School Club- Missions Nutritious
Today, in our after-school club led by a scientist, the young children investigated the energy content of food by burning a stale crisp and using the released energy to heat water. We discovered that one crisp equals 6 calories. This was super exciting to watch. The young scientists also measured their energy expenditure by jogging on the spot. For our final experiment, the children filled a bottle halfway with water and then poured in about 100ml of oil. They then observed the oil float on the water. They were fascinated by this observation. We also estimated the length of a child's intestine during the session, adding to our exploration of the human body. They're eagerly looking forward to next week's experiment with slime.
Whole-School Worship: Understanding Lent
In worship today, Mrs Ham explained that Lent is a time in the Christian calendar in which we observe Jesus’ time in the wilderness and prepare for Easter. We discussed what we could do to observe Lent. Some of the children’s suggestions included giving up sweets, chocolate, crisps, time on devices, or giving back by helping at home or making an extra effort to show kindness to others. We also learned more about THE BIG LENT WALK and how each member of our school family can contribute by walking a few kilometres over the Lenten period and raising money that will go towards ending global hunger. More information is available on Class Dojo.